I am a Tulane University student and I moved to New Orleans from Niagara Falls, NY in the Fall of 2003. I had spent two wonderful years glorifying in the beauty, power, and character of New Orleans before the Hurricane. At the close of my Sophomore year, three of my close friends (Kimber, Lydia, and Steph) and myself had decided to rent a house on Palmer Ave. We were ecstatic, we were filled with visions of Sunday morning mimosas on porch swings, inflatable pools, \"family\" dinners, and freedom from campus living! It was going to be heaven in New Orleans, and while two of my friends spent the summer in the house, I was abroad. I spent the Summer of 2005 as a volunteer English teacher in Romania, therefore, I missed out on my first summer of Palmer House. However, I wasn\'t that upset; I had the amazing opportunity to spend the summer in Romania and Eastern Europe and I imagined I had plenty of time to come at the Palmer House. As classes drew closer, I got excited about returning to New Orleans and my friends, they were just as much my home as New York and my family. \r\n I moved into the apartment on August 25, 2005. Four days before classes with just enough time to buy furniture and the car I have been planning to get. I spent those days running around with my parents and friends gathering furniture and searching for a car! Finally, by the 27th I had everything set up and a NEW CAR! Also, on the 27th, my parents flew home and I was informed of a Hurricane heading our way. My roommates and me sat around debating whether A) to evacuate with some stuff in one car to Jacksonville, FL or B) to stick around and buy alcohol and throw a Hurricane Party. After much debate, we decided to evacuate. Lydia and I decided to park our cars here and for all four of us to evacuate in Steph\'s Jeep. We thought that was the most prudent and luckily for me I had just got insurance on my car that day! So we grabbed a few belongings (bikinis, t-shirts, shorts, sunglasses, jewelry, pictures and computers) and piled into the jeep for an 8 hour drive to Kimber\'s Mom\'s house in Jacksonville.\r\n We arrived in the early morning hours and when we awoke we were hit with the news that New Orleans was possibly going to be hit by Katrina. While we scoffed at the possibility of it hitting New Orleans head on and its possible damage (the Ivan effect) we were all trembling on the inside. The day of the 29th, Hurricane Katrina happened. It destroyed our city, our house, our cars, our belongings, our comfort, our plans and as the weeks progressed it destroyed my notion of human superiority over nature.\r\n In the following days, my life was a blur. I drove to Miami to Stephanie\'s house and from there I found out that Tulane University will be closed for the semester maybe even indefinitely. As I floundered between anger and shock, I found myself on a plane to New York. The minute I got off the plane, my mother bundled me up and drove me to Syracuse where I enrolled as a displaced Student. Lydia and Kimber went to Boston and Steph went to Miami. I was separated from my friends and so far from New Orleans. Over the next weeks I learned that all my possessions and my house were flooded and ruined. My car was total, and yes, I officially owned a car for less than a day. \r\n I spent the semester in Syracuse making weekend trips to visit more of my Tulane friends and my boyfriend at Cornell, half-heartedly doing school work, and working over 40 hours a week at two jobs. When I learned that Tulane would reopen in the Spring I was overjoyed. I returned with all my friends to New Orleans in January and am happily there still!