Our family spent the first few days of the Katrina disaster in East Texas. When it was clear that we wouldn\'t be going home for a long, long time, we set out for New England, where we had family. \r\n\r\nAs we drove toward the northeast, away from the scene of the Army Corps of Engineers\' crime, we were at first surrounded on the interstate by fellow evacuees. The car dealership names on the backs of the cars were all familiar. When we stopped for gas in northwest Louisiana, a car pulled into the station with a bumper sticker from our child\'s school. Although we didn\'t actually see anyone we knew along the freeway, I felt somewhat comforted surrounded by people who were facing the same situation we were. Strangely enough, I felt like part of a community. \r\n\r\nWe spent Thursday, September 1, in a motel in Arkansas. My husband ran into an acquaintance whose house in New Orleans was flooded, and the home on the Gulf Coast they had purchased for retirement was ruined. They didn\'t know where they were going to go.\r\n\r\nAs we continued through Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky on Friday, the Louisiana license plates became fewer and fewer. By the time we reached Nashville, our fellow travelers had thinned out considerably. The next day, we were in Indiana, and I don\'t think I saw another Louisiana license plate all day. It felt pretty lonely.\r\n

Citation

“[Untitled],” Hurricane Digital Memory Bank, accessed October 16, 2024, https://hurricanearchive.org./items/show/12120.

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