10 years ago on Sunday morning, August 28th I was engaged in an epic battle with my wife. Katrina was going to hit tonight or early tomorrow morning and the latest update screamed Category 5. Anyone and everyone raced to the cameras to tell viewers across southeast Louisiana to get out. Winds in that monster storm would be in excess of 175 mph. I wanted to go, Wendy thought we should stay. It was chaos. We had no plan but finally me and my daughter persuaded Wendy to go. After all, I told her, we would be back in 24-36 hours. We took off at noon, in 3 cars, with my mom and Wendy's mom along for the ride. Did I mention we also took 3 dogs and 3 cats. I had never experienced anything like this. We ran into precious little traffic, until we hit Meridian Mississippi, where I-20 and I-59 combine. Thankfully, before dark, we found a hotel room in a nice town, Cullman Alabama.
We slept all right that night, despite animals in the room, but early TV reports from back home told us what we really did not expect: we would not be going home today or tomorrow. In fact, we moved north, driving all the way to Greensboro to be with our son. It would be 5 full days before we would venture back home. We loaded up with a generator, supplies, food, gasoline and off we went. As soon as we hit the Hattiesburg Mississippi area, about 80 miles north of my home and 135 miles north of New Orleans, we knew it would be bad. The tree damage there along the interstate was intense. Entering Louisiana, it only grew worse. Arriving at home, all we could do was praise God, precious little damage. But the reality of settling in to a home with no electricity for who knows how long was intimidating. The generator helped us keep the TV going and a single window AC set up in my bedroom. We would start up that generator every day for over 3 weeks before we received power. Slowly but surely some things came back; gas stations, our local church, the bank where I worked. We had survived!
New Orleans was devastated; both her devastation and recovery well documented. Places like St. Bernard, lower Plaquemines, south Slidell and the Mississippi Gulf Coast were almost washed away. Even our neighbors here on the Northshore suffered tree damage that ruined homes. Today, everybody wants to commemorate and remember. I do not. I want to keep moving forward. I know this much, living off a generator for 3+ weeks is something I never want to do again. And understanding that so many had it so much worse than we did, I never want them to experience that kind of horror, grief and disappointment again.
Still, we live in southeast Louisiana. Still, New Orleans sits below sea level. Still, hurricanes and tropical storms exist. One is blowing around Cuba even as we speak.
We survived, we endured, we move on, we are better. That's enough for me.
This is a pretty comprehensive article with multiple links in case you want to remember, or learn more, about Katrina:
https://www.yahoo.com/politics/ten-years-ago-hurricane-katrina-and-new-orleans-127486676926.html
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