re: What was Katrina like?

Senior year of high school. I lived in 4 different cities in 3 different states in one month. Never will forget the smell or the mound of trash that stretched down west end for blocks. frick Katrina

Katrina was absolute hell for a lot of people here. I was a senior in high school and our ring mass was just a few days before Katrina hit. That was the last time we all saw each other as a class really. My grandpa died a few weeks after Katrina, the stress just got to much. He spent his whole life in the city and his lastnight he spent in a fricking fema trailer on his front yard. frick that storm.

For New Orleanian perspectives, I highly recommend Rose's collection. Right place, right time, and the perfect guy. It sets the tone for you.

As far as an outlier's perspective, I was in Baton Rouge. Lived here all my life. The day of the storm, the guys I worked with were calling around trying to put together a Hurricane Party. Rough weather, lot of rain, downed trees and power lines. Nothing devastating.

I remember Blanco on TV looking like a total dilletente asking us to be courteous drivers and bullshite like that as she tried to say the worst was over (before the stranded were engulfed in flooding in NOLA). But what happened in BR afterwards was eerie.

What I mean by that is when I went back to work after a few days off without power, the city was bursting at the seams. I worked off Sherwood near Coursey at the time. Every single piece of open green on the side of the road was occupied by folks who got the hell out of wherever they were from South of what seemed like Ascension and Livingston. They were just hanging out around their cars. Walking to the Starbucks by the Celtic offices. Walking to the gas station. Hanging out and commiserating with each other. Racially diverse mix of people with absolutely nowhere to go and no idea what to do next.

Baton Rouge felt like a cotton button down long sleeve shirt that got washed in hot water by accident. Overnight it was two sizes too small and was almost cutting off the circulation in your neck when you tried to put it on.

I worked with a really racially diverse group of mainly guys at a mortage company. About 100 Loan Officers that luckily marketed regionally as well as Louisiana. So in reality we were able to go right back to work and make money.

But people were nervous. Rumors about unrest downtown at the River Center had my boss freak out and go grab his kids out of school and get home. Had a group of about 15 guys come to me at work and ask if I knew the way to BJ Pawn and Gun in Denham. They asked because they heard they had a big collection of guns and they all wanted to buy a handgun "for protection". This wasn't one or two guys, either. They were Latino, white and Black. People were just nervous and uneasy.

I can remember volunteering to drop some supplies off in West La and taking a trip across the new MSRB after the storm. The gas prices at the time in BR and Denham were ridiculous. Everyone was feeling them.

Yet as soon as we crossed the bridge and made it to Opelousas, prices were normal, and the world was too. People, power and daily life was like nothing happened. Just 20 minutes away.

Blew my mind...

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But people were nervous. Rumors about unrest downtown at the River Center had my boss freak out and go grab his kids out of school and get home. Had a group of about 15 guys come to me at work and ask if I knew the way to BJ Pawn and Gun in Denham. They asked because they heard they had a big collection of guns and they all wanted to buy a handgun "for protection". This wasn't one or two guys, either. They were Latino, white and Black. People were just nervous and uneasy. 

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Also forgot about that. My dad (no where near a big 2nd amendment guy) started carrying on the way to work every day b/c of all the reported carjackings. WWL radio was the only source of news for a lot of folks for a long time. I was an LSU student at the time and remember seeing armed national guard all over campus, and emails saying to stay in your dorms with locked doors b/c of undocumented people on campus. I also remember the track and field stadium turning into a giant helo pad, and the field house into a hospital.

That was my first week or so in Louisiana. Got a week of of school at LSU and really didn't have a problem. BR's problems mostly came from the fallout of people coming in from NOLA. Our dorm had families living in it for a few weeks.

I wasn't expised to a lot of stuff New Orleans natives were, but I still get pissed when out of state-ers try and weigh in.

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The hurricanes of the last decade seemed to finally kill any fleeting notion of throwing a hurricane party when one comes near.

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I was in new orleans for a hurricane party for katrina.

I had a hurricane party during gustav.

We BBQed under the patio for isaac.

I was golfing after Katrina and saw footage of people without water. Wr decided to load 8 guys in a lifted f250 and fill the back with bottled water. Drove down and national guard let us in with strict orders to be careful. It was worse than distributing food in north africa.

We were thankfully armed.

Never again.

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in laws in White Castle and told them to drive to Houston

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....why?

Weather was perfect, we were golfing literally the following day?

Oddest thing I just remembered was the town was on curfew because of all the fine upstanding emigrants. The local bar didn't have power that first night after, but was seling beer from ice chests. Some small police department from down the bayou saw it and rushed the bar trying to arrest people (bar owner, ocal politicians, and out of uniform pd)

Local PD and SO arrived and it looked like it was gonna escalate. They ended up run out of town. But it was a tense 20 minutes.

It was terrible.

Wow skillet that's cool, remember their last names??