I remember Hurricane Katrina it like it was yesterday. I was beginning my 8th grade year at the school I had been at for 9 years. I was so excited to spend my last year at the school with all my friends and be the "top dog." We heard of a hurricane coming and I remember how excited I was to be able to evacuate and miss school. All my friends were bragging about where they were going to evacuate to, and I remember saying I would be going to Arkansas for a possible week and how excited I was to be able to miss school. If only I had known what was about to happen. We packed up some stuff and hit the road to Arkansas with the entire family. The traffic was unbelievable. It took us so much longer to arrive at our destination than intended. We had to spend the night in our car parked in a burger king parking lot. I'll never forget that night. I wasn't scared. I was excited for the trip. We arrived in Arkansas, and after a few days, I finally realized how serious the disaster really was. My dad's job had set up in Dallas, Texas and we needed to leave Arkansas and drive to Texas in order to receive income during the evacuation. I had a virus on the drive over to Texas. It took extremely long to get there, and I laid in the back of the car sick as a dog the entire time. I was so happy when we arrived. We had a one bedroom suite with 2 beds and a sofa bed for a family of 5. It was certainly not comfortable. I remember seeing the disaster on the news. People were speaking about how no one was allowed in the city and how long we were going to have to stay evacuated. I started to become less happy and more scared. My dad's job permanently relocated to Dallas, and my parents decided to put me and my younger brothers into a school while they searched for a house. I was devastated. I hated the school. I hated the people. I hated the hotel. I hated that I wouldn't be able to go back to all the friends I had back home. We did it anyway. We had no choice. After about 2 months in Dallas, my mom decided she wanted to return home. We never found a house, we were in a hotel the entire time we were there. My dad wasn't happy with my mom's decision and didn't want to leave his job in Texas. My mom, my brothers, and I went home. My dad stayed. Although there were many more factors leading up to it, my parents got divorced. 2005-2006 was one of the hardest years of my life. I will never forget the feelings it brought me. Although I didn't lose my house in the hurricane like some people, my family was torn apart, and we lost our house because of the divorce. It was a devastating experience.