Hurricane Gustav hit in the beginning of my junior year of high school just before Labor Day. My family and I evacuated to our house in Baton Rouge to ride the storm out. The house was a purchase made during our unplanned stay after Katrina. I remember cleaning out my room because I couldn't shake the shock of losing everything I had in Katrina. I wasn't nor will I ever make that mistake again. We left for Baton Rouge the day before the storm made landfall. We thought we would just wait it out, lose power for a few days, and be back home in 4 days or so because the storm wasn't as bad as Katrina by a long shot. I was wrong.

The next day the rain started which wasn't a big deal. The wind picked up as well which was absolutely expected. All of a sudden I hear loud BANG and the house shakes. I thought it was a tornado or some type of freak occurrence. I run out to my dining room to find a huge tree branch coming through the ceiling and rain and insulation pouring into the house. The living room also had a tree branch punch a hole into the wall. Turns out the neighbor's old oak tree had fallen on my house. The trunk of the tree spanned the outer wall of my parent's bedroom and bathroom. The next three days consisted of my brothers and father collecting the water and pouring it outside so that the house didn't flood. It was one thing to see the water level of my neighborhood on TV for Katrina and another for a tree to fall on the house I evacuated to. I personally suffered more from my experience with Hurricane Gustav than I did Katrina.