The fourth grade of Ursuline Academy in New Orleans sat, hands raised, in religion class on Friday, August 27^th. Each of us said a quick intention before the beginning of class. “I pray that the hurricane passes and doesn’t hit us.” “I pray for a safe evacuation.” “I pray that my friends and family stay safe.”  This was the first I heard of a hurricane making it’s way toward New Orleans.
I was leaving for a vacation to Houston, Texas after school to visit my stepmother’s parents for the weekend. That evening, we bar-b-qued and played cards. The next evening, I hoped I could rally everyone up for another game of cards, but no one was in the mood. The adults gathered around the television, eyes wide and lips pursed watching the news. Hurricane Katrina was making its way to the Gulf Coast and intensifying the closer it got to land.
The next night, my dad called to tell me school was canceled, and we would be spending some more time in Houston, on our “vacation.” My mom called to tell me she had to stay at Children’s Hospital in New Orleans, where she worked as a nurse. I wasn’t really concerned about it, mostly because I didn’t know it was something I should be worried about.
Monday, August 29^th, Hurricane Katrina reached landfall. This is the day my vacation turned into an evacuation. The adults and I gathered in the living room around the television. Aerial views of New Orleans showed neighborhoods submerged in water. Homes and businesses sat in water all the way to the roof.
During my evacuation, I was privileged, even more so when I returned to a home with only a couple of shingles blown off the roof. Even though Katrina was all my family talked about, I never understood the destruction of the hurricane until I saw the damage from the ground. Houses with water lines above my head, concrete steps leading to where a house used to stand, and homes marked with Xs became normal to me still years after the storm.
When I went back to school, no one talked about homes that flooded or people lost in the storm. I had friends who lost everything in Hurricane Katrina, but only found out many years later. It just wasn’t something we discussed, probably because we couldn’t grasp the gruesome reality of what truly happened. For some, post-Katrina became a new lifestyle, no longer able to go back to what they once had. It was only until we were older that we really talked about the damage Katrina had done to us, how much it changed things for our city.
Photos taken after the storm by Bret Davis. These photos depict life after Hurricane Katrina for people in New Orleans. Mounds of debris and empty homes along the street show the impression Hurricane Katrina left on New Orleans.