Does anyone else feel this way post Katrina?

[LaLa]

Is it just me, or does anyone else feel like this...I can't look at new furniture or anything like that without seeing it covered in mold and mud sitting on the side of the road. I was looking at house plans last night and every one that I looked at, I just imagined it with a flood water line up the walls. I know this will pass in time, but I just can't see anything pretty that is materialistic in a sense without my mind's eye viewing it as potential rubble. I guess I am somewhat surprised in that we were part of the lucky few in that we are still in our home. We did take on water and had a lot of cleanup to do, but we are still here. All of our neighbors are in FEMA trailers and not able to be in their homes. I could see it if we weren't in our home, if we had more damage, etc. DD4 talks about Katrina a lot. She has more nightmares now than before and has to sleep with us at night. The other day she was drawing and drew a picture of "Hurricane Katrina". It was this big grey blob and ahead of the blob was a stick figure. She said it was chasing "Miss Ann", her ballet teacher whose home was destroyed by the storm. I have tried to reassure her the best I can, telling her that Mommy and Daddy will keep her safe and that's why we leave when hurricanes come, etc. I don't know. Like I said, I'm sure it will pass in time. Just wondering if anyone else is going through this too or if we are the only ones.

 

[dixipixi]

I just have a case of the "blahs". I'm usually about 1/2 way through my Christmas decorating, have the gifts bought, and parties planned by now.

Not this year. Of course, we've had to rebuild our house...so you really can't decorate a construction zone. But...it just seems senseless. I don't feel like buying any gifts because I think, "why bother...whatever you give will just be ruined the next time we have a storm."

We didn't have flooding here, so no flood water lines. It just makes me sick to see all the open spaces where we used to have trees. It seems like it is 20 degrees hotter here all the time with our shade gone.

My son is 12, so he has not had a problem with nightmares, but he told me today that he keeps having a dream where everything we've done to our house is wiped out in a storm and we have to live in a tent forever.

It's just sad. You can actually "feel" the sadness in the air around here. So many people lost so much. Everyone around here has worked nonstop 7 days a week since the storm just trying to get things cleaned up. No one has had any free time to just goof off and do something fun. Not that there's anything fun to do with NO closed down.

Hope you get to feeling better soon and that your life gets somewhat back to normal as soon as possible. My thoughts are with you.

 

[C.Ann]

You're probably going to think I'm nuts, but in regards to the holidays.. How about the neighbors all pull together and have a block party of some sort.. Doesn't have to involve gifts - just all of you getting together for some good food and good times and focusing more on the spiritual side of the holiday?

Just a thought you might want to kick around..

 

[LaLa]

You're probably going to think I'm nuts, but in regards to the holidays.. How about the neighbors all pull together and have a block party of some sort.. Doesn't have to involve gifts - just all of you getting together for some good food and good times and focusing more on the spiritual side of the holiday?

Just a thought you might want to kick around..

Last year, us and some friends of ours around the corner started planning to have a Halloween Block party for this year. Unfortunately, that didn't pan out. That was before the FEMA trailers started arriving in everyone's yards and people were just too far flung. There was debris piled up and local government basically advised against anyone trick or treating. It might not be a bad idea for Christmas though. Most of the debris has been removed now. I think a lot of people are just working like crazy to at least get their den/living room area in their homes finished so they can at least put up a Christmas tree and open presents under it this year. It will be a very different Christmas for sure this year for a lot of people. I too feel like why bother with a lot of presents, etc. because you can't bring it all with you the next time a hurricane comes. Every year at work we wrack our brains to try to come up with a present idea for our boss, who is an attorney. He always had everything. And I mean everything. There was never anything that you could buy him that he didn't already have. Well, he is now one of the new homeless, and the other day at work, we were doing our usual, "What are we gonna get him this year, he's so hard to buy for" thing, like we almost forgot for a moment, and then it hit me, he needs everything all over again.

Ah well, just gotta roll with it, right?

 

[dixipixi]

We're actually planning a big New Year's party. We will have a live band, lots of food, dancing, fireworks, etc. Everyone seems to be looking more forward to that than Christmas! I think it's mostly because it's not focused on presents and material things...just getting together and having a good time.

For the first time in a long time, I'm looking forward to the New Year. We have had a terrible year. Just a lot of things going wrong and Katrina was the icing on the cake. I'm so looking forward to 2006.

I actually heard a teenage girl on the NO news this evening say she was glad to be back at school and see everyone because now she knew that her friends and family were the only things that mattered and material things didn't mean anything to her anymore. Wow! That statement from a teen.

It made me proud and it made me sad. That's the best way to describe how I've felt since Katrina...a confusing mixture of pride and sadness. I have been so proud of everyone around me and so sad at the same time that they have had to work day and night, sleep in tents, stand in line for water and ice. You just feel powerless.

Hopefully, the New Year will help everyone. I'm just hoping it's a LONG time between January and June!!!

 

[LaLa]

That's great about your New Years party, DixiPixi. Le Bon Temps Roulle.

That's what everyone needs around here. Ya think we could all get together and have one big huge tri state block party?????

 

[dixipixi]

Oh yeah!!! Everybody just meet up at my house!!!

We'll have a Bring-Your-Own-MRE, bottled water, and bug spray party!!!

We have these HUGE piles of uprooted trees everywhere, so we can surely signal Santa with our bonfire this year!!!!

 

[LaLa]

Oh yeah!!! Everybody just meet up at my house!!!

We'll have a Bring-Your-Own-MRE, bottled water, and bug spray party!!!

We have these HUGE piles of uprooted trees everywhere, so we can surely signal Santa with our bonfire this year!!!!

We are THERE!!!

Hey, I had gotten used to my MREs. The chicken tetrazzini was actually pretty good. At least compared to the PB&Js and chips that we were living on.
That was the first hot meal we had after the storm. I guess by that point, anything would taste like it came from CA Grill!!

MmmMmm Good!

 

[dixipixi]

We actually didn't have MRE's until about 5 days after the storm. At that point, we had eaten all the bread (and you couldn't buy any anywhere near here), and were absolutely sick of things off the grill. We were trying to use up things in the freezer before they went bad. You can believe we came up with some imaginative meal ideas! We were staying w/ my parents and with two teen boys in the mix...it was easy to use up a lot of it pretty quickly. Plus we always tried to feed anyone who showed up either needing or offering help.

We thought the MRE's were great because by that point we were all so physically and mentally exhausted that their simplicity was welcomed!!! After a long day of cutting trees, repairing fence, and trying to patch our house back together...nobody felt like coming in and starting a blazing fire (in 90+ degree heat).

 

[LaLa]

I hear ya. Yeah, we got ours probably about the same time frame. Until that point, we had cooked so much stuff on the grill. I always had this worry that I would cook something from the freezer that actually WASN'T good anymore, and we would all get food poisoning and there would be no hospital to go to. I don't know if you are from NO or from another area, but did yall have a big increase in crime right after the storm? DH is a police officer and he was working 24/7 right after. He said crime was absolutely rampant. Nobody's phone worked and I'm convinced that the criminals knew no one could call 911 for help. It was pretty scary. No power so no a/c. With 2 small kids, we could never decide whether to leave the windows open at night to get a breeze or close them to keep safe. I don't think I slept one wink until we got power back on. We eventually got a generator, but then ran out of gas and couldn't find any more to run the darn thing.

 

[Poppinsme]

Depression isnt it great. How about feeling guilty that we didnt get more damage. I feel guilty. We are still cleaning up today. We lost 10 large oak trees on our property. Just trying to get the last one off of the workshop. I cant sleep. My Dr. and I talked about this. He said he cant sleep either and has been working his butt of since the storm. His house is in Bayou St. John and he says its a ghost town there. His fam. is across the lake and he does not know if he is going to stay here. He misses his wife and kids. Thats the problem a lot of my friends dont want to come back to have this happen again. I can relate. I feel so lucky our roof stayed on but guilty because so many lost so much more. And so many people I know are so traumatized. I think there are going to be more suicides this xmas. But we are trying to live one day at a time. Its hard isnt it? I have lived through BAD tornados but nothing like this. 100 miles of devistation and thats not counting Rita. God Bless!! And we will come back. I am not giving up.

 

[LaLa]

I know that feeling well. I feel very guilty that we didn't get as much damage as some. I feel guilty that we are still able to be in our home. Almost everyone that I have spoken with that is still in their home speaks about this guilt. It's a heavy thing.

Yes, we will all come back stronger in the end. My boss had a suite at the Superdome so we came over to NO A LOT on the weekends. This was the last year on his contract-he has had it for 6 years now. It was always so much fun. He would sometimes put us and our spouses up at the Ritz and we would all go out the night before the game. We'd go eat at the Rib Room or somewhere similar. We met Richard Simmons there one night and we still laugh about his behavior.
Some of our best memories as a big group of girls working together have been in NO. You can tell we always had fun whether the Saints won or lost. We really miss it. I think I am going through Cafe du Monde withdrawal. It's all such a shame. What is the word on the Superdome? Do yall think they will tear it down and rebuild?

 

[dixipixi]

No, I'm not in NO. I'm on the northshore. I feel guilty everyday. Don't get me wrong...we had LOTS of damage at our house. But it was all wind/tree damage...no flooding.

I've lived here all my life and been through many hurricanes, but Katrina was another experience altogether. The wind had the most awful sound to it. We have a business in town about 8 miles from our house. Our business office is a huge metal/steel structure. We spent the night before and day during Katrina there. We didn't want to stay at our house because of the trees. We had huge oaks all around our home.

About 3pm we decided to head for home. The wind was still blowing, but the rain had pretty much stopped and the winds were down below 50mph by that time. It took us almost 3 hrs to drive that 8 miles. There were huge trees every few feet blocking the highway. Thank goodness DH had his chainsaws with him.

Well, I pull up in my driveway...and no oaks...and no house...and no car (we only took DH's truck with us)...no outbuildings...it was all crumpled under my beautiful oak trees.

It took us 3 days to cut our way into our house to check out the damage.
It turned out that the only damage to the house was that the back wall and porches had been removed. We have since put on a new roof and porches. We are in the final stages on that project. We have been able to stay in our house. It has been hard to live in a construction zone, but we've done it. I still have to renovate my kitchen because it was on the back of the house and water came in there. It's functionable and usable for now...but it has to be redone.

Anyway...I get discouraged everyday. I start to feel bad for myself. I look at my now ugly yard littered with storm and construction debris and I hate it. Then I think that I don't have any reason to feel like that. There are so many others who are so much worse off than we are. At least I'm not having to wait on a camper or having FEMA throw me out of my hotel/apartment.

I guess I'm trying to say that there's no way to account for who deserves to feel bad. We all have our days. Just because you're damage wasn't as bad as someone else's doesn't mean that you don't deserve to grieve for what you have lost as well. I know lots of people would think we're crazy for mourning the loss of our trees like we have...but we had a beautiful yard with them. Without them, it just seems bare.

As for the crime, I was very scared that first week or so. With no electricity (what good are generators when you can't get fuel for them?), it's very quiet at night and you hear all sorts of things. We're out in the country...but you never know what people will do when they are desperate. But after a few days, I learned that things would be ok. We were all working together and looking out for each other, so I began to feel a lot safer.

For all the destruction Katrina brought, she also brought our little community a lot closer together. Neighbors spent time with neighbors they had been too busy to see just a few weeks earlier. Sure, most of that time has been working, but we're all a lot closer for it.

 

[LaLa]

For all the destruction Katrina brought, she also brought our little community a lot closer together. Neighbors spent time with neighbors they had been too busy to see just a few weeks earlier. Sure, most of that time has been working, but we're all a lot closer for it.



You know, that is probably the one good thing that comes out of hurricanes. You really bond with your neighbors. We got to reknow them all pretty well through this thing. We were all sharing what we had and helping each other pull out carpet, furniture, etc. One of our neighbors lost her husband last year and lives with her elderly father. They stayed through the storm and had 5 feet of water come into their home. (We live about a block from an inlet that empties into the Gulf) Luckily they have a 2 story and were able to ride the rest of the storm out upstairs. So many people were in their attics with their cells trying to desparately get help.
Anyway, we helped them pull EVERYTHING out of their home, including the air conditioning ducts from under the house.
She said when the water came, it wasn't like she expected it would be. It didn't come in under the windows, doors, etc. like she had imagined. It came in from underneath their feet through the floorboards (their house is on stilts) and literally within about 1 minute was 5 feet high. It's like something out of a bad movie.