During Katrina, I was at my parent\'s house with my family. My family and I chose not \r\nto evcuate. The day Katrina hit we were looking out the window wacthing as debris\r\nflew past our home.We chose not to evcuate because we lived in the Marigny,Bywater\r\narea. Our neighborhood never flooded, so we did not worry about the water rising. During the day, we listened to the radio about how Katrina destroyed the Gulf Coast. After the storm passed, we looked outside and we saw that the water rose only to the sidewalk. We were lucky. My brother\'s and I decided to walk around after the storm. We saw nothing but destruction. Although our house was alright, the trees and some homes were destroyed. As we walked down Dauphine Street, trees and power lines covered the streets and sidewalks. We did not think the hurricane caused this much destruction. We watched as people broke into stores and took things they needed like food and water. We stayed in the city for about a week not knowing how bad the city\r\nwas destroyed. During that week, we were greeted by the Army Rangers that were patrolling our neighborhood. They also gave us food and water. One night at about five in the morning my family and I were awaken. The house was shaking and it sounded like a bomb blew up behind our house. When we wnt outside the sky was covered in black and red smoke. A wharehouse about a block away had blew up.We then decided it was time to leave New Orleans. We found one public telephone working in the city and it was in the French Quaters. We called our sister who lived in Baton Rouge. She was relieved to know that we were fine and that we wanted to leave. She even said that she would come get us out the city. Two days later my sister and brother-in-law was outside our home. They managed to get into the city by getting in between three tv news cars. As we left the city it looked like a ghost town. Their was no one in the streets and debris was scattered in the streets.