I had moved to the Las Vegas area just before Katrina hit. Easily the most surreal experience of my life was having lunch at a nearby bar / rest. and watching the coverage on TV. Turns out that one of the waitresses there was from St. Bernard, so as we started seeing the first pictures of the flooding and damage, we'd point out landmarks to others watching and ask each other if we still had lots of family / friends down there. I guess that my mind went into something of a protection mode, because while I knew what I was seeing was real, something in me tried to take it in as if it were a bad movie. I kept thinking, "look outside, everything's fine."

I learned a long time ago that whenever I'm back in New Orleans, I don't mention anything Katrina related. Folks know that I'll listen if they want to talk about it, I just don't initiate any conversations along that line. I still have friends that were NOFD, NOPD and first responders. They tell me stories that one would associate with Vietnam or Iraq. My first time back home post Katrina was March of 2006. I was flabbergasted by what I saw. All of my friends would tell me, "this is far better than what it was. Be glad that you weren't here immediately after."

I'm not a person that's given to emotional outbursts or getting in someone's grill but I did have an experience like that a couple of months after the storm. I was at a friend's house on a Sunday watching football when a Katrina relief PSA came on. One moron made a remark to the effect of, "OK, we get it. Katrina was terrible. Enough about it already." I snapped, got 2 inches from his face and let him have it. "News flash, a-hole. Those people are "sick of Katrina" as well. Unlike you, they can't turn off the TV, go outside and make it go away. How about doing the world a favor and having a massive heart attack so we don't have to hear any of your ignorance every again?" Talk about making a room go quiet in a hurry...