Hi Grandma! We're fine!

We're fine! The kids are fine. Here's a picture as proof. I took it right after lunch today. Five minutes from now they will still be fine. And by this afternoon, they are probably going to be fine again.

We got the hell out of there before the real hell arrived. We are safe and sound. The nightmare continues to grow for others at home in and around our city, but we took no chances with our precious darlings and left town when we were told. A lot of people lost their lives because they thought they could beat Mother Nature. I actually saw a woman on tv who was angry with herself for not leaving and now had to evacuate anyway. At least she took personal responsibility and didn't blame everyone else. We've seen those pictures from Florida. We knew what could happen. All I know is that "We were warned".

So, basically we're fine, but our emotions are still fragile. I feel happy and secure one minute, especially when I am watching the horror show on tv. Then I feel weak, vulnerable, scared and exhausted when I think about the living conditions we will be facing when we return home. Part of me feels like never going back. At times I think it might just be easier to start over somewhere else from scratch. I have to keep reminding myself that we are alive. We are inconvienced a little, but we are are comfortable. And I am eternally grateful to the members of my family and friends who have reached out to us. I know that not everyone has that.

Now I know how all those Florida resident's feel. It's big news for a few days for the whole country, but before long it will be back to business for the rest of America while the personal hell where we live will continue for months and probably years. My husband and I used to joke about how New Orleans was sometimes like a 3rd world country, and now when we consider the living conditions we're facing, it is more true than ever


On another note, although I really created this blog to keep my family and friends updated, the story of our exodus has gotten a little attention from some people I don't know at all, starting with PunditGuy who wrote about us in his blog today: Wandering Refugees

We're also mentioned here: One Family’s Story, American Refugee, and Katrina Refugee. And a quick blurb on MSNBC.com and Florida Cracker. Also, one blogger made this note regarding the "Before" photo I took of our home just before we evacuated and wrote:


I Wish Them Well
"I'm not very big on weather disaster stories, but for some reason this one grabbed me. Maybe it's the picture of that house, silent,
pristine, calm....

...waiting."



Hubby is hoping to be able to get home this weekend, so maybe we'll get the "after" photo then. And guess what? The kids are still fine!

Satellite Pics

At last, click here for Satellite images of the flooding in the New Orleans area from Nasa's Earth Observatory.

I wish they were closer, but from the photos we can definitely see that the Uptown area of New Orleans where Tulane University (and hubby's office) is located appears to be in the 20% of the city that isn't under water at the moment (I suppose that can change if they don't get that levee plugged though. Also, the area for our neighborhood appears to be in the area in Slidell that doesn't currently have standing water. This is good news. Of course, there is no easy way to get from home to work anymore. I need to see what the condition of the Causeway Bridge is.

I know my family and friends are trying to figure out exactly where we live in relation to all the horror, so for a reference, here is a map of Slidell which I have marked to show the location of our house and where Hubby works. (Click to enlarge it)

The Sun is Finally Shining

Bye Bye Katrina. Good riddance. Katrina followed us up here to Nashville and passed through. It's been gloomy and raining since our evacuation. Nothing too bad though, not even any lightning. The last of her doom has finally moved on. This morning the sun is finally shining. I took a long shower, brushed my hair and put on makeup so I don't have to feel like such a refugee. I can hear Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in my head singing, "You don't have to live like a refugee!"

They FINALLY have a reporter in Slidell and we were able to see some decent footage of our town on CNN. Miles O'Brien was interviewing a woman who works at my insurance agent's State Farm office. I'm sure we'll be talking to her sometime soon.

From reading the posts in local forums I've been able to gather that our neighborhood is definitely on the drier side of town. I don't see any reports about completely demolished homes in the area, so I think it's safe to assume that my house is still there. At least I hope so. Still no confirmation of that though, and no info at all about our neighborhood specifically (Meadowlake Subdivision). I did find one site that has several photos of the Slidell damage.

Best case scenario: Our house suffered loss of shingles and much of the siding and has plenty of broken windows (especially the glass room on the back that we could not board up). The wooden privacy fence is probably mostly gone. A tree or two might be down, but they were not very large or close to the house to damage the house. Food in the fridge and recently stocked freezer in our garage is probably starting to get rancid (we filled it up with a $300 trip to Sams last week). Maybe water got in the house, but it is gone by now if it did. Our storage shed in the backyard probably didn't fare too well either.

Worst case: Our house is flooded or missing the 2nd floor roof entirely, or completely demolished like so many of the homes in Gulfport. Looters have broken in and stolen everything. I'm leaning toward the best case scenario.

What we can definitely expect:

mud everywhere.

no electricity for 6-8 weeks (according to officials), which means no AC and temperatures in the 90's every day and very humid.

rotting garbage piled up in the streets that will probably not be picked up for months

no place to buy anything like groceries or gas

no school for at least a couple of months (or probably longer if the schools were destroyed)

no communication for weeks

nothing for our children but hot sticky boredom while the grownups try to sort out our lives again.

no going back to work for a while, and even then it will be a year or more before the bridge is repaired for hubby's commute.


So the sun is finally out. We're going to try to do some things to feel normal today. My sis is going to take the kids to a movie. Hubby is thinking about going to check out the local university and visit some collegues. Aunt Janette is sending some toys here to give them something to do while we are here since we didn't bring any with us. My friend Devra posted an article in her blog about dealing with children in stressful situations called Katrina and Kids. She talks about how important it is to try to maintain some kind of routine. Our routine is pretty much shot to hell, but at least we're safe and feeling loved.

Are we stir crazy? Perhaps a tad. The house is a little crowded with all of us camping out in my sis's living room (One bathroom, 7 people, 4 dogs, 3 cats), but no one is getting on each other's nerves (yet)! But now that the sun is shining and we've seen some scenes from Slidell, things are looking up a little at least for today my little family. I'm saying a little prayer for all those people in New Orleans who don't have a comfortable place to take refuge like we do.

Thanks for Your Support

I want to say to all my friends and family reading along here that I am so grateful for your well wishes, emails, blog comments, phone calls, and offers of help. Your support really means a lot to us. We may not have a home to go to right now, but at least we have a place to be safe warm and comfortable in the mean time. And right now we are just so glad that we listened to the warnings and fled the area.

It's getting really late, and I should go to bed and stop obsessing over the horrors that are all completely out of my control. Somehow sharing it all in this blog has helped a lot. I feel like you all are with me while we wait to see what our fate is.

Our three little darlings are sacked out on the living room right now, all sound asleep. They are all safe and sound, and that's all I need for now I guess. Good night.

From Bad to Worse

As much as I can't stand watching the tv, I can't stop. I'm so desperate for some news that I can relate to. The news is all bad though, and it just keeps getting worse. The water is still rising in New Orleans because of the breached levee and will continue throughout the night, and may rise another 8 - 15 feet according to the tv. There are still many many people trapped in their homes, the looting is out of control and there are now 30,000 people at the Superdome.

One man at the Superdome committed suicide by throwing himself over a 2nd floor balcony after warning the people below to "watch out" and then calmly leaping to his death. I'm sure the odor of his corpse is nothing next to the waste from 30,000 people who have no bathroom or drinking water. Two men shot their AK47s into a police station. A friend sent this article from a news website (not sure which site):


BATON ROUGE, La. The scene in New Orleans appears more
grim by the hour, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said hundreds, if not
thousands, of people may still be stuck on roofs and
in attics.

As a result, he says, rescue crews in boats don't have
time to deal with the dead bodies they encounter. He
says they're just pushing them aside.

It appears the death toll from the storm will be high.
One survivor after another told of friends and loved
ones who floated off or disappeared as the floodwaters
rose around them.

The police in the Big Easy are even ignoring looters
-- saying they're focusing instead on saving lives.


And I finally found some news about Slidell from a newspaper in Baton Rouge:

Senator: Slidell area likely hardest hit by Katrina
Capitol news bureau
Much of Slidell is under water and likely sustained the worst damage from Hurricane Katrina, tate Sen. Tom Schedler, R-Mandeville, said Tuesday at 1 p.m.

Calling the devastation “total”, Schedler said, only slabs remain where dozens of houses were blown down and several feet of water remain in the Slidell Memorial Hospital on Gause Boulevard as well as throughout the old town area off U.S. 11.

Slidell is a suburban community of about 25,000 people northeast of New Orleans near where Interstates 10, 12 and 59 intersect in St. Tammany Parish
Read the full story here.

The news for Slidell sounds really bad, but we are still hopeful that our home didn't suffer too much. Here are some snippets from another story:

The scene from south Slidell: High water and devastation
By Chris Kirkham
St. Tammany bureau

Slidell Police and emergency officials continued to mop up Tuesday after the devastating flooding that overwhelmed much of the southern half of Slidell following the glancing blow from Hurricane Katrina’s eye wall.

Entire neighborhoods in low-lying areas were under more than seven feet of water, leaving many families trapped in attics or on second floors. Slidell Police and St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office deputies have been combing through neighborhoods hit by the flooding since after the strongest winds ceased Monday afternoon, said Capt. Rob Callahan, a Slidell Police spokesman.

At the height of the storm Monday, major flooding extended from Lake Pontchartrain through Olde Towne and up to Fremaux Avenue

But by Tuesday afternoon, much of the flood water had receded from neighborhoods closest to the lake such as Oak Harbor and Eden Isles. Many portions of Pontchartrain
Drive and its adjoining neighborhoods still were beneath at least three feet of water.


Callahan said Katrina packed the hardest punch Slidell ever has seen. “Imagine your worst nightmare and quadruple that times 100,” he said.

Some houses stood with only minor roof and shingle damage, but closer to the lake there was more serious structural damage as chunks of roof were sent flying through the air and decks were demolished.


Many of the people he saw trapped preferred to ride out the high water rather than face the uncertainty of leaving their pets and homes behind. Several of the trapped residents Angelo saw had posted signs outside their homes saying “No food,
no water” or “Help!”

Slidell Mayor Ben Morris estimated that 75 percent of homes in Slidell sustained some kind of damage. Officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency arrived Tuesday morning, Callahan said.

He cautioned residents not to return to the city, saying many roads are still completely blocked off by fallen trees. All entrances to the city are being blocked off by state troopers, who will check driver’s licenses to make sure only residents are trying to enter the city.

(Staff writer Paul Bartels contributed to this report.)



OK, so it could be good. The mayor said 75% of the home sustained some kind of damage. That means 25% of them did not!! I'm going to head to bed with that thought in mind.

We are Refugees

So basically, we're refugees. We have nowhere to live at the moment and will probably spend the next month shuffeling from relative to relative.

My sister sent the following email to my family this afternoon:

Laurel and family are here safe in Nashville with me. You can call them here at xxx-xxx-xxxx. I will however tell you that worries are high and emotions are fragile. The news had said that their town was hit head on by the bull's eye of Katrina and is destroyed. Due to the damage to the roads TV crews can not even make it in there yet. They are planning on staying here with me for at least a week at this time. The only news we've been able to confirm about their town is that parts of it are completely under water and that the gas station near their house exploded. Right now they have headed out to buy supplies for when we make the trip back down.

The bridge that Hubby used to cross the lake to get to work was completely wiped out and now the levee has broken and New Orleans is being flooded at this moment by the Lake. (sorry this is so scattered) So please call tonight if you want. I know they need to here that you love them and aee thinking about them.

My other sister lives here in Nashville too. She came over this afternoon with my little 5 year old nephew and made some dinner for us, while I had a nervous breakdown and sobbed all over the phone to various relatives who called me. Not knowing if I even have a home to go back to is not an easy place to be.

I have the best family in the world. I had cousins, aunts, uncles and of course all our parents and siblings offering to help do anything they can for us. Everyone is offering help. We're so lucky. I am starting to feel very sorry for all the folks in the path of the storm who had no where to go. Many of them didn't evacuate because of that, and some of them didn't make it. In fact, a lot of folks didn't. The death toll keeps climbing and here I sit in comfort and safety, whining about not knowing the condition of my home.

So Tired of Watching News on TV

We've been glued to the tv since early yesterday morning flipping from CNN, MSNBC, Fox and the Weather Channel. We've been desperately searching for information on Slidell. The left eyewall of the storm passed right over it and there has been very little information. If I see one more image of the roof of the Superdome, I'm going to scream. The destruction is horrible in New Orleans today with regard to all the flooding. The only thing I can find out about my little town of Slidell is that it is mostly under water too. I had to get that info from some message boards on the news websites where people have been posting. Most of the posters are very frustrated with the lack of coverage in Slidell and are trying to find information. We went all day yesterday with nothing to go on. I imagine that I'm like most other storm refugees who fled far away and cannot get any local tv coverage. The national news is not what we need.

This afternoon they finally had a little coverage from Slidell. It doesn't look good. A lot of it is flooded just like New Orleans. But the good news is that some of Slidell is not under water. I am hoping my home is in that part.

I don't know what difference it makes at this point. No matter what the condition of my home is, this is going to be a pretty horrible place to live for a long time. They've declared martial law in New Orleans and the looting is starting to get out of control. I just saw a report that evacuees who are returning to the city are having their cars hijacked and stolen at gunpoint. Nice. Really effing nice.


I do have news that the I-10 bridge that hubby takes to work every day into town has been completely destroyed. I saw the footage and it looks like an earthquake displaced the whole thing. It's a 5 mile long bridge over the right edge of Lake Ponchartrain where the lake connects to the ocean. I saw some video footage of the bridge, and it's not just one part of it that is damaged. The entire thing looks like this.

And here's some news where he works at Tulane University.

So, we don't seem to have much info. What little we do have basically indicates that it's going to be a long time before we can return home, and even longer before we can feel "normal" again.

Road Trip

Our road trip was eerie. When we pulled away from the house, I really thought we'd be back in a couple of days. As we pulled out of our neighborhood subdivision onto the main road, there were cars backed up for over a mile waiting to get onto Interstate-10. We would have been there for over an hour. We definitely wanted to put some distance between us and the approaching storm quickly, so we took some back roads for about 8 miles and got on the interstate at the next exit.

Traffic was not to bad at first, but it slowed down to 15 mph on and off for the first 3 hours. The strangest part was seeing the "contraflow" in action. Both sides of the interstate were leading outbound. Watching cars all going the same direction on both sides of the interstate was like watching some Hollywood disaster movie, only worse, because I was in it.

That's when I really lost it. Tears started flowing silently down my face and it all became so real. This time those hyper media fanatics really meant what they said. I had two of my three kids in my car while hubby followed with the third. I didn't let them see me cry. They are such good kids. I just kept reasurring them that we were going to be perfectly safe because we were leaving just as we were told. I told them that if our house gets damaged, that we can fix it and that the important thing is that we are all safe and sound.

About 60 miles away, they funneled the contraflow back onto the right side of the interstate and the speed finally picked up to about 60-70 mph. Occasionally we had interruptions, but for the most part, everyone kept moving.

It seemed like every car we passed on the highway had a dog riding in it. The kids kept checking each car for a dog. This was definitely a new road trip game that we had never played before, and we have played them all. You see, I run a business on that very topic. Unfortunately this was not like any other road trip we have ever taken. There was no singing to the radio this time, since the only station we played was the news on the storm and evacuation info.

I tried to keep the mood light. We joked about calling the radio station with tips for evacuating with dogs. The kids wanted me to tell people to be sure to bring clothes-pins for your nose for when your dog starts farting in the car. Our dog Lulu was hitting us frequently with her SBD's (silent but deadly).

We stopped at a rest stop in Mississippi to make sandwiches and give the dogs a potty break. There must have been 20 other people walking their dogs at the rest stop. Another car pulled in behind us and I heard someone call my name. It was my friend Chris and her family. Her daughter is in my Brownie troop. They were headed to Tennessee as well.

The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful. The kids were great little travelers as usual. We pulled in about 10 hours later, and I've never been so happy to see my sister.

Our crazy dogs didn't mind riding in the car either. Thank goodness I thought to bring the big kennel to keep them safe while we are here. My van now has enough dog hair in it to make another dog.

"Before" photo

Here's the "before" photo I took just before we left our house. Notice the lovely plywood covering the windows. We didn't put any on the second floor. The danger of hauling wood up there and trying to install it was not worth the risk. The risk outweighed the benefit in our opinion. I hope we were right.

That's our minivan in the driveway being loaded a few items. It still has the car-top carrier on it that I used for the camping trip. We threw a few of our things up there as well, but we didn't have much.

Car Inventory:
1 bag for each person with enough clothing for a week
2 coolers full of food from the fridge, drinks for the road, water, and a few frozen items
1 box photo albums
3 pillows
1 large dog crate
1 small dog kennel
1 box of dry goods (peanut butter, bread, cereal, pretzels)
1 bag of important papers and files
2 dogs
3 kids

Hubby drove his car, and I drove the van.

I hope the "after" photo isn't too horrifying. I can only pray. There is very little information on TV right now about Slidell. The eye of the storm passed right over it, and so far all we have is news that half the town is under water. I am just hoping that my house is on the other half. It's very frustrating not knowing what we have to go back to, or knowing when we can even go back.

The Day I thought Would Never Come

Hi folks. This is for my family and anyone else who's interested. I live in Slidell, LA. At least I did up until two days ago when we were told to evacuate for the pending arrival of Hurricane Katrina. Slidell is just east of New Orleans and is located in St. Tammany Parish in case you want to look us up on a map. My home is on the south east side of where I-10 and I-12 cross.

There are storms in the Gulf all the time and they always get everyone excited around here, especially the media. You'd think the fricking sky was falling every other week. People have pretty much gotten used to their hysteria and don't pay too much attention to it. We DO pay attention to the maps of the predicted storm paths though, and then make our own judgement as to whether to panic or not.

Friday afternoon Hurricane Katrina didn't seem an immediate threat to our area. My daughter's Girl Scout troop had a weekend trip planned and we headed out. We were originally scheduled to return on Sunday. We weren't exactly watching tv that night being out in a pine forest and far inland, but by the next morning parents began calling and so we called our trip short and started packing up the girls for the drive home. Most of the girls' parents were so happy we decided to come back early in case they called for an evac, but apparently it wasn't early enough for one of the parents whose house flooded a couple of years ago in a tropical storm. I understand he was in a panic about trying to keep his house from flooding, but we did the best we could and I feel good that we got them all back safely.

As for my family, we spent Saturday afternoon boarding up our house. We still had the plywood and lumber from the previous hurricane threat (which turned out to be yet another false alarm). By that evening it was headed right for us, but it was still only a catagory 3 storm and my husband and I were actually discussing staying to ride it out. We went out that night and filled the cars up with gas anyway - just in case. I called a few hotel companies and tried to find a room anywhere. It was hopeless. They were booked for three states away, so we decided that if we needed to leave, we'd head to my sister's in Tennessee.

I went to bed that night mad that our fun camping trip had been cut short, and upset that we had to listen to hysterical media sensationalists again. It just seems like they are always crying wolf and it gets a little old. But, I guess they were finally right this time. By morning the storm was a catagory 5 storm and we got a phone call from the St. Tammany Parish president that had a recorded message telling us to evacuate immediately.

Hubby went and installed more lumber on a few more windows that we had not previously boarded. While he did that, I got the kids to pack some clothes and start loading the car. I grabbed a cooler and tossed in some things from the fridge like milk and apple juice and threw in a big bag of frozen chicken from the freezer that I figured would just spoil if the power went out anyway. I grabbed all the cereal they like, the peanut butter, jelly and a couple of loaves of bread for something to eat on the road. Then I made some backups of my important computer files and papers for my business.

Then there were the dogs. We have two silly dogs. One is a pug and the other a Welsh terrier (small dog, about 16 pounds). I packed a the crate for the terrier, along with her muzzle, some dog leashes and dog food, and then the big portable dog kennel.

We threw it all in the car and hit the road headed for Tennessee. Before we left, I stopped and took a "before" photo of our house. I'll write more about the evacuation next.

We're Safe - 500 miles away

Welcome to my blog. Most of this first post comes from an email I sent to a friend this morning when the hurricane was just about to make landfall. I am 500 miles away from the coast at the moment and glued to the tv to wait for news.


Thanks for your good wishes. We evacuated yesterday and got to Tennessee last night to stay with my sister. We took some back roads so we didn't get jammed up in the traffic for too long. The trip to my sister's normally takes about 6-1/2 hours and we got here in about 10 hours. Not too bad for an evac.

We didn't bring much with us. When we were throwing things into the car to leave, there just wasn't much I cared about in my house except for my family. My poor little kids were preparing in their own way -- my girls were moving all of their Barbie's upstairs in case the house floods. :-( We brought enough clothes for a week, our family photo albums, our two dogs, and some of the food that was in the fridge. I really hope we don't need our insurance papers because I forgot them.


I'm checking the weather channel right now (I've been up since 5:30 a.m., and it's about 6:20 at the moment) because I can't sleep knowing that the eye of the storm will likely be passing right over my house shortly. If you're looking closely at a map, my house is on the east side of Slidell, LA, which is just east of New Orleans. My husband is very worried about the university and hopes he still has a job when it's over. All we can do is hope and pray that the damage isn't too bad. At least we are all safe.