Thursday, October 13, 2005

A Strange Homecoming
Alrighty, as promised, here is my first-hand account of post-Katrina New Orleans, in as much detail as I can recollect, complete with pictures.

As we (my mom, brother, and myself) drove down Interstate-10, we saw our first signs of hurricane damage. But as I saw building after building with at least some degree of damage, I saw that all was not lost when I saw that our local Best Buy, my source of anime, was unscaved.

Fast forward our approch to the Orleans parash line. It is 6:30 pm and the curfew is for 6pm in the city. The National Guard wouldn't let us in the city; stupid burrocracy. We called a friend of ours that lives in Kenner, a suburb of New Orleans, and they were able to put us up for the night.


We visited another family who live out there. Their house was flooded so they're living in their trailer parked on their lawn while they fix their house. They invited us over for breakfast on Sat morning.

After breakfast, we drove home. Everything seemed to look normal except for all the downed trees. I even saw a sign for "firewood for sale" on a large fallen trees. The nutral ground (median) was littered with temp signs advertising things like home repair, tree removal, and buisness openings; the city was starting to rise again.


When I finally saw my house, I can't begin to descibe how relieved I was. I hadn't been home since the day I evacuated, a month earlier. We were delighted to discover that we had power on at our house and running water (but it wasn't drinkable), and mine and my brother's pet betta fish were both still alive. We were forced to leave our fish and I had figured they had both starved to death, but they were somehow alive and well.


The only damage we had to our house was our back yard fence,


a hole in our roof,


and a bit of damage to the back of our house.


Our pool looked more like a pond after one month without circulating.






We even had to get rid of our refridgerators and freezers since food had been rotting in there for a month, we didn't even want to attempt to clean that. So we duck taped them up and hauled them out to the curb.

I spent the rest of the day packing my things I left behind when I left. I somehow got all of my stuff into my car, but just barely. I drove back up to school Sunday and unpacked all of my stuff that night, which took about 4-5 hrs (just the unpacking part).


Well thanks for baring with me as I shared my story and pics. And thanks for all the concern you guys have shown me over the past month and a half. See you around!
Comments (1)