I remember watching the storm from my grandpa\'s car port. He wasn\'t there because he was having surgery in a hospital in New Orleans (I can\'t remember which one). My mom, dad, and sister were all with me. I was a sophomore in high school. My aunt and uncle and two of their kids came to the house too. They lived in Chalmette. (I don\'t want to put their names). The storm hit Monday morning and we lost power in St. James at 1 AM before the storm hit land. We wouldn\'t get it back until Friday of that week. Wind and rain were not all that bad for St. James Parish. We had some tree damage and some shed damage, but nothing that couldn\'t be repaired. Until we got the bad news about New Orleans, it was almost exciting, and fun to watch this hurricane pass. Then we got the bad news about New Orleans. It\'s really hard to imagine how bad the damage is when you can only hear about it on the radio. Until you see the damage, which I didn\'t until Friday, you can\'t really understand just how bad it was. My family from Chalmette had half way up the walls in their house. They had to rebuild and moved to Tennessee for a few years. They are back in their house in Chalmette now. Chalmette\'s destruction was incredible. I remember my cousin bringing a video that he shot in Chalmette showing the destruction. He\'s the kind of person that can make light of any bad situation. Besides being in shock from all the destrucion, I remember laughing so hard from the commentary he did in the video. \r\n\r\nIn 2011 I was working as a tour guide at Laura Plantation and a group of kids from Connecticut came to take a tour of the plantation. This was discouraging to me because ususally teenagers hate plantation tours. Surprisingly, this group was very interested in the tour and the history. They asked a lot of questions and had a lot of fun. They told me they were working in New Orleans helping fix up damaged houses. I was almost surprised that after six years they were still sending people to help fix up houses. When I found out that they would be coming to New Orleans again this year I asked if someone could share a story that they had from last year. This is from Jillian from Connecticut: \r\n\"Me and about 60 others, teens and adults, came to NOLA through the First Congregational Church of Branford. I heard about this through a few friends of mine and always wanted to be involved with something such as this so i decided to sign up. We were down there for a week, working 5 days, from about 8am till 3 or 4pm. it was great having the chance to help so many people after what had happend to them. Many of the houses we worked on were people who got screwed over by their contractors and they had no money to fix their house to live in. one house i worked on was for an older couple who were very sweet. it was nice to meet them and i feel they changed and helped me more then i helped them. they were so positive even when years later there house still wasnt fixed. i put in a new door for them since the old one was so rotted from the water damage. the other house i wokred in had to be gutted fully because there was so much water damage everywhere. i couldnt beelive that this much damage was still waiting around to be fix. i could see marks on the curtains to how high the water level was. the owner of the house told us how they had to evactuate and when he came back weeks later to see his house, it was still flooded with the majority of their belongings floating around in the house. i never felt so great with myself then i did that week because i was able to go and help these people get their lives back. i am so fortunate where i live and want to help others feel like its going to be okay and there lives were not ruined from that storm no matter how much they lost. it felt good to be apart of somthing so great and seeing how ive helped people. were coming back this year again to help more people and fix more houses and i am looking very forward to it.\"\r\n