Eleven years ago today Katrina wiped out most of what I knew as a child.

[nolabear]

Tomorrow is the New Orleans flood anniversary, but the storm hit the coast on this day. I've said before how bizarre my experiences here in the PNW were, watching CN and talking to my sister, who as a 911 operator in a Jackson MS suburb had desperate calls from the coast rerouted to her. She had no TV access so I was trying to relate to her what was happening.

Some stories:

Their PD had sent officers down to Biloxi ahead of the storm. They tied themselves to the trees as the buildings around them collapsed. They survived.

An officer in Pascagoula, who had taken refuge in the courthouse a mile or so inland (but by the river) watched through the glass doors as the water rose and they planned "vertical evacuation" (a popular term down there). He recalls a sea turtle swimming by in the head-high water.

The Hard Rock Casino was just set to open. It was obliterated. Rock and Roll memorabilia is still being pulled up from the gulf.

The live oaks that have lived on the coast for centuries were turned into bonsai; every branch smaller than the most sturdy broken off. Surprisingly quite a few survived, but they look strange.

Plastic bags are STILL in the trees out in the bayous. You can tell where the water line was by where the bags are.

[ismnotwasm]

1. K&R

[uppityperson]

2. K&R

The winds blew and blew, then the ocean came in.

[DirkGently]

3. KNR. n/t

[suffragette]

4. K&R

[sheshe2]

5. Never Forget

[JonathanRackham]

6. K&R

After work every day for a month we repacked trucks with donations. I visited NOLA many years ago before the storm, it was personal.

About 6 months after the storm we helped clean out local schools of surplus furniture to get schools back on their feet down south.

I couldn't believe the truckers who donated time, or the companies that paid for fuel.

[nolabear]

8. Thank you. The help that people offered was truly astonishing.

In the wake of FEMA breakdowns, it was, I believe, what made the recovery possible at all.

[mopinko]

7. damn.

and more to come, getting worse all the time.

[Roy Rolling]

9. Those who lived it are still shocked

It is not something that has gone away, maybe it will. And thanks to everyone for. It mentioning the 2005 president, it is not a time for political comment. Start another thread to rant, otherwise respect the silence that takes your breath away comprehending the magnitude of the catastrophe.

It took the breath away, also from and especially first-responders. That's why nobody wants to talk about it.

[nolabear]

19. Yes, the recent flooding brought back a lot of fear. I saw a talk by NO therapists recently

who have had people ever since who become afraid whenever a storm is approaching. For quite a long time there were people who were terrified by rain, and it's an everyday thing.

I'm going to assume the "no politics" comment wasn't aimed at me.

[lillypaddle]

10. Most of my family lives in NO

my roots go deep there. I lived in Atlanta at the time, and I couldn't believe that not everyone was crying and upset, and sending money their way ... truly a nightmare.

[nolabear]

20. Mine too. Hope your people are doing well.

[lillypaddle]

23. I left them a message on FB on 8/16

and haven't heard from them. They are cousins and kids and we're not really that close, but I still think about them and worry. They did make it through Katrina okay, but lost a lot.

Thanks for your kind thoughts. Back atcha, nolabear.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

11. ...

[OldRedneck]

12. We lived in Bay Saint Louis . . .

. . . and were building a house in Waveland.

About 10:00 AM Sunday, Aug 28, we packed up my elderly aunt and uncle, their daughter (my cousin) and her dog and headed north. Wife's cousin owned property north of Laurel, MS, where we stayed through the storm. We returned home Wednesday, Aug 31. I still can't adequately describe the destruction.

We now live in east Virginia, along the Chesapeake Bay.

[nolabear]

22. Oh honey, I'm so sorry.

Bay St. Louis is a lovely place, as is Waveband, which I think took the worst of it.

[X_Digger]

13. I still chat with the folks who lived with us..

I'm an agnostic, but a buddy of mine is a deacon in a local church.

Two weeks or so after the levees broke (second week of September?), I got a call from my buddy saying, "Think you can take off work next week and help me go get a bunch of families from New Orleans? I've got the local u-haul donating passenger vans and box trucks, but I need drivers."

He wasn't kidding; there were five or six passenger vans, and a virtual fleet of box trucks- every one of them filled with water, food, clothes, toys, personal care items, and bedding. We loaded up and hauled ass.

We got to Baton Rouge in just over six hours, but then it took almost a full day to get in to New Orleans proper. We kept trying to take back roads to get around the mess, only to find wash outs and parish cops / guard troops telling us to turn around.

We eventually made it to within 20 or so blocks of the superdome. The pastor of the congregation had arranged to pick up some folks at a church that had been used as a shelter, but folks had been moved to the superdome due to loss of electricity / lack of running water.

Let's skip the mess that was the superdome. Suffice to say that we loaded up what meager possessions about 10 families could carry with them into the now empty box trucks, loaded them into the vans, and hauled ass back to Dallas. There was a temporary shelter set up at one of the local arenas.

I helped unload folks, and I figured I'd done my good deed for the year. A couple of weeks later, Frank called me again, and asked if I had a spare bedroom. Apparently all of the folks from our trip had been placed with families except two- one a very large family that wanted to stay together, and the other a father and son.

David (the father) and Jacob stayed with us for about nine months. David had been a tech support / helpdesk guy at a local company in New Orleans, so it was pretty straightforward for him to find work at a local best buy / geek squad. The biggest mess was trying to get Jacob enrolled in school- no immunization records, spotty school records (the NOLA system was swamped- literally and figuratively- trying to get records to folks who evacuated and stayed gone), and signing up for.. CHP?

Last I spoke with David, he'd moved up to a network admin spot in Plano; Jacob was doing good, excited about soccer and pokemon.

[malaise]

17. The planet needs more folks like you

[nolabear]

24. Blessings. SO many people have stories of the families they lived with and loved.

There's a French Market jewelry maker that I always loved named Russell Gore. I was stunned to see him featured in a CNN program about the storm, in which his wife died after suffering a heart attack. He was overwhelmed with grief. Couple of years later when I was back in the city I ran into him, only to find he'd been living with relatives not fifty miles from where I now am in Seattle.

So many people didn't come back, and the whole economic substructure that kept many families afloat fell apart. I still love New Orleans and am impressed with its rebirth but many, many never returned.

[X_Digger]

26. Houston took in a LOT of folks, who then stayed, too.

New Orleans' loss is Houston's gain, with restaurants, music, and artists. Best cajun cooking I've had outside of Louisiana was in a Houston restaurant ran by a Katrina evacuee.

[New Orleans Strong]

30. So many still haven't returned.

I met someone last year who finally made it home. But so many wonderful friends who will never come back home. Scattered to the four corners of the earth. I miss them so much...

[a kennedy]

38. OMGAWD.......

[Hekate]

14. I could weep, remembering those days. DUers did an amazing job of getting the word out...

I'm in dry California, where we have our own experiences with the power of water via flash floods and mudslides. But what happened to New Orleans beggars belief, because it was the abandonment of a city and its people by the government. In the USA.

Never forget.

[etherealtruth]

15. :-(

[malaise]

16. I will never forget Katrina

and what followed

[Cryptoad]

18. radar

[New Orleans Strong]

31. Wow

Just looking at that me me gasp. And go back in time. But thank you for posting. I think?

[Dustlawyer]

21. My heart went out to the people of NOLA, I felt so bad.

A month later we got a direct hit by Rita. Geraldo made a fool out of himself, again, reporting from our cities command center.

We were told by the insurance companies and FEMA that they had to finish with Katrina before they could come to our aid. That first week after Rita the high temperature was over 100 degrees with 80-90% humidity.

Thankfully, only one death in our area.

RIP for those that lost their lives in that storm!

[7wo7rees]

25. Will never forget. At "Camp Casey" as it started to hit.

Everything that had been planned for final of couple of days changed. Many headed in that direction to help. Vets for Peace and their bus headed there and I believe they set up in Hammond to help. Their bus was a mobile communication center. They arrived, set up and were helping before the Red Cross.

A skeleton crew stayed behind in Crawford and loaded up tents, sleeping bags, medical supplies, all manner of lamps and camping gear in several large trucks and sent it.

I had lived in Louisiana for a couple of years in early 90's, and a very good friend of 30 yrs was born and raised there. It was personal for me too.

New Orleans will never be the same, or any of the MS coast.

[Thinkingabout]

27. Having been a Gulf Coast resident ww know hurricanes are a part of life here

But in the past years the hurricanes did mot pack the punch as Katrina and Camille. You can prepare some or leave the area and going back to the destruction is hard. The loss of power and other incontinences' is hard but it also takes away jobs and homes. Not easy, loss of lives and other experiences remain.

[shadowmayor]

28. Helped clean up in March and April

6 months later and we were still finding bodies. Saddest thing, all the homes were full of pictures - family photos, graduation pics, baby pics etc all washed off the walls and left in the detritus. All the clean-up crews had teddy bears tied to the grills of their trucks. We kept finding teddy bears every place we went. I remember cars and trucks on houses and houses on cars and trucks down in the lower 9th. And big damn boats stuck in the middle of the street.

[Festivito]

29. ..and killed more people, more Americans than 9/11 killed. eom

[Lifelong Protester]

32. I am sorry for this sad anniversary.

[love_katz]

33. Never forget.

[ancianita]

34. No one knew just how horrible it was about to be, really.

Sent money to friends down there to help them get through temporary digs in Baton Rouge.

I hear NOLA is still losing a football field of land an hour. All this year's rain has made land loss even worse.

http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2011/06/louisiana_is_losing_a_football.html

[shireen]

35. I remember that day on DU

A bunch of us were keeping vigil the night before, hearing first-hand reports from DU'ers in the area till they lost power. And we waited to hear back from them to let us know if they were OK.

For 3 months after the storm, I worked online--one of hundreds of volunteers--helping to track down evacuated or rescued pets to reunite them with their humans. I heard so many first-hand horror stories, on discussion boards and a few in email and phone conversations with survivors. Such heartbreak. I was safe in Baltimore, but even from that distance, it had a profound effect on my life.

[locks]

36. My dear family

were taken in by wonderful people in Baton Rouge. I hope NOLA and all of us can help the flood victims in Baton Rouge.

[a kennedy]

37. OMGAWD........

[lastlib]

39. What I Never Saw After Katrina:

Millionaires using their Bush tax cuts to rebuild levees around New Orleans.

AFAIK, Didn't Happen. Government had to do it.

[ashtonelijah]

40. I was huddled with my family riding it out in Sumrall, near Hattiesburg

And even that far up north from the Coast, it was still terrifying. I didn't recognize my little town after Katrina was finished sweeping through. I can only imagine the horror for those of you on the Coast. I still find myself, when I'm in Gulfport and Biloxi, wanting to go to places that no longer exist. Bless y'all.

[Solly Mack]

41. K&R

[nolabear]

42. I realized last night I was a day early. Oh well. Hug your families and don't sweat the small stuff.

[niyad]

43. we do not forget.