re: What was Katrina like?

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She was truly an amazing storm.

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I've come to realize that I will speak of Katrina (and her bitch sister Rita) the way my parents and grandparents spoke of Camille.

Katrina was, quite simply, one of those storms that you'd always heard about, but never experienced... until she was here. She was the next catastrophic storm after Camille that would lay waste to a massive piece of land and cause staggering amounts of human suffering, and her sister wasn't following that far behind. We thought we knew what a bad storm was after Andrew, but we had no damned clue how bad a bad storm could be.

But, unless you lived to see Camille yourself, you never fully understood what "Camille" actually meant in terms of destruction and human suffering until you'd lived to see Katrina (and her bitch sister Rita).

What strikes me most about that hurricane season is that two storms absolutely fricking destroyed both our Eastern side and our Western side. Yet both of those groups of people that survived buried the dead, cleared the rubble, and moved forward. No storm was going to beat them. Beat them down, yes, but beat them, no.

I lived in Pass Christian. The whole town was pretty much wiped out. We lived 3 miles from the beach and our house got 8 foot of water.

There are a lot of surreal memories I have about that time, but some of the ones that stood out to me:

How eerily quiet it was. No cars, no generators, no usual city sounds -- just silence and the occasional boat motor and helicopter.

The dogs and cats standing on the baking-hot roof tops of cars to avoid the water.

The people who stayed back and had no clue how bad it was outside their homes. We had a guy tell us he'd parked his car on the median of Canal blvd. and that when they opened the bridge he was going to walk to his car and evacuate. Unfortunately, we'd driven our boat over the top of his totally submerged car to get to his house. He had no clue there was that much water and that it was everywhere. He wasn't the only one we encountered like this.

There were a few times our boat got hung-up on debris and every time, a citizen came darting through chest-deep water to help free us. We also saw lots of other kind, thoughtful acts by neighbors of all races and creeds. Though you only ever heard about the looting and other bad behavior on the news.

I'll never forget the sheer magnitude of it all. I don't live in New Orleans but I love the city and to look at the depth of destruction and not be able to imagine in my wildest dreams how anyone (much less an entire city) could recover from such a disaster -- it was a depressing time to be in that moment. We met and spoke to people who had lost everything -- even loved ones. Some had more dignity and strength that I could ever put into words.

I'm grateful that I was able to see up-close such a historic event, but I hope it never happens again in my lifetime.

What is that?

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What was Katrina like?

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Surreal. ... We had just moved 4 months prior to the storm from BR to a "suburb" a bit farther southeast, and although we got more "weather" in the place we relocated, I was glad we got out of BR, proper, beforehand bc it was a complete clusterfrick after the hurricane.

During the storm, the wind howled relentlessly for hours, was calm while the eye passed, then changed direction & howled at 80 mph, steadily, sometimes gusting to 90+, for another few hours. I just remember hearing it through the fireplace thinking there wouldn't be any shingles left on our brand new roof of our brand new house when it was over. I also remember listening to the radio when we were in the eye, & a certain weatherman, who shall remain nameless, stated that "the worst was over"... WE WERE IN THE EYE!!! 45 minutes later, the worst came. Luckily, we didn't have any large trees near our house, and we'd taken all the precautions of boarding up windows, getting a generator big enough to run a fridge & freezer, tv, a portable window AC unit & box fan, had a gas stove & water heater & weather radio, and plenty of flashlights, batteries, gas, food, & water. One thing I learned going through Katrina, Rita, & Gustav is that hurricanes are very expensive & a lot of work to prepare for, and I need to be in generator sales.

During the storm, I tried to video from the front porch, but got a bit nervous when I began needing to hold onto a column to remain upright, and when a very large oak tree limb, that resembled a small tree itself, went sailing 4-5 ft. off the ground down the street, almost slamming into the heads of some neighbors' idiot teenagers who were "playing" in the sustained hurricane strength wind because they fancied themselves as cool & bulletproof (they weren't weather & oak tree limb proof), so I went back inside.

We were also lucky that our subdivision remained powerless for less than 48 hours. Most other areas of town went weeks without electricity. We had no major damage to our home while others around us had huge trees through the middle of theirs, and many had basically no roofs. The biggest pain in the arse was afterward when, for months, stores couldn't get or keep basic staples like bread, water, etc., so my mother had to send us bread from Arkansas. ... The entire infrastructure was screwed up, not only in Nola, but BR & surrounding areas, particularly with the influx of people into BR from all points south. But I knew there would be mass pandemonium before the storm when Nagin gave his press conference & order to leave Nola much too late, then seeing the absolute nightmare on the interstate. I just remember watching him on tv thinking how badly he'd fricked up already, before the storm even hit. Traffic from the interstate was diverting through our area, which has it's own shitty infrastructure to begin with, so you couldn't go anywhere outside of your own subdivision once the order was given to leave Nola. I'm just glad I was insistent on preparing a few days before that; people who didn't were just screwed. ... One of the most bizarre things was going into BR for the first time a few days following the storm, and seeing how different it already was, overnight. No traffic lights were working since they'd turned them off due to the influx of vehicles, so all intersections were treated as 4-way stops. There were cops from all over, everywhere. I'll never forget being stopped at an intersection & seeing almost in slo-mo 4 cruisers pass in front of us that looked very familiar, but only from tv - they were marked "NYPD." I guess that's when you knew how huge & far-reaching this catastrophic event really was.

By far, the worst & most eerie part of the entire ordeal was after the storm had hit. It was very early in the morning, still dark, we didn't have power or cable & were listening to a radio station out of Nola. Our generator was running the fridge/freezer, AC window unit & fan we'd put in the sunroom adjacent to the master bedroom & opened the French doors to get the cool air. We heard the reports coming in from callers in different parts of the city talking about water rising & getting very deep in houses. People were calling, panicked, asking about certain areas of the city where their relatives who didn't leave were living & they couldn't get through to them by phone or, obviously, vehicle. The radio newsmen were telling them as gently as possible that those areas were flooded. There were actually people calling the station who were in their attics about to cut holes in the roofs to climb onto because the water was still rising in their homes. They were letting the radio guys know who & where they were. The news guys broadcasting were doing their best to be professional, but it was understandably getting to them. They felt helpless, as did we all who were listening & realizing what had happened - the levees were breached. The worst possible scenario that everyone had feared so long was playing out; it was now reality, and I think the overall feelings were shock & helplessness. ... At that point, we got one of the televisions hooked up to the generator & since cable was out, we rigged a way to get one of the local BR stations which was airing a local Nola station's coverage of the storm. At some point, not sure of exact time because by then, everything was running together & we were in a daze, basically, pictures & video of flooded parts of Nola began being broadcast by the Nola station. Surreal & helpless is the only way to describe it. Knowing we had just been there a couple of weeks before & lived only 60 miles from there, but couldn't do one thing to help at that time was a sickening, desperate feeling. We kept waiting for someone to go in & get people from their roofs, the Superdome, & everywhere else they were trapped in the city, but no one did for what seemed like an eternity. Thank God for the Coast Guard who were the only true heroes in all of this. The same certainly cannot be said for any of our pathetic government officials at the time - none of them.

There is one person who stands out to me during this horrendous time as being the most colossal douche of all of them. Several weeks after the hurricane, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette ran a story on Mike Brown, deputy director of FEMA during Katrina, which contained a series of emails from him to his assistant during the aftermath of the storm when he finally made it down here after he "found out about" people being trapped on their roofs for days. These emails depict exactly what he is/was - a cold, uncaring, entitled, elitist bureaucrat, completely detached & disassociated from the American public, even during a crisis, who was constantly bitching & whining while being driven in his limo about traffic in Baton Rouge, the airport in BR, having to wait for a table in BR restaurants, which were barely able to open at the time & operating on skeleton crews & menus, & that they should hold his table even when he is 2 hours late, but doesn't call, and how helicopters should be at his disposal any time for conditions such as this - nevermind the little issue of where the hell to land. Awful, awful person.

Katrina & the aftermath were so bad, I could write a book, and almost did, here.

Then there were the Katrina marriages

I wish someone would have done an investigation showing who became millionaires because of Katrina. Ex. Catering companies getting paid $10-15 for each brown bag lunch. 3 times a day 7 days a week. Mobile home company owners. Real estate owners in BR.