Like many others my family and I decided to evacuate the Sunday before Katrina hit my home parish of St. Bernard. Watching from the news, everything seemed so surreal to me. I didn\'t believe it when everyone said everything was gone until I saw it for myself. However, throughout my experience after the hurricane, I discovered that it wasn\'t the things that I missed, it was my friends and family who I had been separated from and some have never returned to St. Bernard Parish. After that experience, I have become a more outgoing person because I have learned how valuable friendships and loved ones can be. I helped a neighbor to gut and clean out his devastated home and I became closer to my friends and family. Katrina changed my life in both bad ways and good.