CBR Forum - Enthusiast forums for Honda CBR Owners

I'll jump in here myself....

I was a semi regular poster here for a bit, but after Katrina, i had less and less time to join in too often.

I live in the lower garden district, what some would call "high ground" (well as far as new orleans goes;)).

Katrina hits. Neither i, nor my parents (who only live a few blocks away) sustained any water damage, or flooding, minimal wind damage (my dad had a ham radio antenna tower fall on his roof, only poked a little hole in the plywood, i had busted window, and some crap got rained on a little). here is where it got nasty for me. the very next day, i was expected to return to work as a part of the telecommunication infrastructure rebuild to hospitals and emergency services. that turned into 2 and a half years of forced 84 hour weeks of 13 on 1 off. i know i'm being a whiny baby about it, but it is so hard to go to work and bust ass all day in the sweltering heat, just to come home with no running water (about a month) and no electricity for a/c (a month and a half) no cell service to call friends also nearly a month and a half in many areas (nearly half of my close friends at that time left on the 28th and never came back). It was, and still is three years later, very emotionally hard on a lot of the people right arount here. That travesty took more out of me emotionally and physically than anything i have ever experienced in life could even come close to, and i dont know any other way to describe the events post-k other than disgusting and heartbreaking. it honestly broke my heart to have to be here and see something that never should have happened to my hometown (and kenner, metairie, and especially coastal MS).

i feel like i'm only rambling now, its so hard to really convey the actual feelings i have regarding the topic, other than it's very...hard.

as nauree said, katrina wasnt a very strong storm, as hurricanes go. AND we were on the west-side of the storm. What made this so bad (in new orleans) were things that were ABSOLUTELY controllable (levees, canal failures, anemic emergency response), and it shook an entire region of the state's confidence in the government at the local, state and federal level.

....and here comes another...

I'm holed up in the 3rd floor of my dad's office building in Baton Rouge at the moment, ready for 13 and 1 work schedule on wednesday, worried about family. i've got a sister who won't leave Laplace, another in houston who "had no idea a hurricane was coming" my uncle raleigh evacuated from houma to Bourg (still right on the coast)

i dont know what to feel right now. i'm not scared, but a definite feeling of deja vu is on me at the moment.

i sure don't feel like doing this again.

surely not moving though.