Your Love Is So Edible to Me

I would never break my promise from Monday: the rest of Kennitha’s story is here. As someone who lives far away from home, I am grateful that she described her hurricane experience, working through her feelings at the keyboard. I believe that people around the country should still be reading stories like this. After all, Kennitha and others are still living them:

We were happy that I was in remission and were ready to start a family. Then hurricane Katrina hit on August 29, 2005. Boy, was our world turned upside down. We evacuated to a friend’s home in Mississippi. We thought that we would spend the night and would be back home within a day or two.

We were wrong. It took us two days just to cut our way out of their driveway. There were over 18 huge pine and oak trees across their driveway. We lost electricity, which meant we did not have any running water. The best way I can describe it: it is like being on Survivor. We had no phone service (land line or cell). We could not get in contact with any of our family or other friends. We did not know if they were dead or alive.

We tried to go back to Slidell a couple of days later only to be turned away. We decided not to go back to Mississippi and went to my uncle’s house in Lake Charles. We were assured that my parents would either be there when we got there or shortly after. When we arrived, they were not there and we could not reach them. There was still no cell phone service. I was able to text-message my parents, but they could not get the service to text-message me a response.

I was finally able to reach my sister and her family, who had evacuated to Dallas. At least I knew they were okay. They had Internet service and tried to give me as much information about our home in Slidell as they could. I finally got a call from my parents and they were fine. Their vehicle had taken in so much debris that it would not start. Now I knew they were alive.

Then the bad news began to start coming in. We found out that my father-in-law had not survived the hurricane. We got this news on our wedding anniversary. As soon as we got the news we headed to Hammond to find Art’s family. After searching their home, we finally saw a neighbor, who told us they were staying at my sister-in-law’s church. What a relief to know that Art’s family was all together during this awful time in their lives.

Art and I decided that since we were so close to Slidell, we would try to get into town again. This time we made it. I started crying from the moment we got off of the interstate. What a shock! Trees and power lines were down, and we had to drive around them. It was like a ghost town, very few people on the roads and most of the roads not passable.

We finally found our street. We were not able to drive to our house because of all the downed trees and power lines, so we parked the truck and climbed over and under trees. When we finally reached our house, I lost it. Everything we had worked for was gone. The first thing I saw was the water mark on my car. I knew the house would be worse. I just sat on the tailgate of the truck and cried and let Art go into the house and see if there was anything he could save. We lost everything we had not taken with us when we evacuated. But we had each other, so we knew we could recover from this.

We tried to check on friends and family while in Slidell, but the roads were closed. We headed back to Lake Charles and made phone calls to our family out of state to let them know that everyone was safe. I will never forget Labor Day 2005. My sister called and said that my Mom and Dad had called and they were at her house; she had electricity and her house had been spared any damage. What a blessing. We all headed to my sister’s house. She let over 20 family members and friends stay with her. The best way to describe it: at bedtime if you can find a bed or space on the floor, you had better grab it.

Each day we made the dreaded trip to the MRE, water, and ice giveaway line. Bless the volunteers who were out in all of that heat to make sure that we had the bare necessities to live. We were just thankful to be together again. I guess it was about a week or two later that the stores and gas stations began to open. They had canned goods and things like that.

We began the dreaded task of gutting our home. I went the first day and was so emotional that I was not allowed to return the next day. It is just so hard to see your life piled up in a garbage pile to be hauled off. I am emotional just typing this. Everyone joined in and helped and the house was gutted in no time at all. Then the wait for the insurance companies to come out began. Let me tell you they were not in a hurry.

Before we knew it, Christmas was here. My husband kept asking me what I wanted for Christmas, and all I could think I wanted was to go home. To my surprise, on Christmas Eve he brought me to our house and—bless his heart—he had fixed up one of the bedrooms and one of the bathrooms so that we could be home for Christmas. This was the best Christmas gift I had ever had or will ever have.

We lived in the gutted-out house until March 6, 2006, when our FEMA trailer arrived. We were lucky in that we did not get one of the small camper trailers. We got a regular single wide trailer. That is what we are calling home right now. We are in the process of fixing up our home. We are not sure when we will be back in our home, but at least we are right here by it.

I have learned through all of this not to take things for granted. Life is too short and your friends and family can be taken away from you in a second. We lost so many friends and family members to Katrina that I lost count. I know that is horrible, but there were so many that lost their lives.