Having endured a strong Tropical Storm Cindy early in the 2005 Hurricane Season and almost evacuating New Orleans for Hurricane Dennis, my sense of foreboding was alerted early when Hurricane Katrina became a Catagory 1 storm hitting Miami almost a week before it hit us in southeast Louisiana. My 19-year-old Nissan Sentra had mostly been in the repair shop through August, first with an inoperable driver\'s door latch (which my mechanic managed to find a used replacement in a junkyard in central Mississippi); then what became a defective bolt that held both my water pump to the engine and the belts that ran the rest of the car in place. Nevertheless I had enough things to do without my car to prepare for this storm named Katrina which was a rainmaker south Florida was surprised about. \r\n\r\nOver the past seven years since moving from a second-floor brick courtyard apartment in the French Quarter to a modest shotgun Uptown, I have incorporated various parts of my hurricane plan to be ready incase \"The Big One\" ever hit New Orleans. First I pre-cut plywood stormboards for my windows. Since I have burglar bars outside my windows, I would have to place the boards on the windows inside. I might get a broken window but at lease I could still make the odds better of keeping my house\'s roof on. Much as I could hardly fiscally justify owning an automobile, I knew that during any hurricane it would be my only option to evacuate -- hence I continued to run up credit card debt to keep the car running and insured. Three years ago I followed as much as possible the south Florida hurricane codes with the installation of hurricane braces and metal straps that tied together my home\'s roof structure with that of its walls, much as one can do so on a 100-year-old bargeboard shotgun. I also put hinges on an attic vent, turning it into an exit door incase the neighborhood would ever flood and I would have to rush up to the attic to escape to my roof (I had heard Kenneth Ferdinand\'s story of his family going up into their attic during Hurricane Betsy in the Lower Ninth Ward -- and of his grandfather not making it up there fast enough). \r\n\r\nGood friends of mine in Key West were surprised by Katrina, since it wasn\'t even forecast to be anywhere near them. Seeing this I immediately began gathering financial, legal and school records. Several years ago I acquired some plastic water-resistant tote file boxes to easily carry away records. And I knew from my Hurricane Ivan evacuation in 2004 that I would have to downsize and pack smarter (milkcrates for example took up too much space and were abandoned in favor of paper bags for records then). From Wednesday August 24 through when I departed early Sunday August 28 I had slept just six hours. It was crazy, but I felt I had to spend every moment preparing AND attending the first week of classes at UNO. \r\n\r\nTwo years before I managed to secure both homeowners\' and flood insurance -- the latter was because of a simulation exercise in 2004 that suggested that even the Mississippi River levees and floodwall along Tchoupitoulas would work against New Orleans during such a major hurricane (that was one of the \"pleasant\" surprises of Katrina for me not to come to pass). Still I fretted about having enough clean clothes, water stocked up in glass bottles and buckets, securing my storm boards, putting everything in my yard into the shed, trimming my banana and mulberry trees; and even fretting about my neighbor\'s construction on his house next door -- unbeknownst to him I took all of his loose wood and supplies scattered about the yard and put it under his house. And this was just Thursday, August 25th. \r\n\r\nI was getting nervous that my mechanic would not finish repairing my car in time for me to evacuate -- so I further tried to downsize what I wanted to take with me (like combining on one sheet of paper all my bills and documents policy numbers, etc). If he hadn\'t finished by mid-day Friday I would absolutely try to take a Greyhound bus to Baton Rouge for Saturday -- but what to do with my cat? Fortunately the car was ready Friday afternoon. I had bicycled from UNO through Lake Terrace and Vista Park neighborhoods and caught up to the infrequent St. Bernard/Leon C. Simon bus for the ride the rest of the way to pick up my car on North Claiborne Avenue. Little that I knew that those neighborhoods would be under eight to ten feet of water by Monday. \r\n\r\nI was in angst too trying to encourage some particularly obstinent friends into evacuating. For Hurricane Dennis, I had actually managed to arrange housing for a dozen folks in Baton Rouge ahead of time -- a friend\'s house hadn\'t quite sold and I had keys. But by Katrina it had; and even my usual refuge of my cousins wasn\'t available due to a renovation projection gone awry (they themselves were evacuating to their LSU office). A very dear friend who knew rationally of the danger yet dreaded the evacuation drive still refused to go -- so I brought her all my canned goods, my cook stove, and remembered to ask her about her next of kin in case of an emergency. (Later she would leave and get caught in that dreaded 16-hour-drive-to-Alexandria-traffic). \r\n\r\nI had been awake nearly three days straight with only six hours of sleep total. I had completed everything I could do to prepare before leaving -- putting treasured possessions in the attic or atop my loft (and enclosing them in plastic bags incase the roof came off); Finished installing my windowboards; Emptying my refrigerator of perishables; sending out a mass email to friends of my plans. And I had found an old friend that would end up hosting both me and my cat for five weeks. At times it was untenable and fractious. I warned her at the front end of my stay that I probably would not be able to return to New Orleans anytime soon (and this was before the storm). She knew of the the dire warnings and consequences -- yet freaked out a week later when I registered for classes at LSU (You\'re gonna be here the whole semester!?) \r\n\r\nAs noted elsewhere in this section, I left New Orleans early Sunday morning, following the now-infamous exchange first between Mayor Nagin and WDSU-TV6 reporter Norman Robinson over just when the mayor was going to call for a mandatory evacuation (then of course Hurricane Forecaster Max Mayfield moments later got on the air and in effect urged us to ignore our elected leaders and leave NOW). My cat dutifully sat on top of her cat carrier and hoped in when I opened the door. I drove swiftly to Clearview and I-10. I waited in line consuming the last of my iced coffee drinks, waiting to get into the Baton Rouge-bound contraflow lanes for forty minutes. Yet it was just one o\'clock in the morning and many passing were headed home from a night out on the town so it seemed. \r\n\r\nDriving \"contraflow\" at night without much sleep was wild. The red road reflectors merged into the taillights ahead of me. So I slowed to 50 miles per hour -- even as most traffic was going 70 or faster. For sixteen miles until beyond the LaPlace U.S. 51 exit I thought the trip wouldn\'t end. Then for good measure I drove to the Donaldsonville exit and pulled into a Popeyes Fried Chicken/Chevron gasoline station combo. Both were closed; yet the lot was filled with people. Some were awaiting others lost in their pre-arranged caravans. One guy ran out of gas. And I joined several in rolling down the windows and reclining in our seats. My cat was out but returned to awaken me two hours later. Enough sleep to get to Baton Rouge. Traffic was picking up but still was smooth and fast. I arrived to sleep outside Coffee Call on College Drive at 4:30am. I slept there until 7am, when I made it to my friend\'s home just as she was going to church. \r\n\r\nMy anal angst over hurricanes was about to be confirmed. We lost power in Baton Rouge for a few days, but clearly the place was spared the very worst damage -- even though the media there said this storm was worse than Hurricane Andrew in 1992 hitting just west of them. My battery-operated TV showed the first storm flooding of Kenner and Metairie. Then moving Eastward the Southern Yacht Club was burning into the water. The other West End restaurants simply had vanished. And then I was that New Orleans too, much to my shock and horror, was flooded too. Where just three days before I departed the St. Bernard/Lake Terrace bus with my bicycle at Robert E. Lee and Paris Avenues that Friday at UNO, by Monday men were being airlifted by Coast Guard helicopters off rooftops. UNO looked largely spared at that point -- but it was the only dry patch. Just then I had heard from my once-obstinent friend who she and her family evacuated afterall -- they had just arrived into Alexandria. They experienced the outer bands of Katrina on the highway, yet they were glad to have left (and if they would\'ve stayed they might had drowned). \r\n\r\nI had wished I was wrong about this hurricane.