I live in a small town south of New Orleans named Lafitte. Lafitte is a small fishing community pretty close to the mouth of the Mississippi and surrounded by marsh land. When hurricanes are headed our way my family and I usually board up the windows and stock up on groceries and patiently wait for the storm to pass, crazy right!? My dad doesn't think so, he owns a 70' steel haul fishin vessel and if the electricity goes out or the weather gets too bad we just head to the boat which is parked in our backyard, we live on the water. For Hurricane Katrina it was a different story, he wanted us to head North while he stood home on his boat with his brothers and some fellow fishermen who also didn't want to leave. So that is what we did and we were a nervous wreck from the time we left. Before the Hurricane hit land we had lost contact with my dad and wasn't able to get in touch with him until 3 days after the storm. He said the storm was terrible he could see things flying around outside of the boat and at times the rain was so heavy it was like fog so thick he couldn't even see the house. He said that as the Hurricane was coming in the water kept getting higher and then when the eye passed all of the water was sucked out of the bayou, his boat had hit the bottom within a few hours. At the time they weren't letting anyone in through the city so he sent us to Larose to park our car at a friend of the family's house, he came to pick us up in a smaller boat through the intracoastal canal. When we came through the Rigolettes the stench from everyones houses was terrible and the devastation was so sad. We didn't get flood waters but you could see where tornadoes had touched down in certain areas and a lot of people had roof damage. the bayou water was full of debris and dead fish. We were so lucky our house made it out with very minimal roof damage. I will never forget the state my little town was in those few days after that storm.