Well, I got an ok to go ahead and do this, so I'll briefly explain a little bit on the aftermath of Katrina that the media hasn't covered or won't cover due to horrific circumstances.
I'm sure you all have seen the news coverage on the metro New Orleans area after Katrina hit the gulf coast 12 days ago. If you notice, all the attention of the media is focused on New Orleans and not other cities like Gulfport and Biloxi, which I believe got the worst damage IMHO. Since New Orleans is considered a low-lying area and the threat of water flooding the entire city, of course all focus is there at this point.
Now, my family had decided to evacuate up north more towards Arkansas and we just packed up all the necessary items we needed (food, water, clothes, important papers, etc....) and got the hell out of dodge. My father and my cousin, Kyle decided to stay behind and ride out the storm and it was my mother, aunt, grandmother, cousin Bri and me going up north and we ended up in Little Rock on that Sunday before.
Storm hit the coast early Monday morning when it shifted more towards the right and making a direct impact on the LA/MS border, rather than where it was projected to land and that was directly towards Slidell north of the lake. We only stayed up in Little Rock for a day and a half and we were told by my dad that we didn't get any major damage at all, so we decided to leave and try to come back to Thibodaux, which took a total of 13 hours to do overall due to a hellva lot of traffic. By the time we did get back, we still had no power in our home.
Power was only out in my parish and surrounding parishes for only 2-3 days. Other parishes took longer, obivously. TV coverage was on 24/7 for the first week after Katrina hit and one station was mostly airing the aerial shots helicopters had captured. All the water around and in some places reaching up to the roof of people's homes was just horrifying to look at.
What me, my dad and my cousin Kyle decided to do was go down to one of the more affected parishes, which is Jefferson Parish (btw, parishes is another way of saying counties) and some of the damage was just unbelieveable to see. People camping out on an interstate was really heartbreaking to look at also, as FEMA took it's sweet old time to get these people the help they needed.
We then made our way into the CBD (Central Business District) where the Superdome is and it was just incredible to see thousands and thousands of people just sitting outside camped out, waiting to leave and go on to Houston. The roof of that place just didn't hold up as people thought it would. The stench in the air would make a normal person just cringe. Feces, urine, decomposed bodies; I mean it was just horrible. Yesterday they declared the Superdome a biohazard, so that shows you something right there.
We encountered a middle-aged couple with two kids and a dog, who lived in Biloxi, who evacuated away from there and got only as far as the Superdome. We then decided since these people's house were probably gone, to take all them back to our town with us and pretty much stay in my house until they got back on their feet. (I won't say these people's names for privacy issues)
Story on that is I did live alone in a house that was also owned by my parents. After we brought these people back with us, my parents decided that we would sell the house back to the real estate people and I move back in home with everyone else, which I did. We've been helping this family out and got the father a job in another nearby town, Houma working at one of the car dealerships there and in turn, they got themselves a new vehicle as well. They have two preteen kids, a 12-year old boy and a 13-year old girl who will start out at new schools down here, starting on Monday. Their dog's a golden retriever, who's had to suffer as much as they did.
Now, The three of us were supposed to go make another trip out to that area to try to help some of these people who could be stranded again, but we were told not to come in the parish as they would think we would be looting. THe president of Jefferson Parish, Aaron Broussard, did hear about us helping the Biloxi family out and really gave us a lot of praise. Now you won't hear about this story on the news, as our family and the Biloxi family don't want to really deal with the media at all. Bottom line is, we gave these four people and their dog a second chance to pretty much create a new life in Louisiana. Not to disrespect the media in any way, but it's our right to refuse any interviews if we don't want to give any, especially in this state.
Now I know some of you are thinking, "Why is this guy even posting such a story like this on a game show message board for anyway?" Well the answer is quite simple, ladies and gentleman: You can look at all the news coverage of this thing all you want, but when you've actually experienced just a sample of the mayhem up close, it's a different story. Now, that's only a small portion of what actually happened. I do have a lot of opinions on this entire FEMA situation and all, but I'm going to be respectful to the mods of this fine message board and just keep them to myself.
And there you have it, folks. Flame me if you must, but I don't care anymore. I can tell you that this tragedy has affected me physically and emotionally in a huge way. Any comments and questions are welcome. Thanks, Chris, Matt, and Dave for giving me a chance to explain some of what you don't see on the news about this national tragedy.
~Carl Chenier
