Having grown up in New Orleans and lived here all of my life I have always heard about “The Big One”. Any New Orleanian can tell you that this is a household term. Sure it had been joked about and feared at the same time but nothing could have prepared me for the eerie hours before the storm.\r\n\r\n Friday August 26, 2005, In the early evening I took my laptop to CC’s coffeehouse in Old Metairie. It was the first week of the semester and I thought I would start off on a good foot. The coffee shop was crowded with students who apparently had the same idea. A few hours of World War II research went by and I casually decided to check online the location of Katrina. My eyes registered its path but my brain definitely did not. I refreshed the page. What? Thy guy a table behind me apparently had been looking over my shoulder. He startled me by saying, “Oh my God”. I didn’t even have to turn around to realize that he had watched me refresh the page several times. He looked at me. I looked at him. Neither of us said a word but surely we were thinking the same thing. He got up and left without saying a word. Today I wonder what he did next, how he made out in the storm. I sat there looking around at everyone, studying, chatting, laughing. Had they any idea what I had just discovered? Did they know? I checked my email to take my mind off of things. I had an email form my friend Scott telling me about plans for Labor Day weekend. I could not have known then that by Labor Day weekend I would be an official “evacuee”, “displaced”, “Katrina victim”. I called my best friend Angela in Chicago and we discussed “what to do” for a while. Neither of us had a clue. I drove home slightly in a daze. I vividly remember listening to the Band of Brothers soundtrack having an eerie feeling just driving down Veterans Boulevard. I talked to Scott on the phone when I got home. He was watching a game that was on TV like there was nothing wrong, nothing out of place. I went to sleep that night praying that when I awoke I would see that the storm had shifted in our favor. There was to be no such luck.\r\n\r\n The morning of Saturday August, 27 came with frantic newscasters, empty gas stations and phones ringing off the hook. What to do?! What to do?! Living in New Orleans, we have all been through so many hurricanes- this one couldn’t really be any different, right? In the afternoon my mom, dad and Aunt Maria put our cars in the raised parking lot at JC Penny. When we got back to my house Scott was there to pick me up to go to Lake Charles. I shoved a pair of jeans, a few shirts and just a few of the very bare necessities into my gym bag, kissed my dog Sandi, my parents and my house goodbye. I reminded my parents that “the house is minimal” before leaving. Scott and I picked up daquiris for the road. After the cell phones settled down we were actually kind of relaxed and able to talk about things besides the storm. We arrived in Lake Charles late at night, had dinner at a Mexican restaurant then turned in for the night.\r\n\r\n Sunday August 28 greeted us with the news that Katrina was now stronger than before and headed for New Orleans. The TV showed pictures of packed interstates, frantic people, and empty shopping malls and schools. This was no storm to worry about possessions. People were advised to take their lives and leave as soon as possible. At this point my parents were undecided as to where to go if at all. My family owns the Napoleon House, a very old, sturdy building in the Quarter. Ever since I was a little girl we would go there for weaker hurricanes. However, this time the safety of the building wasn’t necessarily in question. It was the safety of the city after the hurricane had come and gone. How long would there be no electricity, no drinkable water, no food, no emergency workers? My parents along with my Uncle Sal, Aunt Vee, Aunt Maria, Aunt Bernadette and cousin Regina all decided to go to Eureka Springs, Arkansas. My brother Jeremy, his pregnant wife Lisa and their daughter, my godchild, Elizabeth were in Shreveport where my brother was sent for work. I will forever remember that Sunday as being one of the very worst days of my life. I have never ever experienced such anxiety and helplessness as I did then. There was nothing anyone could do. At that moment the city was fine, houses were fine, people were alive. We went to sleep that night knowing that when we woke up our city would be at the mercy of this horrible storm.\r\n\r\n Monday August 29 at about 6:00 am Katrina’s eye made landfall. There was much wind damage and debris. It was not until the levees broke that much of the city was underwater. Again the feeling of helplessness was unbearable. All we could do was watch TV for the latest updates. For days I did not know the status of my house or neighborhood. Cell phones were not working making communication impossible. Days later I received a text message from my cousin Stacy saying that my house was not flooded but that we had lost two massive trees that uprooted the sidewalks and the lawn. Right then I had a feeling of such relief that I literally had tears in my eyes. There are few things that I have ever been this thankful for. Words will never be able to describe the feeling of finally hearing your family’s voices again. \r\n\r\n Scott and I left Lake Charles the Friday after the storm and went first to Texas then to Colorado back to Texas and then back home. I have worked very little since before Katrina and money is tight. I spend everyday in front of the computer doing schoolwork. My house is not quite back to normal but we make a little more progress each day.