During the beginning of the Katrina evacuation, my family traveled north, frantically searching for hotels with vacancies. We were able to find a decent inn near Minden, Louisiana. My nuclear and extended family all stayed in the same hotel. Spread apart in various rooms were my aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, etc. Soon, roughly a week into staying there, we were already running low on money. We scoured northern Louisiana looking for a cheap motel to stay in. Our efforts were futile, however, and we were forced to stay in a shelter. While my 78-year old grandmother slept in her wheelchair, the rest of us slept on the cold tile floor. It was terribly congested and naturally there was a lot of sorrow in the shelter. My grandmother\'s back didn\'t fair well from her sleeping arrangements, and we knew that, for her sake, we had to get out of there. My dad made calls to everyone he knew, trying to find someone who would take us in. We posted online looking for help and explaining our unfortunate situation. We were about to give up when one fateful day we received a call from a complete stranger. He said that he had \"heard from a guy that heard from a guy that knew a guy that knew\" us. He gave us his address in Baton Rouge and told us to bring our whole family. When we arrived at his house, we were shocked to find him unloading a truck-full of food and drinks. The house was the perfect size for our significantly large italian family. Each set of immediate family was able to stay in their own big room. We were able to stay in the house and ride out the evacuation together.