The impact of Katrina is too huge to absorb, but also this mother\'s private nightmare. I waited in terror in Pittsburgh as the hurricane hit New Orleans. My son weathered the storm in a third floor apartment in the French Quarter, sheltered six others, and was the leader of his small \"French Tribe\", as French Quarter survivers were described in many news articles. I lived the experience with him through brief sporadic phone calls, from the first calls as he began to board up, to his crosstown bike ride to try and jumpstart a friend\'s truck to leave town, to the \"rescue\" call as a van finally was able to enter New Orleans through back surface roads to bring him, others he sheltered and 5-6 animals out to Baton Rouge. I listened to him reassure me on each call that they were better of than anyone else, as they were boarded up and secure with food and water. They made it through the storm with the roof intact, but then came the terrible days when the levees broke. Then I began living with the fear that the Mississippi levee would break at the French Quarter, that the night-time scavengers would be able to break into their building, that violence or disease would meet him as he went into the streets to try and find a way out for his group of survivers. Through it all, he continued to maintain calmness, to tell me of sharing water and food, of going to friend\'s apartments to feed stranded pets, or to the homes of the elderly to bring supplies , or to siphon gas to keep the generator at the local grocery running. He also told me that the new\'s reports of complete chaos and lawlessness was accurate, and of his extreme frustration at the complete communication breakdown in New Orleans. He listened on a police scanner as completely useless chatter went on but no information was given to help survivors. He literally begged at one point for information about what was happening as he and his group no longer felt safe leaving his block on Decatur Street. With no electricity, no water, no sewage for over a week, unable to find a way out of town, rescue finally came when the father of a girl he sheltered slipped in from Kenner and the group, with a few belongings and animals packed tightly into the van to reach Baton Rouge. The frustration continued there as none of the group was able to leave that city easily due to unavailable transportation. The confusion continued as each survivor tried to connect with the Red Cross and FEMA. My son is now back in the French Quarter, rebuilding life. He is one of the lucky ones, as the French Quarter stayed dry and he had a home to return to. As a carpenter, his skills are needed, and he is busy at work. I hope never again to live through the fear I felt when he was trapped by a hurricane and a failed system of government. As I read the stories on this site, I remain aware of the maimed life other survivors live and attempt to heal. And I mourn for a city I also love, knowing it will never be the same, never look or smell the same. It will be restored, but never the same. It is a city where my son reports that guns are still carried openly but there is no way to identify who is carrying because it is now a city of strangers and unidentified relief workers.