The day that I came home with my family, to inspect damage, was about one week after the hurricane passed. We were returning from West Monroe, LA. The drive back was filled with anticipation for what may be waiting for us when we get back. Several hours of driving passed. It was about 3:30 a.m. when we arrived at our first check point. I had never seen so many M16 assault rifles in my life. Main point, we had to wait until morning came to enter the city. It's about 8:00 a.m. when we're allowed to enter.
I've never been so uncomfortable getting home. The streets of the Westbank were strewn with debris. Some people in my neighborhood were already back and cleaning stuff up. My house's front door, which was made of an outer wooden frame and a stained glass pane, was blown into the house. That door has been there ever since I could remember. This let in some water, grass, small tree branches and a mouse or two. My back yard was nearly filled with roofing material from my roof as well as other peoples roofs. There was also damage done to the whole fence. It was basically gone.
The clean up process began shortly after we arrived. I spent a couple hours de-carpeting my house (to get out the stench) and moving the fridge to the curb. We still had food left from our journey back inside the ice chest. We had bologna sandwiches that night.
The next day my dad and I went out to look for some food and fuel. We made our way down to the Alario Center. The military were giving out MRE's and water bottles. We had to wait two hours because there were so many people. We came back home to help fix up the house some more afterwards. We did this everyday for about two or three weeks. We were miserable the whole time in the insane amount of heat and humidity.
Then the power came back on. *cue the hallejuah chorus* The day the power came back on was one of the single best days of my life. After being in nothing but heat for all of that time, I learned to appreciate the luxury of electricity. I also learned how dependent we were on the power of electricity. Everything soon started to go back to normal after a couple of weeks. The only plus that I got out of this experience was a really sweet tan.