On Saturday, August 27, 2005, I had no intentions on evacuating for Hurricane Katrina. I thought it would blow over just like all the other hurricanes that were suppose to directly hit New Orleans. When I turned on the television Sunday morning and heard that there would be 12-20 foot storm surges coming from the Mississippi River, I got scared. I live in the French Quarter which is very close to the river.\r\n\r\n\r\n My sister called and told my roommate and I that my cousin offered to take her and her kids, along with his immediate family (his mom, older sister, and younger sister who has three kids) to his job at the Times Picayune. She also said that we could come along (there were 13 of us in all). So we packed a few things and left.\r\n\r\n\r\n Once the storm blew through, late Sunday, early Monday morning, we thought that we’d be going home soon. However, early Tuesday morning, there was a meeting called in the cafeteria. We were told that we were being sent across the river. They didn’t tell us where or why. All they told us was each person could only take one bag of his/her things and that we were leaving within ten minutes. \r\n\r\n\r\nAll employees and family members of employees at the Picayune were loaded onto newspaper delivery trucks. We filled up about seven trucks in total. When we arrived across the river, the trucks stopped and the Editor went around asking if anyone had any ideas about where we could go to be safe. No one really made any comments, so we all just kept driving.\r\n\r\n\r\nWe made a few stops along the way, for bathroom breaks or to get a bite to eat. On one of the stops, all the Picayune employees loaded up on a few of the trucks and the family members were loaded on the rest of the trucks. The employees were going to Baton Rouge to one of the newspapers there, so that they could print the next day’s paper. The trucks with the family members of employees were just driving around until they could find somewhere to dump us.\r\n\r\n\r\nFinally, we were told that we would be going to a shelter at Nicholls State University (NSU) in Thibodeaux. We were told that FEMA would be there and that there would be air conditioning, hot food, and sleeping cots. When we got to NSU, along with about ten school buses filled with people, there wasn’t any food, cots or even electricity. No one wanted to be there, but what could we do? We had heard on the radio about the levee breeches, therefore we knew that going back to New Orleans was not an option.\r\n\r\n\r\nMy roommate talked one of the drivers into giving us a ride to Baton Rouge the next morning. When we made a stop for gas and breakfast, my roommate purchased a newspaper. When I saw the images of parts of New Orleans underwater, it made me cry. It broke my heart to see my city look like that.\r\n\r\nWhen we arrived in Baton Rouge at one of the shelters for Katrina survivors, there were people everywhere! We had finally caught up with my cousin who works for the Picayune and he came to rescue us and drove us to his house in La Place. There was no electricity in La Place. We cooked on a grill and ate by candlelight for two days. There were 14 of us in a three bedroom house. None of us ever really slept because of the heat and the anxiety from the stories we were hearing on the radio.\r\n\r\n\r\nOne of my cousins’s who lives near Austin, Texas offered my sister a three bedroom house for her and her kids. My roommate’s brother, who lives near Dallas, Texas, invited us to stay with him. The rest of my family stayed with my cousin in La Place. My roommate and I took the Greyhound bus Friday night, September 2, 2005 and arrived in Dallas on Saturday afternoon. My roommate’s brother came to pick us up from the bus station and welcomed us with open arms.