I moved here from Indiana about 12 years ago. After Katrina hit, family and friends, as soon as they could get through, were tieing up the phone making sure I was alright. Fast-forward five years. It was January 2010 and the New Orleans Saints had somehow managed to make it to the Superbowl. Stories were broadcast everywhere about the history behind New Orleans and especially about Hurricane Katrina. Probably the day before the game, I was on a social networking sight and came across a post from a cousin of mine that just about floored me. She was exploding over the Internet about the fact that she was tired of hearing about Katrina and what the city had gone through. To her, and many others in other states, the storm was over and life was completely back to normal here.

Of course, I had to get on the email and correct her in her thinking! I remember thinking, "Is this what everyone thinks? That the insurance companies have all paid, the grieving for those lost to the storm is over and the city has entirely the way it was pre-storm? I guess my point here is; most of us have indeed gotten back to our lives. Our homes are repaired and Katrina has become a story we only bring up for tourists. But please don't anyone think that it didn't affect us. Don't believe that the people town have forgotten. We may have picked ourselves back up and moved on, but we will never forget. And when we went to that Superbowl on 2010, it was a big step towards a normal life for this city. It brought back a confidence and pride in this city that some of us had forgotten after the storm. So, when you see a story about a city, a state, that is digging its way out of the ashes, feel a little pride right along with them, regardless if it has been 5 years since they surfaced because there's always someone still digging.