Gab Brown~Hurricane Katrina

The storm clouds rolled in that Tuesday morning, nothing too out of the ordinary for a day in late summer. The day began as it always does here down south, but when it was over and nighttime was upon us, nothing would ever be the same again. As the minutes went by, the sky grew darker and darker, casting an ominous shadow on our world. Being an avid news watcher, the Channel 3 station was on as usual. Drinking my daily cup of coffee, I listened closely to the newscasters. I’ve never paid much attention to the weather maps that the meteorologists show that was until then.  I was fascinated by the fact that our city seemed so miniscule compared the large dark green orb that hovered about the words New Orleans on the weather tracker. It did not look like it was leaving anytime soon, but in fact moving more and more inland. Once the rain started it seemed endless, and to us, it was.

Every weekday, for the last four years, after the news concluded, Live with Regis and Kelly was what I tuned in to. But not that day, there was no time to watch my daily talk show; it was more important and necessary that the news continued. By now, inches of rain had already fallen, slightly flooding the streets and creating puddles in the grass. The newscasters warned of the approaching weather. We were no longer facing a tropical storm but a hurricane, one with the name Katrina. “Stay indoors” and “ Don’t leave your home unless absolutely necessary”, they warned. The urgency in their voices and the fear in their eyes grew with each passing moment. A stage one hurricane became stage two, then three, then four, and when Katrina finally made landfall, it was a stage five hurricane.

By 4:00 pm, Tuesday, August 23, 2005, I was bunkered down in the attic of my quaint row home. The power had been out for quite sometime now. The only things I heard were the sound of rain pounding against the window and the faint buzz of an old radio I hoped would work.  I was alone and scared.  My world was dark; it seemed like there was no light or hope anywhere. Water had made its way into the fist floor; it was like a scene from The Titanic. Time went on, but nothing seemed to change, the storm was still present and he water was still rising.  Never in my fifty-two years of life have I ever been this terrified. I closed my eyes, praying it would be over, and, just as the torrential rain had came, it was gone. I looked out the window, and where my street once was, there was now a river. Roofs and treetops peeked above the lake that encompassed the whole neighborhood. As far as my eye could see, all there once was was water.

For five days I stayed in that dark attic, trapped, hoping rescuers would come. On Sunday, I woke up to the sound of unfamiliar voices yelling something I couldn’t clearly hear. I stepped out onto my roof to see what it was, and to my surprise and relief, it was a red kayak, making its way towards me. The water level almost reached the roof. Our city was drowning, but I was one of the lucky ones. Devastation was everywhere, houses were destroyed and so were families. Life as we once knew it was gone, submerged under twenty feet of water. New Orleans, though damaged, was not broken. We would recover, though, fewer in numbers, but greater in strength. Today, eight years later, the remains of Katrina can be seen in the plots of land where houses were unable to be rebuilt, the water lines on some buildings, and mainly in the hearts of the survivors.