My Own Personal Katrina-Five Years Later...

Five years ago. Where was I?
Where to start?
It's not as easy as I thought it would be.

When I thought about writing my own post about our experiences with Katrina for the five year anniversary, I thought it would be a cinch. I'm always asked when I say 'I went through Katrina....', "So you lived in New Orleans?" No. Our story came from the lesser covered part of the Gulf Coast...Mississipi.

Yep, it's harder than I thought it would be to write my experiences but you would think it should be fairly simple. After all, we've talked about what we went through during the past five years time and again. Ditto with pictures, we’ve shown them over and over. But really, once I sat down and started typing it became harder and harder to explain what we went through. Katrina was so personal to so many people. And really, I don't know if I wrote this again, if it would come out the same. Katrina was multi-faceted, yet everyone who went through Katrina met in the middle, interlocked somewhere, somehow, some way. Simple? Not so. It's complex.

Looking back through the pictures I took throughout our Hurricane Katrina journey, it is clearly evident I wasn't thinking like a photo-journalist. I took pictures that impacted us personally, but not to really show anyone else later or to publish a book with by any means...far from it. I wasn't thinking like that. Something to be proud of and show off? No, far from it. And really, the pictures I took do not really do justice to the devastation we experienced. In some ways, probably because I'm a photographer, I wish I had better pictures and in other ways the memories that swirl in my mind are enough.

For us Katrina was a blessing and a curse.

[remnants of my husbands shop; Long Beach, Miss, across from the beach.]

We'd lived in Mississippi for 8 years at the time and felt we were seasoned veterans at this tropical storm and hurricane thing. We loved Mississippi! Pretty much everything about it...the food, the culture, the people, the seafood, the Mississippi Sound and fishing. When a storm came we had to prep. I remember what we called 'Battening down the Hatches' around our home time after time...it kinda became a joke in a way-thus the reason so many people stayed behind and didn't evacuate. They were tired of it and to be honest in most people's minds you couldn't top Camille in the 60's. So we would prep, this meant cleaning up outside and locking down anything that could blow freely in tropical force winds and sometimes boarding windows. Talking to my mom on the phone before Hurricane Katrina came ashore the days before, I remember her saying 'it's going to be bad' and she wanted us to evacuate. I simply said...oh we'll loose some branches and a few trees...we have a few dead limbs that could come out of there anyhow!

We're staying.

We did our normal run to the grocery store for a loaf of bread, milk, granola bars, bottled water, dry goods, etc...the usual staples of canned goods you would buy when a hurricane or tropical storm is coming. We had just moved and didn't have much more than ketchup though! On the way to the store, I remember seeing cows up to their bellies in ponds of water and thought that odd and interesting. It was hot, but not for the time of day on the eve before the hurricane. They were taking shelter early on.

We filled our bathtubs full of water...something you are also told to do, just in case. We actually parked our vehicles in the middle of our pasture so that trees, if they fell, wouldn't fall on the vehicles. I knew though when I saw the weather forecast the day before the hurricane (because I've always been a weather freak and super glued to The Weather Channel) that we were in trouble. Because Jim Cantore scared me to death saying 'Folks, what you see now, right here, today will not be here tomorrow. The Gulf Coast will be forever changed.' If you are a Weather Channel watcher, you know Jim Cantore. I can see him talking to me now. Scary. I like Jim Cantore though, even though he scared me...and was right.

But THAT scared me. The Tropical Updates scared me-always made my heart race and made my blood pressure rise. By the time we'd heard that report, they wouldn't even let you evacuate if you wanted to. We heard of people trying to evacuate at the last minute and they would be turned back by the police saying the roads were closed. The interstates were closed and we were staying. No going back now.

Rewind: June 2005

We had decided in June 2005 we wanted to move to a farm, to be 'land bearers' and have 'privacy'-not even see a neighbor from our house! I'm sure there are some of you that can relate to that. We'd always dreamed of having property.

At the time we lived on the Back Bay of Biloxi in a boating type community, beside a house on a canal. It was a beautiful neighborhood by the water with houses on pillars, boats in the driveway or canal behind the house and pretty sunsets. But we wanted horses and chickens-we'd done the boating thing (another story or 10 or 20 for another time)!

So....we called our realtor friend to put her on the prowl. It didn't take long because she said she had just listed a property 30 miles north of the coast, she said take a drive up and look at it and let me know what you think. She knew at our last house purchase we had wanted property and couldn't find what we were looking for at the time. So we drove up to look at it - the same day. We were hooked, line and sinker. A diamond in the rough....a beautiful home with an amazing ten and a half foot deep wrap around porch, pastures, a meadow, a barn, a pond....massive azaleas lining the driveway. Picture perfect and we had a vision of what it could be-better than it was. It was all perfect for our family, exactly what we'd wanted, it was unbelieveable we found it. It had been empty two years, it needed some work and it could be ours. We could picture the horses running and grazing in the pasture and the chickens clucking and scratching around, free-ranging no less, with our kids collecting eggs! PERFECT! Here are pictures taken in 2006 or so, a year after Katrina.

Happiness on the farm!

We made an offer-the offer was accepted.
Friends and neighbors thought we were slightly crazy actually. Here are some pictures from before Katrina.

Long Beach, Mississippi and Ship Island Mississippi on the Mississippi Sound-beautiful!

Gulfport Beach and the kids to the left; hubby with the kids and fish with the boat and Ship Is again.

The house we moved out of, pre-Katrina

After all, we loved the water; REALLY loved the water as you can tell by our pictures; and that's a tiny sampling. We loved fishing and we were the type to be on our boat just about every weekend in the summer-even many times in the winter-to fish and we fished the oil rigs and went to the islands in the Mississippi Sound with the kids (the beaches are awesome out there as you can see!). We loved our house, neighborhood, neighbors, friends and the kid’s school. There was NO rhyme or reason to it, other than we wanted a farm! We felt the urge to move. We were told we wouldn't sell our boat for what we had in it. We didn't listen. We put our house located on the Back Bay of Biloxi on the market. And.....had an offer within three days, just a drive by...no appointment. They made an offer! We accepted! We sold our boat for what we asked for it the following week. All within a month or so of finding our dream farm, we were moved off the coast and the Back Bay of Biloxi in a whirlwind. A domino affect. A door opened, a window closed. A blessing.

August 29, 2005

Three short weeks later, Hurricane Katrina.  A curse? Or a blessing?

The sign propped up on the house on the left say's 'for sale 1/2 off'. This house was located about 5 homes away from the house we moved out of. The image on the right is just a massive pile of 2x4's of what used to be homes and possessions.

The house we had moved out of on the Back Bay of Biloxi and had lived in and loved so much too, had nine feet of water taken in. We were still very connected to our old house and neighborhood; after all it had only been about three weeks since we had moved. The water that came in was higher than the door jams. Everything was basically destroyed, we never had flood insurance there either. It wasn't required. The family who had just purchased our house and evacuated lost everything. We were the ones to call them and tell them. What an awful feeling.

We would have lost everything had we still lived there. Everything. My husband didn't like to evacuate. He would have stayed in our house. Oh my. This is where I stumble somewhat because so much happened so quickly, in such a short period of time, it's hard to keep it all straight, especially when you are in shock. I've tried to keep things clear and concise as best as I can.

Deep Impact.

Upper right: our friends and neighbors house who stayed with us during the hurricane (the snippet of their house is on the left of the picture, yes that is an overturned boat and a pile of cars). Bottom right: The house we moved out of before Katrina.

What happened during the hurricane is hard to describe to people. My husband thought the roof was going to lift off the house. I've never seen so torrential rain or wind like that and I had seen my share of storms. The best way we can describe the rain and wind is similar to when you use a pressure washer and hold it sideways? And it hurts if it hits you? I'm not quite sure how fast that comes out mph or pressure wise; imagine that force. Now imagine it for almost 12 hours, all around you. That's what it was like, waves of someone spraying a pressure washer wand. Even in our house, you could hear the wind and rain slamming sideways into the house and trees cracking under the force of the wind like a football player cracking his knuckles before a super bowl game. When we would hear a lot of cracking in the distance, we knew a huge burst of wind was coming our way. It came in waves, in a pattern of sorts. And we would cringe for the impact. The day went pretty fast, ironically. The power went out early on in the day. We sat huddled with our backs against the refrigerator on a cooler and kitchen chairs with our neighbors, in our kitchen away from the windows, but just enough behind the counter to see out our windows and feel as safe as we could under the circumstances.

I mainly have little video clips of the storms progression of wind blowing through the trees and rain blowing sideways. Pictures at this point wouldn't show much except a blur...and I didn't take any anyhow.

I will post a few here on the blog.

Eventually I got scared the wind would actually blow the windows in and shatter glass everywhere...and I stopped recording before the peak of the hurricane, so this is not the worst of what we endured, it was just ramping up. We put the kids in the center of the house in a bathroom without windows and tons of pillows, sleeping bags and stuffed animals. The broadcasting we could get on the radio was New Orleans news and the fact that the dome was loosing its roof and some of that hoopla. Well that didn't sound too good, but what about Mississippi? We were in the eastern eye wall, the worse part of a hurricane.

After the hurricane passed us by us there were barely leaves left on the trees. The leaves were now like confetti from a party and were now stuck directly to the sides of the house and littering the ground. Part of our vinyl siding panels were blown into the woods. The smell of rain and Christmas hung heavily in the air from the massive amount of pine tree damage. The sky was a strange off color peach, grey, green (not pretty really when you combine those together) and clouds were racing overhead. Our pond had overflowed its banks and was still was surging from all of the run off. Our creek sounded like the Colorado River. The birds weren't singing, in fact I don't remember seeing or hearing birds for quite some time or even seeing squirrels scrounging for acorns. In the days following Katrina, it actually looked like fall because the leaves that were left on the trees dried up and fell off, ugly brown and shriveled right up due to stress and wind damage. Some trees had damage from being bent and died. Other trees remained at a serious slant from the strong wind. In the DeSoto National Forest near our home, there were forests of pine trees leaning the same direction depending on the way the wind blew. Slanted trees. Like hundreds of leaning towers of Piza. A month later there were new leaves emerging, green and bright like spring had come, only to have fall come to soon and again turn them brown for winter.

It doesn't look like much, does it? It was a tangled mess. This was the front yard at the house on the farm. Notice the leaves out of the trees and all over covering the ground.

We did loose alot. But it wasn't personal and material loss of our own per se.

Remember the roof my husband was worried about? We had just put a new roof on our house and only lost one shingle.

We lost friends due to stress over time, places we loved completely disappeared and never returned, we were taken over by a sea of blue tarped roofs and sometimes roofs covered in billboard material that had blown off in the wind. Convoys of US military (which were appreciated) and made you weep to see them. Yes, we lost a lot, including my husbands job. Katrina hurt to the core. Fortunately, we didn't know anyone personally that lost their life due to Katrina, though where we had moved from we heard of a body count of thirteen if I remember correctly, found behind our friends and neighbors home of neighborhood locals, who had stayed behind in their homes to ride out the storm. I didn't know those people personally. We were the fortunate ones and to be quite honest knowing just how fortunate we were was our driving force to recover. "We are the lucky ones".

We kept telling ourselves this. This phrase was the twine that held us together after the storm.

We have friends who lost everything; it broke our hearts to see the devastation to their homes, businesses and property. Their personal lives in shambles. They were way worse off than us. Our friends and neighbors who stayed with us during the hurricane, so they didn't have to evacuate out of state, lost everything. And I mean what they brought with them to our house, is what they had left. Pretty much everything else, they lost. Their furniture, a vehicle, their house, everything ruined.

Thank God they stayed with us. A blessing.

We really would have struggled without them in the country on the farm in the messy aftermath. Sure, where we moved to, we had TONS of damage. But not complete loss, far from it actually. Not even a tree or limb on the house. A blessing. We endured 130mph winds and flooding downpours, lost literally 100's of trees...we stopped counting and we'd lost one measly roof shingle. The trees alone took us over four months (ok, maybe a year or two-we added to the cleaning with other projects) of clean up. We literally had countless house sized piles of burning trees and limbs for months and hauled trees to the main street where they were picked up by FEMA to be burned at other locations. If I never have to pick up another limb, I will be happy.

But we were the lucky ones.

When we bought our farm, we bought the tractor that was on the property. My husband had just on a spur of the moment, bought a nice big honker of a Husqavarna chainsaw as well that he happened upon on the return shelf at Home Depot and we had just borrowed a four-wheeler from a friend. Without those items and help from our neighbors, I'm not sure how things would have panned out on the farm...surely not the same as if we had been alone. The farm was on a 1/4 mile long gravel road with one other neighbor, who evacuated to Florida.

After the winds died down some and the main bulk of Katrina passed us by, out came the chainsaw, the tractor, the four wheeler and a massive chain or two along with I don't know what else. We had trees piled up on our driveway, trees down everywhere you looked (but not on the house). When the clean up crew of two made it to the road and cleared past those trees, there were more trees, piled one top of another and then more trees. Pine trees stacked 3, 4 and 5 trees high like pick up sticks and toothpicks a child has played with and left for mom to clean up. That was the report, more trees, we can't get through. After a few days of cleaning up trees, rationing food, bathing in the creek (yes, we did that too) and flushing toilets with creek water we hauled up in Rubbermaid garbage cans in a wagon...finally they made a somewhat passable cleared path to the main road, which looked the same.....looking left and right...trees down. There were piles upon piles of pine trees criss-crossing the roads, power lines down. It was crazy. Many of the neighbors along that road pitched in and tried to clean up what they could, at least to make a one car pass here and there.

I actually didn't take many pictures of some of these things because it was so chaotic and I never ventured too far past our driveway. My camera wasn’t really what was on my mind. The pictures I did take do not even do justice to the devastation. The seals in our double paned windows broke due to the force of the winds and they eventually gathered moisture between the panes. We lived without electricity for the weeks following Katrina. We ate MRE's (military meals ready to eat) and drank Gatorade with foreign labels because eventually military had a daily depot for goods and ice at the local volunteer fire department. Our cell phones did not work; the military had taken over the cell towers-all we could see was a little airplane symbol for service on the cellphone? And No Service. We had cell coverage immediately after the hurricane, but not the following day. We were basically disconnected. Unplugged. Fortunately we did eventually get a small window a/c unit, gas, dry goods and a generator. We used this wisely since it was gas powered, but did run our fridge and freezer...and everyone should remember the gas shortage that Katrina created. Luckily our tractor was diesel! Still, we worried about fuel.


Another story I won't tell here. And again, no pictures, venturing out in search for gas and goods worried you would in fact run out while out and not be able to get back and be stranded....finding lines upon lines of cars and people-I'm sure you saw the images on tv anyhow.

But we were the lucky ones.

When we eventually made the trip south to the coast winding off and on the road past piles of trees, power lines and power poles and to the neighborhood we had just moved from (following behind our friends and neighbors who had helped us clear up our driveway and road), the feeling was indescribable. The further south we went, towards the coast, there was more evidence of destruction. The further south, the deeper our sinking feeling hit us. It was a lot to take in. We only had radio broadcasting and much of that came out of New Orleans, local news had been chaotic and sketchy and we had only heard that one city for sure, Pass Christian, that had been completely submerged and no contact. So we weren't positive what had happened on the coast, but we had a feeling and it wasn't good.

The smell upon reaching the Back Bay was even more indescribable and the sun, heat and humidity were fierce. The friends who stayed with us, like I mentioned, lost everything. Their house, part of it anyhow, is in a picture I posted. Never, ever, would we have imagined the water coming into the neighborhood and into the homes like it did, not once. Ever.

There was saw grass from the Back Bay washed up into homes with water moccasins and mud, over turned cars everywhere, boats in yards, blown out doors and piles of debris which included mounds of 2x4's and a child’s bunkbed and so on and so forth. You can see some of that here in this video of the neighborhood we lived in. Some houses standing on pillars, the underneath gone, some just a slab. Again, there were really no leaves on the trees…in August. And just imagine 90+ f heat and 100% humidity with the bottom of a muddy Back Bay baking in a home, along roadsides along with the smell of rotting food, swarms of knats and saw grass piled on top of furniture along with who knows what else.

Once we reached our friends and neighbors home and the neighborhood we'd just moved from three or so short weeks before, we just cried.

Cried, hugged each other and went to work. They climbed in through their bedroom window (busted out by the force of the water surge) and handed us soggy photographs, jewelry and any personal items that could be salvaged. They had to watch for snakes. We lined the driveway with pages from albums and photos so they could dry out. Really, even thinking back it's incomprehensible. Unbelievable. What a crazy feeling to know we had barely scraped out of this devastation and of loosing everything, but our friends and neighbors did not. They went to Georgia that day, to stay with family.

We were the lucky ones. Yes, we were the lucky ones.

December 2005: Was the first time we personally were able to drive along the beach. This area was kept closed for many reasons. This is my husband on the rubble of the building where he used to work. This building was in Long Beach, Mississippi across from the beach. Notice the upper right picture. This was an area that used to be a two story apartment building.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Day after day after day.

All we could do was clean up. There was no place to go work for months. Schools were closed for weeks. Everyone was working to clean up, survive and rebuild. So we woke, we worked cleaning up any debris and tree stuff basically, which we burned, we ate what we could, we took showers (we had a well and we hooked the pump to the generator) and took turns using the hot water from the water heater in the attic heated by the sun during the day....though it didn't bother us much to take cold showers in the dark! We were thankful for a house with a roof and walls and windows. And it was amazing how a noisy generator humming in the background while you slept wouldn't be heard because you were dog tired. We woke up and did it again. and again. and again. From sun up to sun down.

I never realized how dark it was outside without lights.

Amazingly dark. And how bad I could hurt! Advil, Tylenol? I think we took it...I don't remember, but I think so. But honestly, with the clean up, we punished ourselves and didn’t think about what we were doing. We just did it. I’m sure many others were in the same situation. Just do it, don't think. Survival mode.

To make a long story short (believe me I could go on and on and this really isn't short) we were able to obtain a generator as I said, fuel, dry and canned goods etc fairly quickly, within a week or so of Katrina. We made do and eventually had our electricity turned back on, weeks later. I remember that day!!! How awesome to be able to turn everything back on...including the coveted Air Conditioner! We took the down plastic sheeting we'd taped up to keep cool air in a specific area of the home from the window a/c unit. Just the electricity coming on made us feel like we were alive again. Being able to cook on the stove, a full meal for the family, not only mac and cheese or canned Chunky Campbell’s Soup on a portable Coleman Stove....and run a dishwasher. The kids finally went back to school with classrooms that had been repaired (somewhat) with pink plastic insulation sheeting, and no windows to see out of because they covered them up. It was only slightly eerie to have pink tinted light in your classroom. All a blessing.

I will say, that Coleman Stove came in handy though.....!

October 2005 and forward


I had a small design and sign shop in Biloxi prior to Katrina, where we produced and sold magnetic signs and banners to contractors coming into the area to work-believe me there were a lot of them. We eventually opened the shop again once we felt somewhat situated and the electricity had come back on. It got us through. But my husband eventually got a better job the following spring and we closed that shop down. We eventually created our own little paradise of property over the following year or two. We got one horse and then another...and then fifty chickens. And had baby chickens. We had rabbits. And had baby rabbits. There were snakes in our pond, but the azaleas in the spring and the smell of horse sweat was wonderful. We loved it for the most part, for quite some time.

It was a blessing and a curse.

That twine started wearing thin. And we grew tired. Of the same depressing news. We were like the energizer bunny running on the batteries that wouldn't recharge. We would be drained physically and emotionally at the drop of a hat, it was an odd feeling. We would reach the edge and then push further and further. It wore thin, burning yourself at both ends mentally and physically. And we still get zapped immediately for no apparent reason from time to time. A curse in it's own way.

When we left our retreat of a farm or turned on the news or the radio, or drove down to the beach (which we did only the first time in December of 2005 because you had to prove residency in that area to go there), we realized everything outside our property was still devastated. So we could be happy at home but if we left, we returned to a depressed state. This happened time after time, it was humbling and depressing at the same time. It was so incredibly depressing to see things not coming back. Each time this happened it would take us a long time to recover mentally from the impact of it all. I couldn't stand the news anymore with Katrina this and Katrina that and we barely drove to the coast. Vacant slabs from buildings that once stood on a street corner you knew and even used as a landmark. Olive Garden washed away even...it's hard to live without Olive Garden people! And that was the best Olive Garden!! Ok, a little joke there. But you get my point. It was just plain hard. Every day, day after day. Even a year later every time the news was on, Hurricane Katrina was mentioned! And we felt the economy sucking wind along with our spirits...that twine holding us together had finally started unraveling at both ends and worked its way to the center of the twine only to leave a tiny, very thin thread.

Yes, surreal. Where my husband had worked.

It was two years later and we were tired and quite honestly, depressed. Ironically, our dream wasn't a dream anymore without everything else that we had loved on the coast. And mentally and physically, Katrina broke us. The farm began to feel more and more like work and wasn't enjoyable. As much as we loved the farm and horses and chikens and rabbits, they were work. Everywhere we looked, work. We mowed week after week, for hours upon end and ended up clearing a good 20 acres of land during that time as well. We never had down time. We were work-a-holics! Just one day it hit us and we were wiped out.

We decided, somewhat reluctantly to sell our beautiful home and farm, feeling we had become much like the economy there. We were also stagnant. After two years of fighting tooth and nail and living through Hurricane Katrina and reaching what we thought was our dream, we tucked our tail and moved to Georgia in 2007. Again, ironically once we made the decision to sell, we again contacted our realtor friend. And the person who bought the property and house was a relative of the former owner. We came out well considering the property was not on the coast where property values really had tanked. Yep, ironic and entwined.

A window opened, many doors closed. A blessing.

It was time to move on. We moved from Kennesaw to Mississippi in 1999, so basically moving to Georgia was a coming home in a way. We felt we had better potential in Georgia and after all, I grew up in Marietta and family would be nearby. We live two miles from my parents now and have friends here. Plus it was refreshing to have a different view and away from the constant Katrina and FEMA talk.

For us, Katrina was reality and taught us to really take nothing for granted. Our perspective has forever been changed. We are very fortunate to have ended up where we are and are happy to be here. Five years later we feel like we've aged older than our years. Sometimes we feel as if we've lived a few lifetimes and Katrina seems like a bad dream in ways. Still, that very thin thread keeps us tied to the coast in many ways. We do miss many things about the coast, including the food, many good times we did have and a couple super great friends that are still there dealing now with the aftermath of the oil spill...which is a story for another person to tell.

Since we’ve been in Georgia life has been pretty good. Once we moved here, the first thing I did was purchase a professional camera and start my photographic journey in Georgia. I hit the ground running.  Turning Leaf has been GREAT and another dream come true and I feel it's in it's infancy. It's been three years of building and constant work and has a long way to go! No, we definately cannot complain about being here! After all, we have very little grass to mow and a pool in the backyard.

It took us awhile to settle in, oddly enough. We didn't realize how in shock we were still, even two years after the hurricane and after we moved here. We still would get zapped quickly and had what we personally started calling Katrina alzheimers. Still sometimes we cannot remember some things we should be able to remember, but we've gotten better. We finally don’t have panic attacks when the tropical updates come on the weather or when the wind and rain pick up. We finally watched a dvd of the devastation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast after we moved away; we were unable to watch it before that. Yes, I think we had post traumatic stress disorder, without a doubt. You function, and you live life, but you have it. You don't think, you just do. We have friends and family close by and we live in a great neighborhood. The kids again love their friends and their school as well. We’ve definitely settled in to our groove, but it's taken time to heal. But we also feel we will never be the same as we were before Katrina. I still have a hard time eating some brands of granola bars (ha ha), I don't buy Cambells Chunky soup anymore and we are way beyond boxed mac and cheese. We ate too much of it all.

Funny enough, when we moved, we had one box of MRE's left (meals ready to eat). Yes, we moved them to Georgia with us (don't ask why? we also moved our fifty chickens and horses too). We took those MRE's up to the local Goodwill with a load of get rid of some stuff and the manager of the store wanted them badly for hunting and camping. Good riddance to those! I hope he enjoyed them!

I do have to say, I know New Orleans had a hard time with Katrina, but their story was different and they did overshadow Mississippi. Mississippi shouldn't be forgotten. We were in the eyewall. We endured terrible damage and terrible loss. It still hurts us to see them struggling. If I tell people "I went through Katrina." They automatically think I am from New Orleans. It's a little frustrating to be honest to explain, no, I was in Mississippi and it was bad there. But it's hard to explain. Still.

Katrina taught me a lot of things. In many ways I don't have much room for drama and I don't mean Dynasty or 90210. I'm a really down to earth and for real person, I always was...but even more so now. I'm just me. I'm slightly sarcastic and see things sometimes in a funny or cynical way. As a family, husband and wife, we learned perserverence, who our real friends were, how to be humble and not take a roof over your head and walls around you for granted.  How to push yourself beyond your limits...way beyond without thinking. It was like going on a walk and you kept walking and finally reached China and not realizing how far it really was to walk there, but it was exhausting. You just didn't think about it for the most part. But, eventually, it was hard to make that trip again and again. We can never get that time during Katrina back in a normal mode, so we learn from it. I realized strengths in magnatudes I never knew I had, both mentally and physically. I realize now we are still work-a-holics. Sometimes we slip into survival mode without realizing it and re-correct.

Yes, Katrina felt like a blessing and a curse. The curse has been hard to overcome, the job loss, friend loss, the things you loved....lost. Five years later we are still recovering in many ways believe it or not. Yet we have so much to be thankful for...you just learn to keep counting your blessings to stay on top. Let me tell you, that it get's tiring to keep climbing a mountain of depression day after day, week after week and month after month. I know it sounds cliche to many, but without faith in God I don't believe we would have made it through and be where we are today. For a long time if you searched us on the internet we would show up under the reported missing persons from the Red Cross. I'm sure that's buried in Google now. That's a good thing. 

We learned that even if you are knocked down onto your knees and have to pray out to God time and again to show you the way, in time you will find out which doors are locked and which windows are open. Sometimes quickly and sometimes not and it's hard to have patience. But he hears you. Keep praying. You have to keep searching for the open window and trying keys to different doors. If things fall into place quickly, without effort, it's meant to be...that's an open door. Head that way. And listen. With both ears. 

In many ways I cannot believe it's been five years since Katrina, and in other ways it feels like fifty.

And…those friends and neighbors that stayed with us during the hurricane?? What happened to them? They forever entwined with us. They know who they are. We are more than thankful for our true friends.  And...they have their own story to tell, but they live about 10 miles away from us..in Canton!