I remember the Sunday morning before Katina hit. My mind was set on not going anywhere. This was because it just seemed like "another" threat. The house was raised a bit, so the highest the water has ever gotten was to the door, and that's it. We have stayed for most of the storms that have come our way. The year before was Hurricane Ivan, we did leave and it took us 10 hours to get to Baton Rouge. When there was talk about Katrina in 2005, I was being stubborn. I did not want to go anywhere. They kept talking about it being a Cat 5, and I did not care because I did not want to go through what we went through the year before. It wasn't until Bob Breck said that the water would be so high that you will be on the roof with the cockroaches. That was all the motivation I needed. I know he said something else, but that was all I could hear. So I got up walked to the back knocked on my parents door and said "We have to go!" Luckily we were all on the same page. So, we packed our clothes for 3 days, unplugged everything, put it in high places, fixed some food to go, and left with the concept of us returning in 3 days. We made it to Baton Rouge, by my "godmother," in 5 hours. We watched some TV then went to sleep.

I woke up Monday morning and found the rest of my family already up and watching the news in shock. We still did not know how bad it really was because the main focus was in mid-city, the French Quarters, and the CBD areas. In the very being I heard that New Orleans East, where our home was, was not flooded. I breathe a sigh of relief. I think about a day pasted and the story changed. We found out the levees broke and the east was flooded. Then some more days pasted, we saw thousands of people at the Superdome, the Convention Center and being rescued from their homes. It was like watching the city crying for help. Everything felt different, like a big change was happening, but I did not know how big.

When my brother and I realized that we were not going home for a long time, our schools and the city were closed. We made plans to try and go to a school that would except us. So, we applied to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. We started the Friday after the storm. Some time had passed and no one had seen the house. One of my friends was going to New Orleans and he picked me up and brought me to see the house. That was when it all hit me, Seeing the house the way it was, was really tough. I could not open the door, so I had my friend to do it for me. When the door was opened I could not breathe. Everything was destroyed. My family and I thought we were being smart and putting things up in a safe space, but Katrina had a point to prove. In the end, it did not matter what we did to try and save our belongings because it did not work. There was couple of big lessons I learned from this whole experience, and they were that life is precious, and stuff is just stuff.