Before Katrina, I don\'t even know if I would have considered Louisiana a place to make a home. When I first moved out of my childhood home, I moved into my Father\'s house (he passed away a few months before) which was right around the block. \r\nWith all the devastation that came from Katrina, it also opened up an opportunity for a new life for my fianc�© and me. We moved sixteen hours (driving time) away from our families and friends to start our new lives in New Orleans. The line of work that Donny is in puts him in direct contact with the wreckage from Katrina. For the first time in my safe, secluded, na�¯ve life I saw what a war zone may look like. Homes are empty with only distant memories of life before Katrina. Spray paint on plywood blocks doors and windows from looters with threats such as \"you loot I shoot!\" too keep their belongings in their water filled homes. Roads are either uplifted or sunk in because of the water that lay in the neighborhoods for so long which also makes traveling to a home more like an obstacle course then an easy destination. One story my fianc�© has told me that sticks out in my mind is the day a woman, who used to own one of the homes that had just finished getting rebuilt, came back. She looked at the home and they let her walk around and look inside. The woman broke down into tears and said that the house was even more beautiful now, then when she had lived in it. This story stays in my memory because I see this woman who has lost everything and came back to her home not knowing what to expect. Did it hurt her more to see her home in better shape then when she lived in it or to have seen it destroyed?\r\nSometimes I help my fianc�©s company by cleaning the homes after they are complete. By this time the plumbers, electricians, and real estate agents have left and I am alone in the shells of a house that was a home to some family. I pack up my cleaning supplies, load my car and drive back home looking out my window at the empty streets and houses and I can\'t help but wonder what life was like before Katrina.\r\n