Contest: Win Four Romance Books

I run a contest a few times a year through my free newsletter. Anyone who signs up for the newsletter is entered in the drawing for the prizes. My next drawing is going to be Sunday, so if you don't belong to my newsletter and want the chance to win a few good romance reads, make sure you sign up today or before tomorrow evening when I will be doing the drawing. Winners are always picked from those who belong to the newsletter, and members are welcome to unsub at any time. (I also never share anyone's address or use it for anything more than the newsletter than goes out just a few times a year, and for contacting the winner of the prize.)

To sign up, just send a blank message to CharlotteDillon-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Or go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CharlotteDillon/

Drawing Date: January 1, 2006.
Prize: One person will win the following romance books.
Kill a Painted Pony by Kelsy George http://www.kelsygeorge.com
The Oldest Kind of Magic by Ann Macela http://www.annmacela.com
Temperature's Rising by Karen Kelley www.authorkarenkelley.com
Haunted Memories by Melanie Atkins www.melanieatkins.com

So Long 2005!

I can’t say I’m sad to see this year end. 2004 was a bad year, and then along came 2005. Ouch! Here’s hoping 2006 will be a better year. Happy New Years, everyone!

My Computer Works Again – Or – There’s Nothing Like An Old Love

I got my computer back last night. AND IT WORKS! It was the motherboard, so all’s well that ends well. (Smile) Okay, there’re still some problems. Like with my e-mail. I use MS Outlook Express. All of the shutting down the motherboard was causing fried Outlook Express. I can get and see my mail, but I can’t reply or even open my address book. (That means if I had your address before, I don’t now.)

So I’m using another e-mail program. I’ve tried others before, including Hotmail and Gmail, but Outlook Express was the first one I ever used, and nothing else seems to match it for me. Maybe it’s just because I’m so used to it. You used to could download Outlook Express and Internet Explorer at tons of sites….all free. They are after all free programs. But darn if I can find OE now. When I try to open my address book in OE it says to reinstall OE. That’s fine, if it would just tell me how and where to do it. (Smile)

Oh, well. I guess no relationship is perfect. (Smile)

It’s a Love Hate Thing

My mom used to have a saying about men, “You can’t live with ‘em and you can’t kill ‘em.” Of course she said this only in jest when she was teasing my father—though maybe there were some days in their many years of marriage when there wasn’t as much jest in her words as there were on other days. (Smile) Her jest was a rewriting in a way of a much older saying about men, “You can’t live with ‘em and you can’t live without ‘em.” I think the original saying fits my topic best.

It’s computers.

My computer.

It’s in the computer hospital today, so keep your fingers crossed that it lives. It’s been sick ever since I was able to come back home after the hurricane. I think with the house flooding, no AC, the heat and the humidity in here took a toll on it. Some RWC members seem to think so too, and so does the computer man. The hope is a new motherboard will take care of things.

I love my computer. I’ve loved everyone I’ve had. I sure use them enough, but sometimes I just really, really, really hate them too. (Smile) I guess it’s that thin line between love and hate. When my computer is working well, or even pretty well, I’m a happy girl. But when something goes wrong, it’s a nightmare. I handle so much stuff on my computer that it’s like losing a lifeline when something goes wrong. I’ve learned one lesson at a time about backing up, saving in other ways, but it still leaves things spread out, messes up my mail since I still mostly use Outlook Express, and generally disorganizes my whole routine of daily life.

This time I knew my computer was getting worse, so I made darn sure I saved stuff in other places and sent lots of important stuff to my husband’s computer, including lots of recent e-mail I needed to handle or have on hand. So wouldn’t you just know that now his computer is sick too. It got some kind of bug and opens pages on its own and blocks other stuff. It’s so bad that it’s pretty much impossible to use his computer on line at all. He is trying his best to clean it out, so maybe…

It’s just such bad timing. That leaves me using my very slow little ‘ol laptop. I’m just so lucky and thankful to have it. Best four-hundred I ever spent! Still, I’ve never used it for anything but writing, so I hadn’t worried about the internet stuff very much. It took some extra work, but I set my mail up on it, put some virus protection on it, hooked it up and updated every thing, and here I am—in love again. (Smile)

Guess I’m Normal After All

The day after I wrote my last post to my blog, the one about me being so upset and depressed, I found out I’m just normal. (Smile)

They had this whole thing on our local news the next day about how now, three months after the hurricane, it’s suddenly hitting people again. Sometimes with an even harder blow. They said it was a mixture of the holiday season, the extra stress, survival’s guilt, burn out, shock wearing off, flash backs, and people accepting that this was all real and not going away. Seems a whole lot of people are suddenly having trouble with depression and outburst of anger, even fear. They set up a 1-800 number so people could call to talk to someone about it all.

I guess between my blog and my many wonderful friends, I’ve gotta a head start on working through things. (Smile) It’s still nice to know if I’m going nuts, at least the boat’s gonna be full. (Smile)

By the way, I did finally send out X-mas cards, so I must be getting some better.

Shaking it Off

It’s been over three months since Katrina came through here, the side of the eye giving us a beating that I know I’ll never forget. But still, three months is a long time. I feel like I should be over it all ready. It’s a done deal. Yesterday. We survived and others didn’t. There’re much worse things in the world. My family was really lucky. It’s almost a whole brand new year. I should shake it off and move on.

Enough all ready!

To be honest, I really thought I had shaken it off and moved on, some time ago in fact.

And yet…

I took my daughter to school this morning and was driving back home, just like any other day. I went by Burger King with it’s twisted sign, by the new restaurant they had almost ready to open before that is now having to have a new roof put on and all of the inside work redone, I drove on down by the show with the chunks missing from its front, by the help needed signs every where that promise bonuses because so many people have moved away they can’t find enough workers to operate the businesses for normal hours.

A little further and I found that once again one of the lights on the main road was broken, then I had to take a detour because they had one road blocked still trying to repair phone lines. A little further and another detour because they were picking up hunks of tree trunks.

About then my son called on his cell phone to let me know he had made it to college and I could hardly hear him. The service is still not working about half of the time because of damage to cell towers in the area.

I finally made into my neighborhood and drove over the short little bridge that used to be so scenic but is now only a mess of bare land and missing or broken trees. I passed all of the other damage; huge tree roots side up, roofs covered with blue tarps, a house with the porch smashed off, a house with the backside of it damaged enough that the family is living in a FEMA trailer in their front yard, and all of a sudden out of no where, my hands were sweating, my heart was racing, and I was almost in tears. It was all I could do to hold them back.

When I got home I sat in my driveway and got control of myself, reminded myself how lucky I was that my family was still together and that our home was damaged but standing strong. After a few moments I came in and did e-mail, took care of my on line groups, fixed a page on my website. {I thought about working on my book, but I’m just not back there yet.}

I had just gotten up to do dishes when my phone rang. I smiled when I glanced at the caller ID and recognized the number of one of my dear on line friends who lives about halfway across the US from me but feels like someone I know better than some of my neighbors.

We chit chatted a while, laughed a bit, she asked if I had sent out X-mas cards yet or put up decorations. (I have a habit of going overboard in both areas. I just love Christmas!) Normally.

I said, “Not yet.” Then changed the subject.

She wasn’t letting me off that easy. “Why not? You usually drive me damn near nuts with all of the details and pictures.”

“I really don’t have room in the house for a tree this year with everything still piled up, and I don’t have the time for all of the other stuff,” I said, then changed the subject again.

When I finished that subject she got quite for a moment and then said, “You know, Charlotte, it’d be perfectly normal if you just didn’t feel up to going all out for Christmas this year. If you were still a little at… odds… emotionally. You’ve had a tough year. Hell, you’ve had a tough couple of years.”

I thought about the last two years; my father’s illness, his death, my oldest leaving home, my own battle with finding out that I was a diabetic, a scare with my son’s health, then his wedding, and then--Katrina. I couldn’t say anything for a moment. Finally I said, “Such is life.” And I changed the subject again.

She wasn’t having it. She interrupted me this time. “In the last three weeks your e-mails and phone calls have gotten so damn sweet and fake you should have to put a trademark symbol on them, like sweetened with Splenda!” She added a little bit more too with a few other words I won’t type here.

Okay. Now I was getting angry. “What are you talking about?”

“Something’s wrong. I can read it between every sentence you write me. I hear it in your voice over the phone. You aren’t you.”

“I’m not me! Then who the hell am I?!”

“Some stupid character you’ve made up who smiles while her insides fall apart one piece at a time. What a load of bull shit! I really thought you were a smarter person than that!”

Oh, that was it. I lost it. I started crying and yelling, and raising enough heck to rattle the windows. I let her know just how angry I was that she would say that to me, and then some how I strayed into other anger, then sadness, then fear, then more anger. While I raged on, my friend didn’t say a word. I didn’t even notice until the end, when the silence made me think she had hung up sometime during my fit and I was too loud to notice.

After a moment of quite I asked, “You still there?”

She laughed. She actually laughed.

I didn’t have any anger left, so I didn’t say anything. All I managed was to sniffle a little and hiccup once.

She finally said, “Do you feel better?”

“Huh?”

“You’ve been holding so much in, pretending things were all right--that you were all right--when it wasn’t true. I knew you had to be about ready to blow. I just lit the fuss.”

When my mother died a nurse told me that part of any kind of grief is anger. I don’t think I had really allowed myself that since my father’s death, and for sure not since Katrina. I felt--still feel--too lucky. Every time I get angry or feel sorry for myself I just end up feeling guilty for feeling that way. So many others ended up so much worse off than my family did. I feel like I have no right to feel anyway but lucky. I guess I just kind of used that as a reason to push my own anger and upset aside during the last few weeks. I ignored it, never really acknowledged it and got it out and over with so I could move on to the next step of healing.

My wonderful, dear, very wise friend made me give my anger a voice today.

We talked a good while longer after my outburst. By the time I hung up, I felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off of me.

So I’m not completely over what happened and I still have bad days and private pity parties. She assured me that doesn’t make me a wimp, much less a selfish monster. It was such a relief to hear someone say that. To have someone tell me it was normal.

I’ve decided that it’s okay for me to feel sad when I drive around town and see all of the damage that is still there, even though it could be worse. It’s okay for me to still cry over the family pictures and keepsakes that the floodwater stole from me, even if others lost more. It’s okay for me to get mad about all of the hard work we put into this home that we are having to redo now, even though some people lost their whole home. The greater pain and loss of others doesn’t take away my right to deal with my own and work my way through what ever I feel, even if it takes me months more to completely get over it and move on. Some of us shake things off quicker than others, and that’s fine too.

Feeling what ever I feel right now is okay. Not writing right now is okay. This too will pass as long as I don’t build a damn and keep it all locked in. Maybe those are good things for all of us to remember when ever we are going through some rough patch in our lives.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt any to have a wonderful friend who knows how to blow up damns. Right Lori? (Smile)

Hurricane Season Over!

Yes, it’s a done deal! Hurricane fest 2005 has come to a close.

Everyone in the costal states exhaled a sign of relief today. For six months we won’t have to worry and watch the news, fearing that the weatherman will announce yet another system building somewhere out there that might head toward us. I’ve spent my whole life here in this same Louisiana town, and I’ve never before counted down the days to the end of a hurricane season or dreaded the start of the next, but this was a special year.

Here’s to hopping that next year won’t be special at all! Well, it would be okay for it to be special because there were no hurricanes. That would be just fine! (Smile)

Proofreading Your Own Work

I entered a writing contest a while back. It was a free contest held by a large on-line RWA chapter I belong to. (If it hadn’t been free with entry sent by e-mail, I probably wouldn’t have worried with it because of when the deadline date was and the things that were going on.) I did enter though, and in a rush, the day after I was finally able to move back home after Katrina, but still, I proofread the pages more than once before I hit send. What I didn’t do was have the time to ask anyone else to read over them for me, which would have been a really good thing. (Smile)

I got my results back this week. Gosh, the stuff I missed that the judges found! I will admit my nerves were a little frayed when I was getting those pages ready to send, and I only had a few hours to do it in, but still, I made some big slips that I should have spotted. Like using interred when I meant entered, on for own, ties for tires, and periods in a couple of places where there should have been question marks.

Those are some pretty big slips to over look in a manuscript that’s supposed to show your professionalism. Each mistake was something I knew better than to do and should have caught, but for some reason I didn't see them at all. I try to be careful even with blog entries and e-mail, but I’m not much on proofing them, but those aren’t going out to a contest, an agent, or an editor. I’ve always considered myself really careful when proofreading manuscripts that I’m getting ready to send anywhere.

The big mistakes I over looked just proved to me again how important critiques are, even if it’s just a read through done by a friend who isn’t a writer.

Your E-mail Message – Your Reputation

There are a lot of writer’s groups out there today, and many writers turn to them daily for support and encouragement from others who have walked the fire with them. Writing is often a lonely and trying profession, probably one of the few where you have to open yourself up to rejection over and over, often for years before you make that first real sale. After that first book is published, you open yourself up in a brand new way to even more people. Surrounding yourself with other writers, even on list, is like stepping into a warm embrace.

At least it should be.

But there are group members out there on any group who seem to take joy from stirring up trouble. If you say something is red, they say blue. Some like to feel superior, so no matter what you say, they know more than you do and no one’s answer but their own can be right. Others seem to thrive on negative energy. They will gladly point out your weaknesses and then take full advantage of them. Others will take insult to anything you say and send an attack missile in.

Ah, I see you are nodding your head. So, you’ve met Ms. ArgueWithAnyone, Ms. SmarterThanYou, and Ms. GiveUpWritingYouAreNotGoodEnough….as well as a few of their little friends.

Wait, before you nod too hard, are you ever guilty of the same things? Maybe without even meaning to or noticing that you are doing it. If ever in doubt, don’t take a chance, file that message away and read it over later before you hit send, or maybe just hit delete.

Why does it matter?

Because group members notice those troublemakers, even those who might do so often but blindly. Every time you send a message you are putting your reputation on the line. If you are a published author, or want to be one, when you send a message to a group you are speaking to your public. Writers are huge readers. I can’t name the number of times I’ve been contacted off list--I’m a group moderator--by members who are fed up with some certain other member’s posts. I get comments like, “I wouldn’t buy a book with her name on the cover if it was the last book in the store and I didn’t own a television or a radio!” I’m not overstating their feelings either. I’ve even heard worse with words I’m not going to add.

So before you forget that people can’t see a teasing smile in an e-mail message, or before you answer in haste or anger or even hurt…think it through. Think of how many people will see that message in that group. Think of how easy it is to forward that black and white print to others, privately, another group, a blog, or a website. Or even the fact that the group’s home page will save it for years for others to look at maybe at a much later date. Once you hurt someone or make them angry, they have a habit of remembering your name and what you said forever, and sharing their opinions of you.

It’s your call. You can send the kind of messages that will have people speaking well of you or you can show people a side of yourself that they might find really ugly.

What a Difference a Week Can Make

My husband Glen had a week’s vacation last week. For seven days we let the fur fly around here. (He’s much better at fur flying than I am, but don’t tell him I admitted that. Smile)

You wouldn’t think one week could make such a difference, but boy did it. The big oak tree that crushed our shed and just about every plant in our back yard, is all gone now. Well, there’s some huge hunks of it left back there, but it’s in hunks now….instead of one big tree. The crushed shed is gone, the limbs are gone, things are raked up and although a lot of the plants look worse for the wear, I know most of them will look better next year.

Inside, we finished moving things around and got a lot of the sheetrock tore out. We also got our new hot water heater in and it works great. We even have DirectTV now. We ordered it but they never showed up to install it. Fussing did nothing, so finally my husband, handsome jack-of-all-trades that he is, decided to give it a go and install it himself. He did it! So now we have channels again, lots of them. I can watch all kinds of things. (Smile) Our cable company says it is going to fix things here and come back, but I’m not so sure. I haven’t seen one of their trucks out fixing anything, and their office here is still shut down and boarded up.

We lost a number of businesses thanks to Katrina. Some were looted, some just threw in the towel, and some had already been on the edge, and such a long time of being shut down just gave them a final push. We lost a neat little corner Mexican place where we liked to grab a quick bite, our ACE Hardware, a gas station, and other places, including our theater, which was the only show we had here….it was also the only place for teens to even go out together at. It seems our local newspaper is hanging on, and is now delivering three times a week.

Sadly we have lost another person in town too. A man who worked with my husband died last week….doing the same thing my husband had to do….cleaning up a damaged tree from his yard. We have one huge oak left to saw up, but thankfully this one is flat on the ground instead of leaning against anything.

Hopefully the newest storm, Wilma, won’t have anything to help her get stronger and maybe she’ll fade away and then there won’t be any more to worry about this year.

Pictures of Bogalusa after Katrina

I put up a second picture page. The first page was filled with pictures of my home, yard and street after hurricane Katrina. The pictures on the second page are more after pictures, but these are from all over Bogalusa, Louisiana, the town I live in.

http://www.charlottedillon.com/Hurricane2.html

Things Could Always Be Worse

I’m a big believer in never saying that things can’t get worse, because they always can. I also have a habit of pulling myself out of feeling bad for myself about anything by simply taking a look around. Katrina was awful. The twelve hours or more than she pounded us was terrifying, the days afterwards, with the heat and the bugs and the worry over how long our food and water and meds would last was something I don’t want to ever go through again, but…

There’s always a but isn’t there. (Smile)

I still have only a few local channels, but I’ve caught some news and I have the MSN homepage. The two headlines there that caught my eye today were Thousands killed in Asia quake & Hundreds killed in Guatemala mudslide.

Like I said, Katrina was awful and thousands of people were injured or suffered, and probably by the time they get through with the counts, more than two thousand paid the highest price of all, the price of life. But… when you put two thousand up beside twenty, maybe thirty thousand, it puts things in a better perspective of just how very lucky the states that were hit by Katrina really were.

My city, Bogalusa, has a population of around fifteen thousand. That means everyone here could have died during Katrina and we still wouldn’t have reached the numbers from that earthquake alone. I can’t imagine being in the middle of that kind of death, where whole towns are gone, where maybe one single family member is left to stand alone without even a friend alive to turn to.

We got a really good taste of what it’s like not to have power, phone, running water, stores, police, even a hospital, but when it got too bad and we knew we couldn’t take any more, we were able to load up in my husband’s truck and drive away to help. It might have taken us a couple of days to cut a path to get that truck out, and maybe we had to drive hours away, but family was there waiting and we had the means to get there. Once there and near a phone, my on line sisters and others rushed to my aid. I received calls, cards, letters, even gift cards and money, to help me at least start to start over, to assure me I was cared for and held close with prayers, thoughts and warm light and love.

I had my husband, my children, even my pets, and we weren’t alone, not really, not for one single second. I wish it could be that way for everyone!

The Greatest Losses of All

It’s taken me a little while to write, or even mention very much about the things I lost that hurt the most. At first it was too painful to think about it in detail, and then I pulled something in my neck and back, trying to do too much around here, and have spent a number of days that mostly consisted of me in bed staring at nothing, waiting for the pain to go away, for my neck and back to heal enough for me to get back to work on the thousands of things I need to do.

There was other pain there too though, emotional pain. Too much time to think, to relive, to regret. Most of that pain came from a couple of boxes of belongings that the flood waters of Katrina took away from me. They weren’t things that money could replace, like my furniture, my appliances, my car, my shingles or my walls. Losing those things hurt, but they were things that money and time and work, can and will one day replace.

But there are things that no amount of money or time can replace.

There were two big boxes in my house that got over looked during the flooding. Lots of things did really, since we never expected the water and since it came during the worst fury of Katrina, surviving seemed more important than saving things. These two boxes were in another room, in the back at the bottom of a closet, dusty and forgotten. I had actually looked for some of the things in them for a long time, and couldn’t find them. Couldn’t remember to save the world what I had done with them.

As soon as I began to dig through those boxes, I remembered.

I was putting some new photo albums and scrapbooks together and I had located a lot of family photos and keepsakes that I wanted to include. I just didn’t have the time to do it, so I put them all away in those two boxes for safe keeping, for a later date, for a time when I had more time.

The story of my life.

If I had only known then what I know now. If I had only put them on a top shelf, or in the attic, or found them before when I was searching for those old family photos to go on my family site, if I had thought about them and moved them, or if I had… Well, if only and if had were magic, I guess they would help. But they are only words and what’s done is done.

I didn’t find those boxes until after we came back home, after Katrina was long gone. Nothing I had gone through or lost brought me to my knees, but the things in those boxes, as I looked through them and slowly realized what all was in them, and that nothing was left of it, that did bring me to my knees. I would have traded my whole house and everything else in it for what was in those two boxes, but hurricanes don’t make trades or deals and what is gone is gone.

Even now I can hardly bear to list the items that were in those boxes. I guess I’m doing it as a confession because I feel like somehow I failed the family members who have gone, the family members who are here, and even those who are yet to come.

In those cheap cardboard boxes were a number of years’ worth of pictures of my children and family, as well as other rare and precious, irreplaceable possessions. My kids’ baby books were in there, old black and white photos that no one else had of family members who died years before I was born, there were letters in there that my mother, a child bride, wrote to my father during World War II, letters he wrote back, the wedding vows my husband and I exchanged twenty-two years ago when we were young crazy teens who everyone said would never make it, in those boxes were clippings from my babies’ hair and the little hospital shirts they had on the day I removed them to dress them to come home, the signed guest books from my mother and father’s funerals, school pictures, keepsakes, odds and ends and many other things that make up the collection of a lifetime of special moments.

All of those things were nestled safely together, or so I thought, sitting and simply waiting for me to find the time to scan them into my computer, bind them into a scrap book, stick them into a photo album, or hand them down to my children.

All of those so dear scraps of paper and ink that was so easily destroyed by the rush of flood waters that filled my home on that awful morning, can never be brought back. They were in my safekeeping and I failed. And maybe that’s the hardest pain to take of all.

Some Pictures of Katrina

I took some pictures right after hurricane Katrina of my home and street and yard. I've put some of them up on my website, some of the ones I took with my digital camera.

If you want to have a look at them, you can find them here http://www.charlottedillon.com/hurricane.html

Little Things Mean A Lot

Less Debris - The city finally cleaned up some of the fallen trees from the side of my street yesterday. I didn’t have much in front of the house, but both sides of the street beside my house were filled with tree trunks and limbs. They didn’t do the whole street, but did both sides of half the street and a little more than half on the other side. It just looks so great not to see those tall wide piles of dead tree debris! We still have piles of stuff from inside our house out there on the other side of the street, like my living room furniture and my refrigerator, but I know day by day, street by street, pile by pile, things will get better.

Daily News - I got a newspaper yesterday. There was no paper for weeks, and then we started getting a “daily” newspaper twice a week, Wednesday and Sunday. Then yesterday suddenly there was a Friday newspaper. Maybe that means more days? Another step back into normal!

TV News - I have a couple of local channels I can watch on a real TV! (Local for us is New Orleans.) Until now we’ve gotten one channel out of Mississippi on our little snowy black and white portable TV. The cable company hasn’t even sent in workers here yet because there is so much damage. The word is that it will be six months to a year before we have cable TV again, and maybe even much longer. But now my husband has put an outdoor antenna up for us--the things we went through to get that darn antenna. The channels we get are out local ones, so we know what’s going on in Louisiana, like the weather, what’s being opened where and what’s still closed. We get one channel in clear, another a little snowy, and then five more that we mostly can’t get in good enough to watch, though a couple come in better at night, but it’s all local stuff! (Smile)

Back to School - Talking about things opening…my daughter’s high school will be opening up for classes Monday. The schools here still have damage and need a lot more work done, but the kids have already missed over a month of school, so it’s time they get back. As it is the school board will be taking away holidays, adding nearly an extra hour a day to classes, and extending the school year by at least a couple of weeks. Duke Power that has been down here helping had been sleeping at the high school, since they were there, they did a lot of work that they weren’t even asked to do. They also gave the school a check for five thousand dollars to help replace some of what was lost. The Pennsylvania National Guard that has been here helping out so much put in time working on things at the school too.

Help From Others - If any of you know someone in the Pennsylvania National Guard or someone from NC that works for Duke Power, or those who give or help with the Southern Baptist Convention Disaster Relief from Illinois, tell them how much their help meant to us down here. I don’t know what we would have done with them, and the help of so many others who came down here in these awful conditions and terrible heat and gave their time to smaller areas like ours that didn’t have the same press value as places like New Orleans. Just saying thanks seems like nothing at all compared to the help they gave us.

Some Thoughts, Observances, and Opinions

Bogalusa Is Gone – At least lots of companies seem to have us listed that way, as destroyed, as no more. It makes it really hard to get a lot of things trucked or sent in here to us.

We are here. I swear we are here. It was bad enough when it seemed the government or the powers that be forgot about us in the first days, more than a week really, following Katrina, but now I feel like salt is being rubbed in an open wound. The repairman came, and joy oh joy after everything we are going to have to replace, he said that my freezer, which is less than two years old, can actually be repaired, but there’s one little problem. The parts’ company says Bogalusa is gone, so they won’t send in parts. The repairman said the office here is working hard on it and hopes to have things fixed in a couple of weeks so they can get the parts and fix my freezer.

Jellyfish – We have some. Well, we did. I doubt they are still alive. After all, jellyfish need saltwater and that’s not around here. How did we get jellyfish? Katrina brought them. There are a couple of large ponds at the sawmill where my husband works. When they where able to go back to work after Katrina, they found a new addition to the ponds, and it wasn’t more logs or big loud bullfrogs. It was small little bell-shaped jellyfish. Alive and swimming around. They don’t really swim though, do they? Well, they were alive and doing what ever you call what they do to get around. (Smile)

My Car – She’s gone. I know she flooded and has really been gone for four weeks, but the insurance company paid me her (very low) blue book value and then sent a tow truck to haul her away yesterday. I know it’s silly for me to be upset about it. I mean I’ve known for a month that she was dead, but she was my first nearly new car. The best car I ever had, I’ve babied her and cared for her to make her last, I didn’t owe one cent on her, and the insurance company just plops down a little money and hauls her away to some car graveyard without a glance back or a second thought. Like I said, silly of me to be so upset about it. But I guess we feel what and how we feel.

And While I’m on the Subject – I don’t understand insurance companies. Especially those that sell homeowners insurance. I’ve paid mine for over twenty years without one claim. Now I really need it and it’s hardly worth the paper the policy was written on. We made sure we had hurricane coverage, but guess what, that doesn’t cover water damage even when it’s caused by a hurricane. Go figure.

Blessings – I know I’m whining and complaining above--that whole weak human thing I’ve mentioned before. (Smile) But I know I’ve been really blessed. Sometimes I think we get so caught up in the bad that happens that we forget about the good, like that old saying about feeling sorry for yourself because you didn’t have shoes until you saw someone who didn’t have feet.

I might only get one station on our little black and white TV, but I’ve seen enough there on news in just the last couple of days to remind me of how blessed my family truly has been and is. After all, we might have lost our shoes, but by darn we still have our feet.

On top of that, I sure have a lot of great friends to dance with, even if we have to do it on line through e-mail and blogs. Thanks to every one of you who has danced the Katrina jig with me. Can’t say it hasn’t been interesting. (Smile) If it’s all the same though, let’s sit the next fast one out.

There’s No Place Like Home!

It’s been four very long weeks today since Katrina turned the world upside down for me. But yesterday, things righted in a huge way. I moved back into my own home! (Smile) I’m writing this on my own computer in my own tiny little office under my own lights using my own DSL. (Smile)

We can’t use the whole house since half of the rooms--the ones we’ve added since we bought the place twenty-two years ago--have to have the sheetrock and insulation ripped out and redone before they will be safe to use. But luckily the older part of the house is brick with interior block walls. We’ll need to repaint them and do some work in the older rooms, but nothing that will keep us from living in them while we work. We lived in this house while we built each new room on, so we can deal with the mess again. At least we’re home!

We had worked hard and planned to move in Saturday, but Rita messed things up for us. We still have two trees on each side of our house. The two biggest ones are next to the two rooms we are going to be sleeping in each night, so we figured it was best to wait until the winds from Rita were over before coming home. (Plus, we mostly stayed under a tornado watch because of Rita from Friday until early Sunday.)

Rita hit the Louisiana/Texas state line, and since we are on the Louisiana/Mississippi state line, I really didn’t believe the weather reports I found on line about the winds and rain we were going to get from her. But we got it.

Friday was a little rainy and windy and cloudy, but not bad. Saturday morning though the wind really picked up. The gusts were pretty strong, probably the highest about forty miles per hour or so. They were the worst about the time Rita was straight across from us. A few small limbs came down that were already weakened probably, some of my plants we had moved outside got knocked over, and a couple of pieces of tin and a lot of the blue tarps and such covering damaged roofs, including our own, got blown off. By late Saturday night I think the worst of the winds were over, and from the weather channel website I knew she was moving up and dying down, but we still got some good gusts all the way through the night, and even had a good wind going Sunday morning sometimes. The spells of rain we got didn’t last too very long though and were far between and then finally none.

Heck, after Katrina, Rita was next to nothing here in Bogalusa.

I will admit she played havoc on already threadbare nerves and ragged emotions. Almost everything in Bogalusa shut down Thursday evening and didn’t reopen until today, even the banks. The mail hasn’t even run since Friday morning. My son’s college is about an hour and a half away, closer toward where Rita hit, so it was closed too and the parish beside us was partly evacuated. (The schools here in Bogalusa haven’t ever reopened, though the hope is for them to be able to next week.)

Each time a heavy band of rain moved through Friday and Saturday I thought it would bring rolling water with it or last until it reflooded my home. It didn’t. I just knew those strong wind gusts were going to bring another tree down on my home, or on my husband’s truck. My son had already replaced his car since he has such a long drive back and forth to school each day and his wife’s car wasn’t in good enough shape to keep making that trip. His new car was parked under the half of his carport that made it through Katrina. Most of the day Saturday the winds we got from the side of Rita were strong enough to keep lifting the end of the carport. He just knew it was coming down on his car, but there was no where safer to move it because of the trees, or parts of trees, that are still standing, as well as the debris that the wind flung around.

I’m more than happy to report that through all of the weekend bad weather our power didn’t go out, though it flicked and blinked a few times and I feared it would go.

By Sunday we were a little worse for the wear, but we packed up our things and brought them home. Things aren’t perfectly clean here, but it’s our mess. (Smile) We spent a few days here after Katrina, what a nightmare that was, then we spent over a week all the way up at the top of Arkansas with my sister. She had one tiny spare bedroom. My husband and I shared the bed in there and my daughter slept on a cot-size mattress on the floor near the foot of our bed. My son and his wife slept on a mattress in the living room.

When we came back to Bogalusa we stayed with our son and his wife for two weeks. They didn’t have an extra room so we slept on a mattress on their living-room floor and my daughter slept on the couch.

I can’t tell you how great it feels to be back in my own home! I’m not back in my bedroom. That was one of the new rooms. But my daughter is back in her room and we are in the bedroom that used to be my son’s. We also have full use of the kitchen, my little office, and the bathroom. Not a bad setup at all! (Smile) We worked our butts off the last two days, and today won’t be much better, but that’s just fine.

We bought a new refrigerator last week. Yesterday we got out and bought milk, eggs, butter, cheese, mayo, lunchmeat, and all that kind of good stuff that you find in your fridge every day. I even have a gallon of sugar-free tea in there. Something I haven’t had any of since the hurricane. I planned to be refilling my freezer too. We plugged it in to check it a couple of weeks ago when we got back to Bogalusa. It ran so we thought it was working. We found out this weekend that we were wrong. I just finished paying for that darn thing a few months ago too. There’s so much we need to replace, repair, or redo, but I guess the only way to do it is just one step at a time. The most important needed things first and then every thing else as we can. I supposed the freezer, hot water heater and my car should be the next three things. We’ll take the others in some kind of order as we get to them.

Cleaning up more is first on the list for the next few days. Since we stayed after Katrina I was able to get all of our wet clothing out of the house and hang it around on lines and the fence to dry. (Got an awful sunburn doing it.) Being dry saved most of the clothes, but didn’t clean them any, so I have tons of wash to do. We’ve cleaned the mud and everything off of the floors, but everything in the house has a coating of dirt and grime on it. Some things are worse than others. I went to get a bowl out of one of the lower cabinets last night, one I thought was fine, but when I pulled the biggest bowl from the bottom of the stack, I found a little water in it and nasty dried stuff where it had been filled much more. I guess everything in the bottom cabinets will have to be pulled out and washed…. I probably should just wash every dish in the house. There’s just so much cleaning to do, and don’t we all hate housework to begin with. (Smile) We are still working in the yard too, cutting up fallen trees.

Now that I’m home and have my own computer and internet hookup back, I will finally be able to begin catching up on e-mail, hopefully by tomorrow. Of course I have a ton of messages to get through and I’m not even sure I got a lot of them. Seems sections of them, like a day or two’s wroth at a time, just never came through when I finally got where I could get to a computer and get mail. I also plan to be taking my place back over the RWC groups in the next few days or so. I’m sure the ladies who have worked so hard to watch over those groups and keep things going smoothly are sure glad to read that sentence after so long of a spell. (Smile) Now that I’m on my own computer, and can even get into my website and do an update on things when I have the time.

In other words, life is going to get back to normal here. I never realized what a great thing normal is.

Rita Go Away!

We only get one channel on our little portable black and white, and that’s a station out of Biloxi, Mississippi that we barely pick up. (New Orleans stations were our local channels here and they aren’t there any more. Even most of the radio stations we always listened too are gone.)

That one Mississippi television channel is enough for us to get news and to know that Rita is out there and will be in the Gulf soon. They have her path heading to Texas right now, but are saying that Louisiana isn’t in the clear and we won’t have a better idea for sure of what her path will be for a couple of days. I’m not wishing her on anyone, but the thought of another hurricane, another really bad one, hitting us right now is enough to make me want to curl up into a ball and stay there.

The last bad hurricane we took a direct hit from before Katrina came about twenty years ago, and even then it wasn’t as strong as her. They are saying that Rita won’t be as strong as Katrina either, but she’ll be close. With houses already damaged and trees and tin and wood every where still, if a hurricane hit here right now, even one a good bit weaker than Katrina, it would be a horror. All of that loose stuff would become deadly missiles in hurricane force winds. Trees and structures already weakened by the first strike would give way with ease. It’s just too awful to think of, so I’m trying really hard to just not think about it.

I mentioned yesterday that we started getting our local newspaper again at last, but then I found out later that they are only publishing it on Sunday’s and Wednesday’s. At least that does give us some local news and lets us know what’s going on here around us. We are getting mail daily, but it is a piece here and there. My sister mailed me something almost a week ago and I haven’t gotten it yet. It used to take about three days to get mail from her. Bills are coming in that were mailed just before the hurricane. Guess I should have known those would get through sooner or later no matter what. (Smile)

We went into our house yesterday with a pump sprayer like you would use on bugs or fruit trees, but we filled ours with bleach. We sprayed every where we dared and a few places we probably shouldn’t have. That mold is no doubt dying a painful death even as I type this…or maybe as I slept last night. We need to get it under control before we start ripping out sheetrock and insulation and flooring.

Sadly going through to spray meant looking close enough to find some things I had lost to the water that I hadn’t been in the house enough to notice or just hadn’t spotted or thought of until yesterday. Like some of my iron pots, things I had in the bottom of my hope chest, and even my huge collection of stamps that I kept in a big thick plastic box under my bed. The lid was floating on top of it and the inside was filled with water. I bought a lot of the stamps new, in what they called mint condition, but more than half of them were used stamps. I liked collected used ones, different pictures, different kinds, from different places. Thanks to a couple of dear friends, who are both gone now, I had used stamps in my collection from all over the world. I had sections that were made up of butterfly stamps, horse stamps, different shape stamps, you name it. I’m not sure what hurts worse, losing the stamps or the connection to those two dear lost friends I felt when I looked through the stamps they helped me find.

I hope we have found all of the ruined stuff now.

Before I post this I want to take a moment and say thanks to everyone who has called, posted a comment, or sent me an e-mail checking in, checking up, or just sending good wishes and thoughts or prayers. I know I haven’t had the chance to really respond to more than a couple or so, but every single call or message or comment has meant so very much to me and to my family.

Thanks from the bottom of our hearts! You’ve all made me feel so very special and cared for!

Life with Katrina - Part Seven

Sunday September 11 through Sunday September 18

Life might not be what it was before Katrina, right now it doesn’t feel like it will ever be again, but it’s much better than it was for the first two weeks after her visit. We have power, running water, phones, and even internet--though I’m not on my own computer. The water pressure dipped a few times during the week, but is about normal now. The water is still unsafe to drink, so we drink bottled water and I boil water every day for the dogs.

We are so grateful to have phone and power. There are lots of people here who have only one or the other, or neither. We were lucky in the fact that our homes are along the main grid that supplies the hospital and other important things. (Something you might want to think about next time you’re looking for a house to buy or rent.)

The home phones weren’t working too well when we got home, but have gotten a little better each day. Now they seem to be fine most of the time, of course there are lots of people and places around here we can’t call because they don’t have phone service yet. Our cell phones still don’t work, but my son’s does now and then. The internet is a little less reliable. Sometimes I can get on line and sometimes I can’t. Often it means trying over and over, and then only getting on for a few minutes before I’m kicked off. I’m really not doing any e-mail for now but will play catch up later, I promise. If you sent me a message it might take me awhile, but if I actually got it, I will get around to sending a reply.

I’m writing my blog entries off line as I have a moment here or there, then when I manage to get on line, I post it. There’s not much time to be on line anyway really. We only have one phone line here and dial up, so being on line ties up the phone, and we are stilling getting calls from our insurance companies with questions and follow ups and such, and better still, from caring family and friends.

Needless to say, there is no cable. We tried to find an antenna but there isn’t one even in any of the towns around us. Satellite systems are sold out too, and there’s a waiting list weeks long to get someone out to add one to your home. At least we do have a little portable black and white that picks up one channel out of Mississippi. Of course it’s a station that plays nothing we like to watch and the screen is so tiny and the picture so snowy we’d all have to hover around to see it anyway. (Smile) At least we can watch, or should I say listen, to news on it, although they only talk about Mississippi.

I’m not too happy about the news right now. Yesterday they mentioned Rita. She will reach hurricane strength this week and work her way into the Gulf. They are showing her going across the Gulf below us, maybe getting Texas it looks like, but Katrina was supposed to go up and get Florida when she came here. Watching that weather report made me sick, literally. There’s nothing we can do though, but watch and wait and pray. To be honest, I’m too emotionally battered to even think about it much right now.

There is still damage every where here in Bogalusa and the places around us. There will be for a long time. I know with so many trees gone, the area won’t look even near to the same for probably twenty years or maybe double that time. Tress are still down in yards every where and huge piles of them, or even whole trees, are stacked high on both sides of most roads. There are still down lines and leaning tress over many streets. Our little city can only do so much.

Smaller communities like ours and others here in Washington Parish and the surrounding areas, what you would call rural areas, haven’t received the same aid and assistance or even attention as larger more metropolitan areas. We kind of got over looked in the shuffle with those bigger cities like New Orleans, Gulf Port, Biloxi and others all getting so much coverage. The reports say that they are having trouble locating and accessing the resources they need for smaller communities. I know our mayor and others are doing the best they can in a very difficult situation.

We have had help too though, and it’s been very greatly appreciated. Crews from Duke Power in North Carolina showed up in Bogalusa in huge numbers. It’s thanks to them that I have power all ready. We are safe here thanks to the Pennsylvania National Guard. I will admit watching those trucks roll up and down the roads filled with armed soldiers or going into Wal-Mart and finding them strolling the aisle on guard with loaded M16 rifles in hand, gives me a little pause, but in the same second it gives me comfort. Things had gotten bad here before we left, and from what I’ve seen and heard, it got worse after we left. More people fighting in lines or parking lots trying to get food or water, looters not only breaking into stores and taking what they wanted, but then setting them on fire, and, well, I guess you get the idea.

The Pennsylvania National Guard has been handing out lots of bottled water, ice, and even MRE’s. Let me tell you, those little ready to eat Army meals aren’t so bad when you’re hungry or sick to death of can goods or sandwiches. (Smile.)

Others have come in and set up shelters, fixed meals, handed out can goods, clothes, and what ever they had collected and could bring in. I guess it’s been a group effort with cities, churches and groups of all kinds and from all places helping out how and where and when they could. I know it’s all meant so much to everyone here in Bogalusa and every where else that has needed and gotten help, slow or how ever it came.


Monday September 19

As I write this, it’s been three weeks to the day since Katrina left. There are still armed shoulders riding around, walking around, and watching. We still have a curfew in affect, but many stores and even some fast food places are opened during the day. Each day more and more things are becoming available. I walked down to the store by my house yesterday and they had fresh vegetables and fruit and even ice cream. (Smile)

The insurance people and FEMA have all come now to see our house and cars. The auto insurance actually showed up the quickest, days ago. They totaled my car. I think I mentioned that in one of my earlier posts though. I wish they would come get it already, so I don’t have to keep looking at her just sitting there. I don’t know what I’m going to do about getting another car yet. Mine was in great shape and best of all, she was paid for. We have a truck that we are still paying for, so I’ll just have to see if I can use the little they are giving me for my car to make a down payment on another one and then stretch the budget enough to pay a car note along with a truck note. If not, we’ll just make it with the truck. We’ve done it before, for years, and that was when I had two kids to run to school and to all those meetings afterwards. I only have one to run around now. I’ll just take hubby to work at five in the mornings and then I can keep the truck to go and do what I need to.

The house insurance was a real disappointment. We have hurricane coverage, but when the man came out he said all of the damage inside our home was done by flood, and we aren’t covered for that, even though the flood was caused by a hurricane. That just doesn’t make any sense to me. If you have hurricane covered and that hurricane brings in a surge and floods your home, inland, well away from where anyone would even expect a flood, then it’s hurricane damage. They say no and they aren’t paying. They are going to pay something to fix the roof and the fences, but won’t say how much yet. FEMA came the same day, last Friday, so I’m hoping they will help. We won't know for a week or two more. I’ve heard they will loan money to do repairs and to replace things like my living room furniture and our refrigerator and all, at a really low interest rate with long-term small monthly payments.

We started working over at our house this weekend. We are hoping to at least get a few rooms livable in the next couple of weeks so we can finally go home. I’m really happy that my sister took us in for a week. And I’m happy my son was able to have us here in his home for now, but I just want to be back in my own home, even if it’s only part of it. I think everyone can understand that feeling.

My husband has gotten to go back to work, my daughter-in-law has too. My son’s college, SLU, which is about an hour and a half away has started classes again and he is using his wife’s car to go back and forth. (The insurance company totaled his car, too. He had only had it a year or so. They are going to pay it off and he'll still get a little bit for a down payment for another one.) My daughter’s high school here in Bogalusa isn’t supposed to be able to open back up until about October the 3, and that’s if they can get all of the damage repaired well enough by then to hold classes.

We started getting mail a little over a week ago, the day before we came back home. It comes in a piece here and there, and seems to be taking a long time for it to get here, but it is getting here. We also got our first local newspaper yesterday since Katrina. Each little thing is one more step back into the normal world, and right now the closer to normal things can get, the happier we all are.

Life with Katrina - Part Six

Saturday September 10

We got up at three that morning and intended to leave at four, but it was nearly five before we heading down my sister’s long driveway and then up the steep rocky road that lead to the highway.

The tranquilizers didn’t seem to be helping the dogs much at first, but after about an hour they settled down and we decided to drive as straight through as we could, only stopping when we had to for gas or to walk or water the dogs.

We didn’t have trouble finding gas until we got about three hours from home. Another hour or so and we hit the damage we had left behind. Instead of fourteen hours it only took us eleven this time.

When we hit our parish the roads were all mostly opened, but it almost seemed as if things looked even worse than they had when we left. Now all of the pulled up, broken down, and splintered apart trees were dead, their oak leaves or pine needles brown instead of green. Roof tops were covered with big blue tarps and power trucks, tree trucks and army trucks were every where.

When we reached our street we found our homes were still there, waiting for us. After a few moments we were thrilled to find no looters had entered or damaged either house and that the sewer hadn’t backed up into them either. Everything was just as we and Katrina had left it--including no power.

We expected that we wouldn’t have power since the main line to our home had been ripped from the pole, but since the business below us and above us had power because of us being on that main grid, there was no reason for my son not to have power. I wanted to just sit down and cry as I thought of the miserable nights ahead of us. I was also worried about my dogs, two of them really. One is a big husky who has too thick of a coat to handle the heat well, and the other is my dog that has the seizures. He has short hair, but because of his health and meds, he can’t take the heat even as well as the husky.

My husband got back into the truck and went in search of the power crews, of someone who looked like a boss maybe. When he found a lone man sitting in a power company pickup talking on a cell phone, my husband approached him and explained that our street didn’t have power and that the lady who lived next door to us was on meds that had to be refrigerated and the next neighbor over was in an electric wheelchair, and that we were on the grid that had power so he didn’t understand why we all didn’t have it.

The man came and took a quick look, moments letter he had bucket trucks here, and moments later we all had power! I think the whole street celebrated.

Our happiness soon came to a sudden halt though.

In celebration I headed through the house turning on each light. I didn’t really pay much attention at first. Things had been left in a pretty good mess. Furniture stacked up, stuff scattered about, flashlights and lanterns and such here and there. It just all looked like the way we had left it until I got to my bedroom. When I flipped the light switch in there, I couldn’t miss the colorful mold that covered all of the walls from the floor up to about two feet. Closer inspection revealed it on the walls of all the newer rooms we had built onto our house over the years, including the second bathroom, the living room, and the utility room. It was also on cabinets, shelves, furniture, and so on.

We had cleaned all of the water out of the house after the hurricane, we had left a number of windows open when we headed for my sister’s so the house wouldn’t be sealed up, but it hadn’t done any good. The mold had taken over anyway. There was nothing we could do but gather up the things we had unloaded from the truck and carry them across the street to our son’s home. (Thankfully his interior walls are paneling with no insulation behind them. Nothing there to soak up the water and hold on to it in the walls.) We couldn’t even begin planning a clean up or repair work until our issuance company and FEMA came and looked at things.

Everyone we asked said it wouldn’t be safe for us to stay in our home until the mold is gone, which means throwing some things away, cleaning what we can, and ripping out all of the sheet rock and insulation from the floor up to about four feet and then replacing it all. I don’t even know what we will be able to save. It seems the water destroyed motorized things and the mold is trying to get the rest.

It’s hard to live right next door to my home, to be able to look out my son’s front door and see my house sitting there, empty; to see my totaled car sitting in the driveway. But it’s hard to walk through the yard too. I’ve spent years on my yard, on roses and fruit trees and lovely plants and shrubs. That giant oak tree that fell through my whole back yard pretty much did them all in with one fall, including my large Japanese persimmon trees that took me over ten years to grow big enough that I was getting a decent amount of fruit from them each fall. They were both loaded with persimmons too, and you can’t buy Japanese persimmon fruit around here.

I even feel guilty for feeling sad--and sometimes even angry. We lost so little compared to what many others have lost. We are all alive, we have a running vehicle, our home is still standing, we have a roof over our heads and food and water and power and I know everything and anything else above or beyond that is more than I should ask for, but being human as I am, I guess I can’t help but have an occasional pity party for one or a special moment as my husband has named them.

Life with Katrina - Part Five

Friday September 2

We arrived at my sister’s house at a little after four Friday morning. We had left Bogalusa a very long fourteen hours before. We were exhausted, dirty, sick, hungry, and so glad the ride was over.

It took us a while to unload all of the pets and to get them situated. My sister had a pen out side for my son’s female dogs since one of them was in season and all of my dogs are male. We put our two big yard dogs out in another pen, and then brought the six others in with us.

Everyone soon crashed into the nearest bed, not even worrying about eating or cleaning up. I wanted to follow but my sister and her husband were about to leave for work so I stayed up a few moments more to see them off. When they went to leave I found my two yard dogs had gotten out of the pen so I ended up staying up alone for a good while catching them and fixing their pen. I just didn’t have the heart to wake hubby or the kids to help.

I finally got to sleep for about an hour or so, and then couldn’t rest any more. I guess I was just too wound up. When a neighbor brought a meal over for us before my sister got home from work that evening, my daughter actually cried as she fixed her plate. I can’t even think of a way to explain how great it felt to have hot food, ice in a glass, and an actual shower, clean clothes, and air conditioning. Things we have every day and never think anything of it.

We also had television and got to watch news. What we saw was so awful and since we had already been through it, we didn’t watch much more about Katrina for days. My husband said I was still having enough of my ‘special moments’ without the new stations helping me. I think we all were still having those moments, even when the tears didn’t show.


Saturday September 3 through Friday September 9

We went to bed early Friday night and got our first full night’s sleep in nearly a week. We got up early still, but I felt so much better. My sister and her husband had a three-day weekend, so they stayed home with us until Tuesday. We still had family members missing in Mississippi, and spent a lot of time on the phone looking for them. My sister didn’t have internet so the phone was the only way we could try and find out info. I also made a lot of calls to Bogalusa, my friends, my neighbors, my doctor, my vet, the city hall, the police station, hoping just one phone was working in one place. Nothing was.

My sister did her best to make us feel at home, and soon we did. Even the dogs settled in and enjoyed her wide open yard in the mountains. She lived out in the middle of no where.

Tuesday my sister drove us to the nearest town that had more than a gas station and a little market. It was in Harrison. The Super Wal-Mart there had a special program going so even though I didn’t have a refill left on my bottles, they let me buy a one month supply of both of my important meds. We stopped by a veterinary office too. When I explained where I was from and about my dog’s seizure meds, the vet there let me buy enough for a month without seeing the dog, even let me buy some tranquilizers for my big dogs to help make the trip home better. It seemed everyone we ran into was so open and friendly and nice to us.

Just when we finally located the last missing family member and knew for sure that everyone was okay, my brother who lived in Mississippi, had a heart attack. His daughter and wife kept us updated as best they could, but things looked really bad that first day for him. (I’m happy to say he came through fine, had some stints added and is now home doing well.)

Thursday evening we got our first answer in Bogalusa, a friend who lived near the highway. She said only a handful of people had phone service and pretty much no one had power. The water was on, but still not safe to use. We tried everyone and every place else we knew, but couldn’t get another answer.

Friday the police station answered. They had just got phone service but still didn’t have power. They said help had made it in and that the power companies that were working on things had the main grid up and going, the one that went to the hospital. That was great news since our home and my husband’s job and even my daughter-in-law’s job, were all along that same grid. My husband still couldn’t reach the sawmill in Bogalusa where he worked, but was able to reach another one owned by the same company. They said he could start back to work Monday. My son goes to college about an hour and half from Bogalusa in Hammond. He was able to reach them and find out he could start back to school. That meant we really needed to be home for Monday. We tried off and on, but couldn’t get any other calls through to anyone else.

As we made plans to leave for early the next morning, I wondered what we would find when we got home. Did the looters break into our homes? Did we really have power and water and maybe even phone service? Would we be able to find gas once we got close to home? Would the drive back be as ruthless as the drive up had been? Would there be stores and places to buy food and supplies?

There was only one way for us to get the answers to any of those questions. It was time to go home.

Life with Katrina - Part Four

Thursday September 1

By Thursday morning I had really had enough, about all I could take in fact--both physically and emotionally. I started the day feeling even worse than the day before. I’m only forty, but I felt sixty at least.

Our local radio station came on the air at a little after eight with an announcement from the mayor. He expected that it would be at least thirty days before even partial power was restored to Bogalusa, probably ninety days before every home had power again in the area. There had been no shipments of bread, ice, or supplies, and he didn’t know when there would be. The water was unsafe and he expected sewer to begin backing up into homes soon. He said, “If you have a vehicle with a tank of gas in it, and there is any where you can go, leave.” They did have one highway opened leading out. There was just nothing more the city could do for us. Even the police station had no power or phones or gas for their cars.

My husband still didn’t want to leave, just drive off and leave our home and everything in it to looters or what might come, but I think at that point I was getting sick enough that he feared losing me was becoming a real possibility. He told me he could replace things, but not me. All I could do in return was cry. I had begun doing that a lot. He started calling my little outburst of tears my special moments. I’m still having them even now, but they are much fewer.

We were lucky; we had our truck and our daughter-in-law’s car, and we had filled both with gas before the storm. Together we went through our homes and picked out the few most important things that we could fit in. I thought we were doing this quick, but it took hours. It’s so hard to stand in your home of twenty-one years and look around and decide what you should take when you can take so little. I wanted to save it all. The things from my children growing up, things from my parents since I had already lost them both, pictures, family papers, things like my computer and my research books, but there was so little room because the ice chest and four big dogs were going to be in the back of the truck and three of us and four small dogs were going to be in the front. My son and his wife had less room since they had a car and pets too.

So we all got what we thought best, grabbed a few days’ worth of clothes for each of us, and some how loaded up all of our animals. We tied each of our four big dogs to one corner in the back of the truck. Two of these dogs had never been around the other two and didn’t like them. None of them had ridden in the back of a truck before. To say this was awful is putting in mildly. I just knew one of them was going to hang himself. We finally had to put my daughter back there with them while we drove through town, working our way under fallen lines and around fallen trees that had been pushed over so one side of the road was open, weaving our way through, finding a road open here and there until we finally made it to the highway.

We didn’t know if we’d be able to find gas when we ran out, but we knew where we were heading, to my sister’s near Lead Hill, Arkansas, and we hoped and prayed for the best.

It took over two hours of driving mostly west, away from the path the hurricane had taken, before we stopped seeing down trees and damaged homes. That’s when we realized just how big Katrina had been. I’ve looked it up now and we caught the left side of her eye in Bogalusa, but hurricane force winds extended out over 120 miles from the center of that big powerful eye wall.

Bogalusa is right on the Louisiana/Mississippi state line, about thirty miles up from Lake Pontchartrain, about forty miles up at an angle from the Gulf. We were actually a little closer to the eye than New Orleans. Most of the land before New Orleans does nothing to weaken a hurricane. The weather man said that’s because it’s marshes and swamps so it’s almost the same as open water to them, so even though Katrina crossed over that little toe of Louisiana that sticks out into the Gulf before getting to us, she didn’t really start getting too bad of a beating for a good ways. Still, looking at the maps and charts, it looks like she did weaken from a category four to a category three before hitting Bogalusa. I don’t know what would have happened to us if not.

As we drove we watched for a place to buy gas, but there wasn’t one. We had to keep pulling over to calm the dogs down in the back. Those first four hours seemed to take twenty. Finally our cell phones began to work and I got to call my sister. We both cried. She had thought we were all dead. She had called the Red Cross and everyone else, and no one could tell her anything about us. The Red Cross had told her that morning that they had sent help in to Bogalusa, but they didn’t even have a way to contact their own people there. All my sister knew was that our city had taken a direct hit and everything there was out. She was so glad to hear from us and even glad we were on our way, pets and all, to stay with them. I also managed to reach a couple of friends for short calls, so they could maybe let other friends know we were alive after all, but then our cell phones went back out for hours.

We found gas just in time. We had to wait in a huge line, but filled up and heading on. We thought after that we would be able to find gas without trouble, but mostly we only found stations that had no gas at all. A few times I really thought we were going to end up on the side of the road with empty tanks. Other times I thought my son or husband was going to fall asleep behind the wheel and some of us were going to end up dead. We were all so tried. I needed sleep so badly, but didn’t dare doze off and leave my husband to keep himself awake. I tried to keep an eye on him, on the dogs in the back, and on my son’s car behind us. Every time I saw my son’s car swerve I held my breath. Our cell phones weren’t even working so I could call back and ask if he was okay.

A little after midnight I got really sick and started having chest pains. I didn’t tell my husband, I just tried to force myself to relax, to stay calm, to hang in there a little longer. It was almost over. Just a few more hours and it would be over.

Life with Katrina - Part Three

Tuesday August 30

We stayed up late Monday night trying to get as much water out of our house as we could. (We found a crawfish that had gotten into the house and waited out the storm with us. We put him back outside where he could go on his crawfish little way and tried not to think about what else might be in the house.)

By the time we were done, we were so exhausted that even in the heat we managed to sleep some. I think I probably slept three hours at the most though. I can actually take the heat better when I’m up moving around then when I’m in bed. It just feels hotter for some reason.

The sun rose Tuesday morning, the day after Katrina, and brought more heat with it. The air was humid and still, thick and heavy. The shade my oak trees had once provided around my home was gone. Even the trees left standing didn’t offer much shade since most of the leaves had been stripped from them by the wind. When I first looked outside that morning I felt shocked all over again. Maybe I just thought it had all been a bad dream and things would look normal. I don’t know.

When I stepped out on the front porch I did notice one thing that was normal again. The day before the hurricane came, three long days ago, our trees went silent. I don’t think I saw one squirrel rushing around or heard one bird sing. It was kind of eerie. But they were back Tuesday morning, fewer in number it seemed, but there. Usually after a hurricane or sometimes even a really bad thunderstorm, I end up with some new family members for a time, either baby birds or baby squirrels. At first I was relieved that I didn’t find any to care for this time, and then sadly I realized that the flooding had probably washed them all away. Poor little things.

There was a new sound filling the air; Chainsaws that went from dawn to dusk. My husband’s is one of them. From what we saw around us, almost every single street was blocked by fallen oak trees. We know now that the whole city of Bogalusa was in the same shape, and even all of the roads and highways leading in and out were blocked. We had been cut off from the rest of the world. No way to drive out, no way to call out, just our little city here all on her own.

While my husband was trying to cut the oak trees away that had fallen in front of and behind his truck, I found out something about my car. My son and I had been so thrilled to find no trees across our cars that we didn’t even think about the flood. Flood water has never gotten high enough here before to get into cars. But of course this time it did. I opened my car door and sat down to try to find a radio station with news. When I sat, there was a squish. I looked down to find water on the floorboards. I said the word please aloud even as I raised my gaze up from the floor. The little tray that holds my sunshades was filled with water, a glance at my gearshift showed dried mud over it. Both of cars were ruined.

Tuesday we had cold bottled water and dinks thanks to the ice we had put in our new five-day cooler. We cleaned up inside some, tried to drink plenty, and even though none of us had much of an appetite, we ate sandwiches and some chips. (Not a good diet for me since I’m a diabetic.) We didn’t have power, phone, or even running water. We had saved some buckets of the flood water to flush the toilet with. I had hoped our cell phones would work at least, so I could let my family know we were okay, but they wouldn’t, still aren’t working often even now as I write this almost three weeks after Katrina.

That hot tuesday we were all sweaty and still wearing the same clothes we had on during the hurricane. We sure didn’t smell pretty, and neither did the house. The flood water hadn’t been rain water, but a mixture of probably creek, river, ditch, and by the smell of it, even sewer water. But there was no water to bathe with, or to even wash up with. We didn’t know how long we would have to depend on the bottled water we had for ourselves and our pets. We couldn’t afford to waste any on the luxury of a bath.

I tried my best to sleep Tuesday night. My husband finally got up and went and slept on the porch in a chair. I soon followed him even though the mosquitoes were doing their best to eat us alive in spite of the bug spray we applied. I dozed a little, but never did really sleep. Our daughter slept better. Our son and his wife had gone across the street, home to sleep. They slept most of the night. I guess being younger and in better health is a big plus in the heat.

At around four in the morning I came back outside after trying to pick up something on our battery operated television. All we could ever get was one little blurry station out of Mississippi. When I came back out and sat down I thought I heard something, so I switched on my flashlight and pointed it into the yard. I didn’t see anything, but then I heard a soft female voice say hello. I turned my light back on and pointed it at the gate as I elbowed my husband. Two young girls, probably about nineteen or so, walked up to the gate and asked if I could help them please. They had walked all the way across town in the dark, trying to reach the home of a family member, which was still a long ways off and down a curvy road that runs through a pine forest. They both had backpacks on. I have never been one to pick up hitchhikers--writers just have too vivid of imaginations--but I couldn’t just let them keep going.

My husband brought the truck around, even though we were breaking the law since there was a dusk to dawn curfew in effect, and we drove them out to their family’s home. I did make them put the backpacks in the back of the truck though. (Smile)


Wednesday August 31

Wednesday morning the ice was holding on well enough to keep our drinks and lunch meat somewhat cold in our cooler. We were almost out of bread and lunchmeat, but I had can goods. I tried not to worry too much over our shrinking supply of water.

The heat, the high carbohydrate foods, the stress, the mosquito bites and the lack of sleep were already catching up with me. I felt awful, my head hurt, and I was staying sick to my stomach a lot. I was beginning to run low on my blood pressure meds and didn’t have many more of my diabetic meds either. One of my dogs is on daily seizure meds, and his was getting low too. If any of us got sick, there would be no 911, no hospital, no vet, no help. All I could do was to try and not think about it.

Five great things did happen Wednesday. First, my husband got our road cleared, at least the end behind his truck, so we could get out. The Army Reserve and the city had cleared the main road in front of our house with a big bulldozer since that road led down to the Army Reserve building that was about six blocks from my home.

Second, one of our local radio stations came on the air, not full time, but most of the day and was sharing info with us. Even at that point our little city was still isolated from the rest of the world.

Third, our local Piggly Wiggly opened up with no power, but was allowing two people at a time into the store to buy what ever was there as long as they had cash to pay for it. After a long wait in line, my husband and son came out with buns and more can goods and drinks. There was no sandwich bread or water left. Not a lot of many things left, so they got what they could.

Fourth, a huge convoy rolled by the front of my home. Truck after truck from light companies and tree removal companies. I never knew a convoy of trucks could make grownups cry.

Fifth, our water came back on. It wasn’t drinkable without boiling and it had very little pressure behind it so it was little more than a pencil-lead thick stream, but it was water.

We spent that night out on the porch again, in chairs, dozing some, slapping bugs a lot. If you haven’t ever lived way out in the country, where no street light or any human made light can reach you, then you have no idea how dark the night really is. All of us were out there, when we heard the sudden sharp sound of glass breaking and then shattering. We knew it was looters breaking into the little mom & pop store on the next block. There was nothing we could do but sit and listen and hope they didn’t come down our way and start going into houses.

In that pitch darkness, with no phone, no way to call the police or anyone else for help, I felt more afraid than I had even in the middle of Katrina’s wrath.

Life with Katrina - Part Two

Monday August 29

By two in the morning we were getting some pretty good gusts, some of them hanging on longer than others. Of course it was night, but with the help of the moon and streetlights we could watch the wind in the trees, as well as hear it.

As we watched news over the next couple of hours we learned that Katrina hadn’t weakened any more and she hadn’t turned any more either. It looked like we were going to get the eye. It felt like a trapdoor had fallen open in the pit of my stomach, but all I could do was look at my daughter, my son and his wife, and assure them that we’d be fine. When my husband spoke those same words to me, I knew he was doing the same thing.

By daybreak it had gotten bad enough that I was wishing we had left the windows unboarded and gotten out of here the day before. But like stepping off a cliff, once the fall has begun, you can’t jump back up. There was nothing left to do but stay and pray for the best. I had prayed for help to make the right decision before we decided to stay, so I hoped I had made the right one, for my children’s sake most of all. My daughter is seventeen and in her last year of high school. My son is twenty-one, recently married, and on his fourth year of college. His wife is nineteen.

We kept getting powerful blast of winds, but since they were hitting the left side of my house we are able to leave our storm door shut and our wooden door open to the inside so we could watch the trees across the street in front of my house. By seven that morning power was out, so that open door gave us cooler air and light. I think the phone was gone by then too, or within a short time there after.

Through that open door we heard the roar of each gust as it came, we saw the trees bend and bow toward the earth. Along with that load roar was the pops and cracks of trees that gave way. The pines were the ones to usually pop while the big oaks cracked. We didn’t hear them crash to the ground, just the almost gunshot-sounding pop of those that snapped and the crack and crunch of those that broke. With the passing of every few minutes the gusts seemed to build and to last longer. A huge pine right on the other side of the road snapped and we watched it fall. My son’s home is across the other street, beside my home, so we couldn’t see it.

I wondered how much stronger the winds would get, and how long the giant oaks around my home could hold on under such an onslaught. Some how I made sure I appeared unworried. All three children -- yes I know how old they are, but they are still my children -- were sick to their stomachs. I guess just from nerves.

I told myself that it couldn’t get much worse, and then it did.

Slowly the gusts built, pushing the rain sideways so it became a white sheet that we couldn’t see through. Finally those winds got strong enough that even though they were hitting the side of my home, we had to shut the door. We turned on a lantern for light and listened as the wind became a constant roar, almost like a jet engine getting ready for take off. We could no long hear anything else unless it was something big that hit one of the plywood covered windows near us.

My husband held tight to the front door, his back and weight against it, but we felt the air moving in the house. We had closed every interior door, making us a center haven in the middle of the house in the kitchen. (An hour before then my husband and son had taken the mattress off of my daughter’s bed and brought it into the room so we would have something to throw over us if the roof did come off.) The only exterior door in that area is the one in my little office that was really supposed to be a dinning room. That room is open to the kitchen. Those closed doors rattled, adding to the noise around us.

At around that time, the first true wave of undulated fear hit and almost knocked my feet out from under me. I have been through hurricanes and even tornados before, but this was worse. I was still telling the kids we would be fine, but inside I honestly thought the roof would be ripped away or an oak tree would come crashing in at any moment. It just went on and on and on.

After about an hour more, when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, suddenly they did.

Water began to pour in under the front door. As my husband took off his shirt and began to jab it under the opening, I noticed that water was also coming into the kitchen from my bedroom door. There wasn’t an exterior door in my bedroom. I opened the door and found water coming in through the walls, and since my bedroom was lower than the old part of the house, it was already an inch or two deep in there.

We had lived in that same house for over twenty-one years, and although water had made it onto the porch a couple of times before and even threatened to come higher once, it had never come in on us. Now here it was. My son can’t swim and has a fear of water, so after already hearing all of the news and warnings about hurricanes and how many people drown, he went pale. So did his wife and my daughter.

I promised them the water wouldn’t get more than ankle deep. I thought I was telling them the truth.

My son looked out the little window in our front door and then called for his father. The front yard and street that had still been there only moments before, were suddenly gone. There was a lake there, a lake of deep dark rushing water. I could see the top half of our high chain-link fence and our mail box. I figured the water outside was at least three feet deep and rising. Inside the water was rising too, trying to match the outside, going over our feet, our ankles, up our legs, almost to my knees but still it stayed lower than what was outside the door.

The wind didn’t sound like it was letting up at all. I picked the smaller of my dogs up and actually put them on my kitchen table to keep them out of the water that was deeper than they were tall. Even the big dogs walked around in it crying. There was nothing we could do but stand in the dark smelly water, in the heat of the house, and listen to the hurricane roar on outside, wondering if it would ever stop, if the water would keep rising, if the roof would tear away or fall in on us.

I think it was about one that evening before we finally heard the roar lessen.

In a short time we were back to gusts and we could open the door again and breathe. A little longer and the gusts became further apart and weak enough that we were able to step out on the porch into the water and get our first look at our new neighbor.

All I could do was cry.

It was over and everything looked like hell had blow up around us, but we were alive and our house was still standing. The water level was already falling some. We ventured out a little further and realized that although oak trees had fallen in front, behind, and even beside and between our cars and truck, they were okay other than some good dents in the truck -- my husband’s pride and joy. My husband and son made it across the street to my son’s home to find it flooded, but there.

Bogalusa is a saw mill and paper mill town. We are surrounded with pine forest and every street is lined with big old oaks. (Well, that’s how it was before this.)

The huge oak tree next door, in front of my son’s home…my childhood home…had been pulled up by the roots. A tree at least a hundred years old that probably five men couldn’t touch hands and reach around. It was resting on its side, all the way down my son’s fence and then on the mom & pop type grocery store next to him. The oak trees next to my house had held ground, but the top half of them had been snapped out and dropped into the road and my yard. These were huge oaks too. The one in our neighbor’s back yard had come up by the roots and falling across our fence, over our new shed, across my fruit trees, over my birdbath and picnic table, and then through the other side of the fence into our driveway. The pecan tree beside my house was now on top of my roof.

Every where I looked it was just a jungle of limbs and green leaves. There was no yard or street left.

While we were still looking around and celebrating the fact that our houses and cars had made it, the wind suddenly changed directions and began to increase. It was then that I realized that the hurricane must have not turned at all, and that we had gotten the eye wall.

Katrina wasn’t through with us yet.

My husband rushed us all back into the house. Soon we had to shut the door back and the wait began again. My daughter and daughter-in-law cried. My daughter sobbed, “Please not again.” I added my own silent prayer as I told them the back side wouldn’t be as bad. Back sides were weaker. If we made it through the front we could take the back. I was wondering what winds from the opposite direction were going to do to things that were already weakened, but I kept that thought to myself.

We were lucky; the back side was weaker and quicker. By three that evening or a little after, it was really, finally over with.

Little did I know that a new form of long-term hell was just beginning.

Life with Katrina - Part One

I didn’t write the below as each day came and went. In fact, until this morning, which is almost three weeks after all of this began; I haven’t thought much about writing anything more than a couple of messages and blogs to let people know we are okay. I guess I’m writing this for me while my memory still holds most of it in order and in sound and vivid color, and for people who have asked why we stayed, or why we left afterwards, or what it was like.

Friday August 26, 2005

This was such a very normal day. The last normal day we would have for a long time. I bought groceries, paid bills, did e-mail, cleaned house, just like any other Friday. But of course just like with all last normal days before the abnormal ones begin, we are often clueless and left expecting the expected to go on.

Since I’m in southeastern Louisiana -- in Bogalusa actually, right on the Louisiana/Mississippi state line a little ways above New Orleans -- I always keep an eye on any tropical reports that come in during weather, so I knew about Katrina. I knew she was out there, that she had crossed over the bottom part of Florida and was in the Gulf, but I wasn’t worried. The expected path was for her to hit a high building over us and turn back north and give Florida another punch.

Then Friday evening came and suddenly all bets were off. She hadn’t made that turn and we begin to get our first real warning that we needed to watch this one close, just in case -- though they still expected her to stop moving west and to take that north turn. Of course there had been about six in the last couple of years that were slow to turn that we had to watch close, but the bad ones always turned.

And yet, even if not, Friday evening late is a bad time to tell people in and around the Big Easy that, surprise, a hurricane might be a comin’ before the weekend is over. People are out at football games, either pro or high school, people have gone out to party with friends, or just to share a good meal, or have curled up on their couches with the latest hot DVD rental or newest novel to entertain them. They aren’t watching local television where they have a chance to catch a special weather report.

I was, but it was still only a watch and wait game.


Saturday August 27

This morning we find that Katrina still hasn’t turned, but they’ve seen a couple of jogs east and a little more north, so those are good signs. Now they are saying she’ll probably hit Alabama, maybe around the Alabama/Florida state line, but we need her to take that straight north turn soon. She’s still supposed to. There’s a high over the east side of Florida and a high over us in Louisiana, which leaves an opening in the middle. She’s supposed to turn and follow that opening.

Since nothing is for sure, they say to get prepared. Time to do the hurricane dance.

For those of us who live this far south, we know it as well as our parents knew the two step. I consider it my own little hurricane-go-away dance. It always works. You simply go to the store and spend bill money or add debt to your credit card to buy tons of bottled water, batteries, bread, can goods, ice, dog food, snack foods, and such…oh, and stop by the gas station to make sure your car is filled to the brim and get cash from the bank -- more bill money. Once you’ve done all of that, the hurricane smiles and heads away, or if she comes, she gives you a good blow without much damage and you find out you bought way too much stuff and spent way too much money.

So just to run her off or weaken her down, I went out and did my dance that morning.

Something went wrong this time though. The update that came in after lunch -- we call it dinner but I don’t want to confuse anyone -- was worse. They were now saying the Mississippi/Alabama state line probably. That’s too close for comfort. We could get a good side blow from that, depending on how wide the storm was, though we would be on the good side of the hurricane. The left side is the weakest.

But there was a threat of worse news. The chances were building that Katrina might take the turn too late and even make a Louisiana land fall.

I still didn’t believe it would hit here, not really.

Better safe than sorry, so we headed back out to buy more supplies. The news was reaching people by then though, so it was hard to find more of some things, like water, bread, ice and batteries. But we did get them. Even bought a five day cooler that promised to keep things cold for five days in ninety degree weather.

While out I met up with more than one friend who asked what was going on, and had to explain to them that Katrina hadn’t taking her north turn yet which put us more in her expected path.

It was too late for some things at this point. I’m on three daily medications. Two that I can’t miss. One for high blood pressure and one for being a diabetic, what we call having sugar. My drug store where my doctor had called my next refills in to, closed at noon. I have a dog that has seizures and he can not miss his daily meds either. I couldn’t get him more this late, since his vet has to order it and it takes three or four days to arrive at her office. It was also too late to buy plywood to board up the windows with, since the lumber store closed at noon.


Sunday August 28

Long before daybreak Sunday morning I was up checking on the news. Katrina hadn’t turned during the night, she was heading for us and had gotten stronger over night, reaching a category five. To give you an idea of how bad that is, there is no category six.

I didn’t know how we were going to do it, where we were going to go, but I knew it was time to prepare to run from this one.

(I’ve heard people say harsh things about those who didn’t run, especially those in New Orleans who stayed because everyone knew it would flood so badly, but you have to remember that leaving for a hurricane is hard. It takes money, lots of it, it takes a tank full of gas just to get started, it takes a vehicle and one that is in good enough shape to get you far away, it means leaving almost everything you own behind for looters to do with as they will, it often means leaving family and friends behind because some can’t and some won’t go, it means finding a place you can go to, and if you have pets, finding a place that will take you and them, or it means leaving them behind to die. Lots of people had also just left a short time ago for another hurricane, which like the others turned at the last moment. It’s a very hard thing to do, to leave, and this time there wasn’t much warning or time to prepare or decide.)

On this morning for this hurricane, even though I had never left once in my whole life and we are above sea level and our area was only under a voluntary evocation, I decided this was the one to leave for.

And then we didn’t.

We spent a few hours getting things packed, figuring out where to go -- the only family I had outside of the warning areas was my sister way up at the tip-top of Arkansas almost on the Missouri state line -- how to fit eight dogs in our truck, what few possessions we could squeeze in and what those should be. That was really hard too. My son lives next door to me, so he was doing the same things, getting ready to follow where we went.

Then we found out the lumber store had opened so people could get plywood and we rushed out to buy some. I think that’s where we lost the momentum we had going to leave. It took hours to board up the windows on both our home and our son’s. During that time Katrina took a little jump to the east and she dropped from 175 mph sustained winds down to 155. That lowered her from a category five to a three. We also heard from one of my son’s friends who had left that morning and was now stuck in crawling traffic up in Jackson Mississippi. She said service stations were running out of gas and lines to get any were long even up there and that she feared it would be worse as the day went on.

By the time the windows were all boarded up, we were all packed up and knew we were going to head to my sister’s, it was nearing nightfall and we decided it was probably safer to stay and face a category three hurricane in our brick home that to risk being stuck in traffic or running out of gas some where, still maybe in Katrina’s path.

Was it the right decision? Even now I’m not sure.

We didn’t sleep Sunday night at all. Not long after dark the first feeder bands from Katrina began to let us know she was coming. Really they are just gusting winds that give us a little hint that a storm is out there. We weren’t supposed to feel the real start of Katrina until after midnight. Which will take us to Monday.