I will never forget the day before the storm hit. As Hurrican Katrina, a then Category 5 storm, loomed in the gulf, it was apparent that this wasn\'t going to be a typical evacuation. My family and i packed to make the drive to Houston, TX, where the company I for which I was working put my family in a hotel. We spent 18 hours in the car, and when we finally checked into our rooms, Katrina was making landfall. I still remember the chill that ran up my spine as I helplessly watched the images on the screen. It was the next day, however, when everything changed. After the storm passed, the real drama was just beginning. \r\n The company I was working for at the time just so happened to have disaster recovery contracts already in effect for both Orleans Parish and Jefferson Parish. Just four days after the storm, I began hauling equipment into New Orleans from Houston, making two trips a day. \r\n I will never forget how eery it felt as I was coming into Kenner on I-10. There were trees in the middle of the highway along with every kind of debris imagineable. The interstate was deserted excpet for the occasional police or military patrol. It seemed so surreal; like the images of war one often sees on tv. \r\n The City of New Orleans was still almost completely submerged so we began working on the Jefferson Parish Government buildings in Gretna first. I remember having to pass through security checkpoints every mile or so. I can still hear the masses of armed helicopters flying overhead, and how absolutely pitch black the nights were. I remember the smell of burned houses. I was even there when the mall was looted and burned on the Westbank. I remember the eerie sounds of occasional gunfire in the distance. It was something I never thought I would experience on American soil in my lifetime. \r\n I was also one of the first groups of people to enter the Superdome soon after the waters receded. We were in full Personal Protective Equipment with respirators, and the smell was still enough to choke us; it was horrible. I couldn\'t believe that people in the midst of tragey were capable of destroying so much. The superdome was beyond words in how bad it was. I can\'t even begin to describe the destruction, but it definietly spoke volumes about the horrible experience the refugees endured there. To this day, I shutter when I enter the Superdome. \r\n I will never forget how deserted the CBD was when the waters first receded. I parked on the middle of Poydras Street in the middle of the day, and nobody was around to say anything (this was about a week or so after the looting was stopped and Marshall Law was implemented). I remember standing in the middle of Poydras looking up at all the highrise buildings with shards of glass the size of people occasionally crashing to the ground. It was such a surreal feeling to see the landmarks of the city I grew up in destroyed. I seriously felt out of place, like I was a character in an appocalypse movie. \r\n It really is hard for me to put in words everything I saw an experienced. Part of me is still haunted by some of the images I saw. I never in my life expected for such death and destruction to ever occur in my home. It really was alot to take in.