Hi everyone.\r\nIt has been four months since Katrina. It was something out of this world. The Saturday before the storm my son, daughter and grandchildren were on our way to Mississippi to do some shopping. Believe it or not we didn\'t know that a storm was on it way. When we reached McComb, my daughter went to get her children something to drink. For som reason the clerk asked her were was she from. In return my daughter said, \"Amite Louisiana\", she then said ,\"why?\" The clerk said you know at 4:00 p.m. all road leading to Louisiana will be closed from this way, My daughter came to car and told us what the clerk said and I was amazed at it. Because the time was already 3:00p.m.Well we turned back for home. When we got to Amite, they had already block the interstate exit to Amite off we couldn\'t go home so my son went about 15more miles to Hammond, Louisiana where he lives and we couldn\'t get off the interstate it to was clsoe. Finally one of the policeman new my daughter and allowed us to get off so that we could get on highway 51 to go back south. My God how could I have missed that!. Sunday morning after church you could see the people buy whatever they could for the storm. As I prepared for what ever was going to happen. My pastor call me and said because you have so many trees by your house I feel it would be best that you and your granddaughter come to the church to wait out the storme. Well I did , we back food, clothing so that they could take a bath, blankets, candles, and what ever else I thought I would need. When I got to the church you would have thought it was a normal Sunday service. The rain started about 5:30 that evening and stopped. But around 1:00a.m. it really started to rain. I really didn\'t worry about it because it wasn\'t all that bad, but around 5:oop.m. the lights started going off and on. And at 6:ooa.m. they went off and didn\'t return back on. The wind was light a train was getting to pass in front of the church and he didn\'t have on his lights. All of a sudden the tops of trees begain to break off the light lines start sparking fire. You really couldn\'t see to much damage in front of the church. But some of the ladies was running out of stuff for their families. So about four of them got into one car to get it. It took them a long time to come back so we tried to call them on our cell phone but couldn\'t all phones were dead. It took them about two hours to come back normal it would take about twenty minutes at the least. When they got back they told us we wouldn\'t believe what had happen, trees down everywhere, roof off of houses, the place looked like a war zone. Power lines down everywhere.The police was going crazy, fire truck doing the same thing. Abut 6:00 p.m. that evening we all said we would go and check our homes. My God all I could do when I left the church is state to cry. One of the young men\'s that I new work for the elementary school where my oldest granddaught went had just lost his home to fire about one week before the storm came. His brother in law gave him a trailor that he was stating in and moved to another house he had. When I passed by the trailor two large pine tree had hit the home. The trailor was a three bedroom with two full bath in it. One of the trees hit the east side of the trailor and the other one hit the west side of it. The tree on the west side missed his children, who were in bed when all of this happen by only about three inches. On the other end of the trailor he and his wife were in bed as well, it hit the top part of their bed. They couldn\'t leanve the house untile the firedepartment come and cut them out. All I could do is say My God, have mercy on them. Where I live is like a little subdivison, it one way in and one way out. I couldn\'t go home from the beginning of the road. Most of the large pine trees that has been there for 40 or more years were uprooted and across the road, and they wasn\'t allowing anyone to try or go in. About six hours some of the neighbor that had chain saws were able to cut most of them and haul them to the side of the road enought for cars to pass down. I consider myself a bless woman, when I got home all the pine trees that cover my home were still standing. The only thing that was in my yard were limbs , branches, and leaves. Praise God for that. Well I couldn\'t stay home because we didn\'t have lights and water. The more I tried to call my son the worst things got. I didn\'t know how bad it was in Hammond where lived. For about two day Quincy tried to come to Amite which is about a twenty minute drive, but couldn\'t do it because of all the trees that had fallen. When he did get to me I went to live with him for the next two weeks. His light were off for only one day after the storm, we had water because it didn\'t lose power for the well in the city paryt of Hammond. For two weeks my son and I went to my home to check on it. Couldn\'t stay there at and we had to go and leave because of the curfew that was posted. You know I really didn\'t know good we had it in life until Katrina, air conditions, lights, water, gas for the car, and life itself. We take things for granted to much. We could cook at my son\'s house because he had electricty. but efore that we had to use the grill. So we went to the store to get some colds for the grill, man you couldn\'t get into the store no one had lights, and they wasn\'t letting anyone in there. Lord, what are we going to do. My son had some and remember that I had some at my house so he went and got them. My grandchildren could not understand why we couldn\'t go home and why the lights were out. They thought I didn\'t pay the light bill. About a week had passed and my daughter call me and told me that I had water again at my house. I said good so I went home but when I got there, there was a note on my door warnig us not to dring the water because it was on a generator and that the water had to be tested before we could dringk it. Well that wasn\'t good to I went back to my son\'s house. I had to get in a line to get food and water, we aren\'t going even talk about the lines for the gas and the price was $3.00 plus. And the wordt thing about that was no one knew to get extra cash from the bank. So if you didn\'t have the cash no gas. My son went as far as Baton Rough to get the gas at a cheap price, Finally about eight day some of the banks open up but if you weren\'t a member of that bank you still couldn\'t get any money. What was a pay check if you couldn\'t cash it. I was going into the third week at my son\'s and I wanted to go home. Finally I had gotten enough of water to drink that I could go home. It was good to take a hot bath at my own house, lay in my own bed, and yes sit under my own carport. Don\'t get me wrong, I love my son very much and I am greatful that I had another place to go to until all was well at my house, but it is nothing like your own. At lot of things have not return to normal, for instant I am a full time student with one of the colleges in New Orleans and right now I am taking classes on line. It\'s ok but I miss my instructors and my friends. I am a people person and I love meeting new people. We plan to open the campus that I go to this spring (January 2006) but it won\'t be the same a lot of the students have lost everything , and had to leave the state for housing. Can you imagine New Orleans under water, no live at all, no bands, food, birds, trees, IT HAPPEN. Lord, I don\'t want anything like this to happen again, not while I am still living. I don\'t want to go through anything like this again. The last time something like this happen and I knew about it was when \"Bessie came\". I was only 6 years old and my dad took care of every thing. Now I am 46 and it hurts to see children crying because they want to go home, or a father\'s face with the look of wounder on it, and a mother crying because that is the only thing she can do at that time. As I sit here and write this tears comes to my eyes. Hurricane Katrina will always be remember, we will never be the same ,. When the season of hurricane come in the back of our head we will be woundering is this another \"Katrina\"