hardly had an exciting evacuation story. I left the Saturday night before the storm, anticipating the heavy traffic leaving New Orleans when the approaching hurricane grew as strong as I knew it would. I ended up at my sister\'s apartment in Baton Rouge and was safe throughout the entire ordeal. Also, I live on the Westbank, so my house sustained only minor wind damage (knocked down fence, broken windows....nothing tragic). I was amoung one of the more fortunate citizens.\r\n\r\nOne interesting phenomenon I began to witness immediately following the storm was the hersay and word of mouth misinformation we began to receive almost instantly. Being there was not a lot of news coverage of the Westbank, we had to rely on information we heard from our neighbor whose brother-in-law was a Jefferson Parish cop or my aunt who claimed to know all of the inner workings of the New Orleans area during this time.\r\n\r\nMy aunt was particuarly full of misinformation. Her boyfriend, who lived in St. Bernard Parish, had made a phone call to his mother saying that if the water got any higher, he would have to get on his roof. By the time this reached my aunt and then us, he had to be rescued from his roof in some daring escape from certain death. \r\n\r\nShe also called us in the middle of the night once to inform us that the men who stayed behind in our neighborhood were holding off looters with whatever guns they could find at the enterance in. Also false. \r\n\r\nThe news was no better. We had heard on CNN that Oakwood Mall, the only mall on the Westbank, had been burned to the ground in a fight between looters and police. This was disputed a week later when I physically drove past the mall and saw that only a small portion was damaged. I still had people who knew cops insisting to me that it was gone after I had seen it with my own two eyes.\r\n\r\nWhile I was fortunate enough to make it through the storm alright, the entire region suffered from hersay and general mass confusion in the days following Katrina. Often times, not knowing can be pretty painful in and of itself.