Hurricane Katrina has changed my whole life, from the way I think to the way I live. Saturday, August 28th, Katrina was rapidly approaching Louisiana through the Gulf of Mexico. I was in denial that we were going to get our share of what Florida had already endured. Saturday morning my boyfriend Adam had work at Shell Norco. I decided to run some errands. I was on my way to buy canvases and brushes for my painting class and my boyfriend called me to let me know that he was being let off early (10:00am). Then ask me what I was doing. When I told him I was buying art supplies, he told me not to, to save my money because this is serious. It was serious that they were closing down the plant, which works 24-7, to evacuate everyone for the storm. So I headed home. My friends, my boyfriend, and I were glued to The Weather Channel. I, by no means, wanted to evacuate! That night we slept with the television on. When I woke up to hear that the winds had increased to 175 mph, I started crying my eyes out. That was it. I was facing reality. \r\n Adam, Pook, our roommate, and I decided to take all three of our vehicles so we could pack as much as we could. We expected to come back to nothing. Adam and Pook’s hobby is deejaying. So along with the essentials: clothes, medicine, towels, blankets, pillows, and food; they also brought their turntables, records, speaker monitor, etc. Luckily Pook had a truck for all the bulk. I brought essentials and also included my artwork, art supplies, laptop (which has all my photos stored within), and my pricey collection of purses. \r\n My mother, stepfather, two brothers and my sister met us at my house at about 9:30am. Before we left I called my dad to find where he was going, to assure myself of his safety. He wasn’t very assuring when he told me he was going to stay and ride it out at my Uncle Steve’s house with my three uncles. When I started to cry, he told me it was okay and that if worse comes to worse, the police department would take care of them. Two of my uncles are officers and it was mandatory for them to stay. So on our way out of town, we stopped at my dad’s so I could cry, beg, and kiss him goodbye. \r\n We were on our way to Llano, Texas, where I have cousins. Our first dilemma was the unbelievable traffic! God bless Dj Pook for working on a tugboat and knowing back roads all the way to Lafayette. But his navigation skills didn’t stop there. He led us all the way to the Texas border, where we slept in our cars for about three hours. Then we continued our journey which ended after a total of 30 driving hours. Two hours away from Austin, Texas in hillbilly nation is where we would be residing for three and a half weeks. \r\n My cousins Mark and Dorthy have a beautiful four bedroom house and a cabin far, far away from civilization. My mom, step dad, brothers and sister and Pook stayed in Mark and Dorthy’s kids’ rooms and Adam and I put a bed in the cabin and stayed in there with this stinky cat. It was so disgusting. The kitty litter was right on side of the sink in the bathroom, so when we brushed our teeth or took showers we gagged. Adam and I both hate cats!\r\nThe closest gas station was about thirty minutes away. Llano wasn’t that great. The landscape was beautiful and in their backyard, about half a mile away, past all the cactus, is a river. The river was awesome. It had natural rock formations coming out of the beach and the river itself. We laid out on the rocks to catch a tan. We fished in the river for bass. We even hunted dove. It got old fast, and that was all Llano had to offer. \r\n We were certainly grateful we had somewhere to stay but we were miserable and going crazy. We watched the news all day, hoping CNN or FOX would show Marrero or even the Westbank for some kind of piece of mind. We tried to keep ourselves occupied, but like I said, there wasn’t much to do. Most of the days, we just slept away. It was so depressing.\r\n I was so worried about my dad. It had been five days and I still couldn’t get in touch with him. I saw on the news about all the looting and shooting and people found dead. It made me nauseated. My step dad, Phillip, went home for that one day period that was allowed for Jefferson Parish to come back and assess damages. My dad got in touch with Phillip then, trying to reach us. My dad said he had been trying to call our cell phones, none of which were working in the sticks, so Phillip gave him Mark and Dorthy’s phone number. I was so relieved when he called me.\r\n He told me about how weird things were. He said it was like a ghost town and a war zone, with all these military choppers and airplanes flying overhead. My dad said during the storm he and my uncles went outside. The pressure was so high it made his ears feel like they had to pop and you had to learn over because standing up straight made your back hurt. They had generators, and he told me how it was living on them. He also told me how money had no value. Nothing was open, money meant nothing, it was all about survival. He said he rode by my mom’s and my house and they looked okay. Nevertheless, they were fine.\r\nWhen Phillip came back from Louisiana he had some hyperbolic stories to tell. According to him, there was no life. There were soldiers in foxholes. Marrero smelled like rooting flesh and it would take months maybe a year for us to come back. I looked at him like he was crazy when he said all that. My dad’s story, who rode it out and was still there, was not at all that extreme. However, he did say my mom’s house on the outside was okay, but inside, her bathroom the ceiling caved in and there was insulation and sheetrock everywhere. I was worried about the inside of my house.\r\nNot knowing how long we actually would be in Lame-o, my mom decided to enroll my brother, Blake, and my sister, Brandi, in the schools there with Mark and Dorthy’s kids. They were trying to get me to go to college there. I think it would have been a great opportunity if the situation was a little different. Adam and I have our own house and belongings. I was so worried about our home and being looted, I would not have been able to concentrate on school. I was too depressed.\r\nNow all of us: Adam, Pook, my mom, Phillip, Blake and Logan, Brandi, and I were housed with my cousins Mark, Dorthy, and their kids Austin, Loren, and Julia. Thirteen people living together got pretty dramatic. My mom and Phillip, started fighting so much that my mom told him to leave. Phillip’s boss was staying about twenty minutes down the road from us, where Phillip was told to stay. That wasn’t the only situation. My cousin Mark told my mom that he was uncomfortable with Pook staying in his house, because of the way he looked at Dorthy. This was ludicrous. Pook is harmless. My mom told me what Mark said, and I told Adam. We didn’t tell Pook. The next morning when Mark was at work and found out that Pook was eating cereal in the kitchen while Dorthy was home, he called my mom saying he’s not running a breakfast bar for him to eat his food ( but it was actually cereal my mom bought). It was clear that Mark was insecure, and living in the middle of nowhere, he’s not used to competition. This was all in Mark’s head. \r\nAdam and I were furious to here these accusations at a time like this, so we told Pook and all headed to town to find a place to stay. With no luck on hotels in the area, we called the mayor of Llano. Mr. Pickney was very helpful. He offered us a HUD house. We met him at town hall and followed him to the HUD house administrator’s office to find out that we did not meet the requirements to stay there regardless our situation. The mayor then offered us an indefinite place to stay, the Ray House. The Ray House was used for council meetings and rented as party hall. It was two bedrooms, one bath, kitchen with a refrigerator, and central air. We took it. Pook and Adam even set up their Dj equipment and played for some kind of normalcy.\r\nWe got many visitors from the church, neighborhood, and fire department bringing us food, beds, kitchen utensils, and other things collected for refugees. There were only three families staying in Llano that were from Louisiana so there were lots of donations because everyone wanted to contribute. They were all so nice to us. We were at the laundry mat one day and we asked to lady to put FOX on for us while we waited on our clothes. She knew we weren’t from around there. I told her our story and she was very kind to us. She happened to be the owner of the mat, and as we were leaving, she gave me money and told me we were in her prayers. My father taught me that it is disrespectful not to accept anything given to me, so I accepted the money with no fuss and told her we’d use it on gas for the 700 miles it will take to get back home. \r\nSome men from the fire department came to the Ray House one Saturday and told us to go to the station. There were boxes of clothes, toys, food, and toiletries. I called my mom and told her about all the stuff because she was still staying with Mark and Dorthy and she hadn’t met the town people or received any donations. My mom came and got toys for my little brother and plenty food. We had planned to leave two days from then, so we got lots of food and water because were heard back home the water wasn’t drinkable and there were no stores open.\r\nShandon, a lady that was assembling the refugee donation center in Llano brought Pook, Adam, and I to eat at Cooper’s BBQ. Cooper’s is nation-known and catered Bush’s inauguration. We took a picture with Shandon in front of the pits, and the picture was published in the newspaper with and entry I wrote about who we are and where we are from and a thank you to everyone in Llano for being so generous. \r\n We left on Sunday, September 19th, 5:00 pm. We left in the afternoon to avoid the daytime traffic in Austin and Houston. It took us ten straight hours to get home. Before we got home, we stopped at Shell to pick up some work passes just in case we got stopped at any check points, which we only went through one in Avondale.\r\n When we got home our house looked okay. The metal facial piece below the roof was peeled back and everyone one in the neighborhood’s shingles were in our yard. We didn’t lose one shingle. We also had a trampoline on side of our house folded in half. On the side the house where the trampoline was, the roof looked concave, where it more than likely hit it. Thankfully, there’s no leaking either. When we opened the door, we all liked to pass out with the smell. We through the refrigerator out the back door, it was much heavier than that sounds considering all the food was still in it. There were shrimp juices all over the floor. It was nasty. Our back door was swollen and we couldn’t shut it once we got it open. The bottom hinge was rusted and the door was so corroded that the nails just fell out. I had the get the hammer to make the hinge shut to shut the door. We immediately moped and poured bleach on the floor. At least we couldn’t smell it in our room; we shut the door before we left. \r\nWhat I found very peculiar is that inside the house, in all the window sills, the sheetrock around the windows is all cracked and inside the kitchen the base boards don’t line up straight with the floor anymore. Also, the door frame pieces don’t meet up. Adam is certain that our foundation has shifted. \r\nI am very thankful to still have a home. Being a victim of such a catastrophe really does change your life. Money still doesn’t have as much value as it did pre-Katrina. It really made me realize what has the most value: my life, my family, and surviving. Everything else seems to be a luxury. \r\nAdam’s dad’s house had some minor damages from Katrina, it was Rita that wipe him out. He lives in Lafitte, where the tidal serge rose about eight feet in his yard. He had four feet of water in his house. He was able to get a FEMA trailer on his land until he done remodeling his house, but he a lot.\r\nAfter we had been home about two weeks, Adam’s mom, Tammy, had called and asked for her husband, kid and her to stay with us for a little while. They lost everything. They lived in Venice and had a bar there. Everything was destroyed. They have been with us for a little over a month, still waiting for their FEMA trailer. It has been on the lot for a week, but they can’t have the keys until after in the trailer is leveled, the lights are hooked up, and the sewage done. It is ridiculous, but its life.