Casual Friday: Hurricane Katrina

Part of being a writer is developing a relationship with your readers. I'm trying to do that by sharing these casual Friday posts that are more about me than they are about books and writing. Sometimes they are about tv shows, and sometimes they are personal. The one where I showcased my dragons was more on the personal side. Today I'm going to write about something I've never really written about, or talked about with anyone who didn't go through the same thing. Hurricane Katrina. I'm one of the lucky ones who didn't lose anyone in the hurricane, but I did lose all my stuff and have to move. The night before hurricane Katrina my dad watched the weather and said that Bob Breck said there was nothing to worry about. We all went to sleep, but when my sister and I woke up for Saturday morning cartoons the weather was on. They were making people evacuate. My parents said to pack some clothes. I had never been through anything like that, so I wasn't sure what to bring. I packed my clothes and make up, and probably something to entertain myself. We ran out of room in the car really quickly. When we finished packing we headed towards Texas. We had to stop at a gas station along the way, and when we finally got to stand up it was awful. My legs hurt, my body was stiff. It felt really bad. I had to walk around for a long time before I felt ok again. When we got back in the car we didn't stop driving until we got to Texas. We were going to stay in a hotel, but my aunt and cousins wanted us to stay with them. The trailer they stayed in wasn't little, but with so many people staying there, it got packed pretty quickly. There were also only two bathrooms, but we could only use one since my cousin had worn a hole in the floor in the other. I learned very quickly that trailers are not a good investment. I was glad to see my cousin, Jennifer, and meet her son for the first time. He was three, but since we lived so far I had only seen pictures. I haven't seen him since, but I still keep in touch with my cousin via text and facebook. We had a good time the first few days. We went swimming in a nearby lake, we watched movies, and just spent time catching up. Unfortunately, the effects of Katrina were always on our mind. We weren't allowed to go back to the place we had lived. There were people on tv looting, and one of my cousins made a negative comment about people living in Louisiana. She said she didn't know why anyone would be stupid enough to live there with the risk of a hurricane. That was the first time something that big had happened. We usually stayed for all the hurricanes and tropical storms and probably would have for this one if not told to leave! After about two weeks of staying together we started to get on each other's nerves, so my family moved into a hotel room. Lots of people were offering us free stuff, but a lot of the time the free stuff came with a catch. People wanted to use us to get donations, and one woman even wanted to fix me up with her son. There were some people who did actually want to help, most of them were from churches. I'd never been to church before Katrina, but we decided to attend a service because of the people being nice to us. I actually kind of liked the church. People were nice to us, they actually tried to make friends with us. Not too long after that there was an event where they were giving free clothes and shoes. Winter was coming up and we hadn't been prepared for what happened so we only had shorts and t-shirts. We went to the event and someone told us about section eight, so we signed up and got a voucher. For anyone who doesn't know, section eight basically is a set amount of money toward your rent. We also met a woman at the event, I think she was the one who helped us get the voucher. She was part of a church and had a house for rent. She basically forced us to rent this house. The house was older, with no heat and no ac. I already hate the cold, but I was miserable during the winter. The house itself stunk, and had bad plumbing problems. I don't think the shower worked properly. It was a nightmare, but at least we had a place to stay. Sometime after we got the house, they allowed people to go back to the part of Louisiana that we had lived in. My dad rented a uhaul and went back for our stuff. I don't remember what I asked for, but I know one of the things I wanted was a notebook that I had written songs in. I used to write songs and poetry around this time, and my songbook was the most important thing to me. I'm not sure why I left it behind, but my dad got it for me. He said there were some things missing from our apartment, and we figured out that the landlord had taken them. We'd gotten a foot or so of water in our apartment. About a month later the landlord told us we couldn't come back because we'd damaged the apartment. Hurricane Katrina had damaged the apartment, but the landlord just wanted to charge an outrageous amount of money for rent, which he did. The next people had to pay over a thousand for a tiny two bedroom apartment with one teeny weeny bathroom. In November we got a fema trailer and moved it to my dad's work. It was bad living there too. The ac broke, and we had to go to barnes and noble everyday. I got my first job, working at a fast food place. After Katrina places were paying good. I got a fifty dollar bonus each week. I will never work in fast food again, it was too stressful. The fema trailer was never meant to be permanent, so we moved to Mississippi. You might think that's where the story is supposed to end, but it's not. People from the part of Mississippi that we moved to weren't pleased to see people from Louisiana living there. At my new job I had to hear people talk about us all the time. Not to me as much, I don't know if it was because they thought I was pretty and accepted me, or if they just didn't say things to my face. Probably the latter. I remember this one lady telling a cashier at the store I worked at that people from Louisiana were uncivilized and she went on with this story about how a woman had taken the milk out of her cart at walmart and put it in her own cart because she didn't feel like walking to the back of the store. That was my breaking point. I said, "Excuse me, I'm from Louisiana. I don't steal and I'm not a bad person, I'm sure there are other people like me who are decent." The woman didn't reply, but she probably reported me.