JLTraveling
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2005
- Messages
- 2,709
This Sunday, August 29, marks the 5-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. I know it didn't have the same global impact as 9/11, but for those of us who were impacted, it was pretty devastating. I'd like to invite everyone to share your stories.
New Orleans is my adopted home. I moved to the French Quarter shortly after 9/11, but I knew since I first visited as a teenager that someday I would live there. My parents came to visit that Christmas, and ended up selling their house in FL and renting an apartment in the Quarter. Hurricane Ivan in 2004 was supposed to be the big one, and we ended up sitting in traffic for nearly 16 hours to make a normally 6 hour drive to Arkansas. After that, my mom decided she didn't want to spend another hurricane season in New Orleans. My parents bought an RV and decided to go full-timing. Ten days after that, exactly three weeks before Christmas 2004, she unexpectedly passed away.
Dad and I put everything into storage in Kenner, just outside New Orleans, and went to FL for a funeral with relatives. For a variety of reasons, we ended up staying through the summer. I was working at WDW when Katrina hit. The day before the storm, I was watching the weather forecast in the break room at Safaris with a bunch of coworkers. Everyone knew I was from NOLA. I made a comment about being really worried about my loved ones in the city, and one of the guys made a comment I will never forget: "You better call them all and say goodbye. They're all going to die!"
I broke into tears and ended up not giving the best show on my next couple of rounds. Thankfully my shift ended shortly after.
I stayed up all night watching the Weather Channel and feeling helpless. The next morning I went in hoping for an ER. Supervisors were handing them out left and right, but for some reason didn't want to give me one. I remember ending up in some upper management office arguing that my home was being destroyed and for some reason I was expected to work while people were going home just because. The TV was on in the office and they broke into the program with a special report from New Orleans. I pointed to the TV, and suddenly everybody in the room got it. I got my ER and went home to watch and wait.
Over the next couple of weeks, I was a mess. I kept hearing rumors out of Kenner, and I had no idea what the status was on our belongings. I also wasn't able to reach most of friends. The union rep happened to be at Safaris that day, and I ended up pouring out my story to him. He was the first one to point out that Dad and I were victims too. He helped me arrange time off from work, and the Red Cross gave us travel money and put us up in a hotel in Mississippi, about five hours from New Orleans. Turned out that our storage unit took three feet of water. By the time we were able to get to it, it was coated in black mold. I was able to salvage a few things that were stored up high, especially my mother's collection of music boxes. But almost everything was destroyed
I lost a lot in the storm. My belongings, my city, my ability to go home. We did go back for awhile in 2007, but things were definitely not the same. To this day, I've been unable to contact quite a few people, including my next door neighbor. She had always sworn she'd never leave, and there was water to the rooftops on our street. Still, I know that things could have been so much worse for us.
New Orleans is my adopted home. I moved to the French Quarter shortly after 9/11, but I knew since I first visited as a teenager that someday I would live there. My parents came to visit that Christmas, and ended up selling their house in FL and renting an apartment in the Quarter. Hurricane Ivan in 2004 was supposed to be the big one, and we ended up sitting in traffic for nearly 16 hours to make a normally 6 hour drive to Arkansas. After that, my mom decided she didn't want to spend another hurricane season in New Orleans. My parents bought an RV and decided to go full-timing. Ten days after that, exactly three weeks before Christmas 2004, she unexpectedly passed away.
Dad and I put everything into storage in Kenner, just outside New Orleans, and went to FL for a funeral with relatives. For a variety of reasons, we ended up staying through the summer. I was working at WDW when Katrina hit. The day before the storm, I was watching the weather forecast in the break room at Safaris with a bunch of coworkers. Everyone knew I was from NOLA. I made a comment about being really worried about my loved ones in the city, and one of the guys made a comment I will never forget: "You better call them all and say goodbye. They're all going to die!"
I broke into tears and ended up not giving the best show on my next couple of rounds. Thankfully my shift ended shortly after.I stayed up all night watching the Weather Channel and feeling helpless. The next morning I went in hoping for an ER. Supervisors were handing them out left and right, but for some reason didn't want to give me one. I remember ending up in some upper management office arguing that my home was being destroyed and for some reason I was expected to work while people were going home just because. The TV was on in the office and they broke into the program with a special report from New Orleans. I pointed to the TV, and suddenly everybody in the room got it. I got my ER and went home to watch and wait.
Over the next couple of weeks, I was a mess. I kept hearing rumors out of Kenner, and I had no idea what the status was on our belongings. I also wasn't able to reach most of friends. The union rep happened to be at Safaris that day, and I ended up pouring out my story to him. He was the first one to point out that Dad and I were victims too. He helped me arrange time off from work, and the Red Cross gave us travel money and put us up in a hotel in Mississippi, about five hours from New Orleans. Turned out that our storage unit took three feet of water. By the time we were able to get to it, it was coated in black mold. I was able to salvage a few things that were stored up high, especially my mother's collection of music boxes. But almost everything was destroyed
I lost a lot in the storm. My belongings, my city, my ability to go home. We did go back for awhile in 2007, but things were definitely not the same. To this day, I've been unable to contact quite a few people, including my next door neighbor. She had always sworn she'd never leave, and there was water to the rooftops on our street. Still, I know that things could have been so much worse for us.
