I survived Katrina, tell your story

[Nicolet]

New Orleans has gotten most of the attention in the media. But Mississippi got hit HARD. Tell us your story of survival, if you wish to share.

[JustaGuyinMS]

My story is a simple one of recovery - I was lucky, my house only got 1 foot of water. Nasty water, but still a lot better than others who lived near me where Katrina came ashore.

One thing to keep in mind is that Katrina was a natural disaster in Mississippi and Alabama but it was a man-made disaster in New Orleans. No intention to minimize what happened in New Orleans, but it was different than what happened here in Mississippi. In some ways, it was more difficult to recover in New Orleans, since that water stayed in the city for a long time. Here, it came in, went out, and left devastation.

Sadly, neither New Orleans nor the Coast have gotten their people back. Population growth is improving but slowly.

Sorry for going off topic.

JaG

[Nicolet]

That isn't off topic at all, JAG. Its right on target.
You are right, in New Orleans it was a man-made disaster. New Orleans is a giant soup bowl, water comes in and stays until it is slowly absorbed or evaporates.
In another thread on the NOLA board, I mentioned that before Katrina (and the hobby), I had a civvie job that would take me to the gulf coast quite a bit. To see the grand old homes that were just across the street from the gulf would make my day. I would think, what wonderful memories were made in that home.
Now, when I make a trip to the coast, I see concrete "dots" where those beautiful homes used to stand. Its still heartbreaking to know what used to be there, and people that visit the gulf coast will never know what southern charm REALLY looked like.

[Road Lizard]

I lived in Meridian then as I do now and we didn't have anything compared to the coast but we still had a helluva storm. The worst part of the storm was Meridian was just east of the eye so we never got a break from the winds. If this had been an ordinary thunderstorm, the detruction here would have made national news, compared to the coast, we got off easy.

The aftermath was probably worse than the storm. Just before the storm all shelters were overrun and a call went out to anyone that would take people into their homes. Sad to say it was a serious mistake for some. Churches and homes were ransacked and people robbed in their own homes. People regretted helping certain evacuees. I personally chased off a few assholes that were trying to break into a house that was smashed next to mine.

Meridian and Jackson were pretty much the staging areas for emergency and repair teams heading south and we were running out of every thing. I saw benevolence and violence at gas lines, just never knew which one would occur. I saw people with a complete lost look in their faces because they knew they had no home to go to. I saw people give every thing they had to help without a second thought. I saw the rescue and emergency services people flooding in to help and will forever be grateful to them. I really did see the best and worst of people.

For me, the storm was an inconvienence. We lost power for 8 days, phones for 3 weeks and was stuck in our neighborhood for 3 days. The bad part of that was all we had was a wind up radio and all we could do was listen to every thing going on south of us. That was hard hearing the reports come in and there wasn't a damn thing I could do to help.

Katrina was a devastating, frustrating, heartbreaking storm.

[Nicolet]

I'm on the northshore in Louisiana, and we got a lot of wind too. I was going to college at the time and my children (in high school at the time) and I were living on Pell Grants.
My son and I sat on the back porch watching the tops of pine trees snapping and falling. My daughter was too scared to see what was going on.
We lost power in the middle of the night and the only damage I had was an outdoor light was sucked out of the socket. Once the storm passed, we ventured out to see how much damage there was. Many of my neighbors had trees fall on their roofs, power lines were down too in the water. Once I saw that, we tried to drive out of our neighborhood to see if it was possible to get out. The main road was so thick with fallen trees, there was no way to walk out, much less drive out. It took the local men 3 days to cut a path through the trees with chain saws.
The heat afterwards was unbearable, there was not even a whisper of a breeze after the storm. I filled up both bathtubs with water in advance, so we could clean up and try to stay cool. It didn't help a bit. If it weren't for a neighbor loaning me $40.00 for gas, we never would have gotten out at all. The closest open gas station was 60 miles away in Denham Springs. I had a POS van with less than an 8th of a tank of gas in it and it was overheating, I had to run the heater at full blast toward my feet so my children didn't feel the heat and to keep it from blowing up. I literally ran out of gas waiting in the long line at the gas station and had to push that behemoth to the pump.
I took what little food we had out of the freezer and brought my hibachi grill with us. We parked behind a Waffle House near the gas station and we cooked ourselves some food. A few people stopped and offered small things, I still have the potholder someone gave us when they saw I was cooking. Eventually a family stopped and offered us shelter. We stayed for just one night. I was finally able to contact a long time family friend and he wired me some money to find a place to stay.
I'm not too ashamed to say that money does talk, he sent me 2K and I used 1500 of it to secure a place for me and my children at a motel. We stayed at that motel until I called and called my house phone and finally heard the answering machine pick up. That was 3 weeks later.
It was a horrible experience that I never want to go through again.

[When You Are Ready]

I lived near Meridian. I can remember standing beside my oldest grandson. The weather had been terrible with a tremendous amount of rain, and trees falling everywhere. There was a slack in the weather almost like we were in the eye. Then all of a sudden, the rain came heavier than ever, and the wind came with a force. He grabbed my hand, and screamed, "Let's get back inside."

This was a defining moment in the lives of millions of people in LA, MS, and AL, but it made us stronger.