After Hurricane Katrina, My family moved back into or gutted house in November. I remember my family living in a tent, on the hard floor, and no walls around me. It was difficult to look around and remember everything that use to be in my house that was no longer there. The cold did not help either while trying to sleep. We had no power and no hot water. My father would boil water in a crawfish pot and throw it in the tub so we can shower. The person who went first had clean water, while everyone else was bathing in the filth of the others.\r\n\r\nWe spent our Christmas in that tent. It was not a great Christmas, but my parents did they best they could to get me and my brother a nice present. My best present was a chair, which before Hurricane Katrina I would have thought of a shitty present. \r\n\r\nOne of the most memorable presents I got for Christmas came from a complete stranger. He was a FEMA employee who was checking on our house and seeing where we could put a FEMA trailer. I do not remember the man\'s name, but he gave my brother and me a mp3 player and some old clothes his son had grown out of. It was a generous gift from someone I had known for a few days. \r\n\r\nSo through the worst of Katrina, I had rough times that were made better because of a man who reached out to make my brother and I\'s Christmas something special when it would have been crap.

Citation

“[Untitled],” Hurricane Digital Memory Bank, accessed November 25, 2024, https://hurricanearchive.org./items/show/43133.