My dad was a maintenance man at the apt complex we lived in. He stayed alone in our apartment on the third floor and said he never saw something so bad. He put all our important stuff in a stack in the middle of the living room floor covered by tarp.
He was safe but he couldn’t get in touch with my mom and I couldn’t get in touch with him so I didn’t know if he was okay for 3-4 days. I was able to get in touch with my mom who had no idea what was happening and said “I just know all they’re giving us is cold green beans”
I finally got in touch with my dad days later after contacting someone else in the neighborhood (his barber) who went and found him. He was trying to clean up everything around the apartment complex. He watched people back their truck into the store across the street and load it up with shit.
Once everything started coming back together, my dad’s brother finally came and got him and took him to his house. I came down a month later when I could get in and went to see my mom in Alabama. She was able to go “home” the next week but there was no more home in terms of where we lived.
The apartments didn’t make it thru the storm. They got a trailer months later from FEMA that was provided to them to live in on my uncles property which they did for at least a year or so before being able to find a new place.
I wasn’t here for it but Katrina took my home, took my dad’s job, and threw my parents lives into a tailspin. My parents couldn’t leave before the storm — lots of people can’t leave. The devastation to everyone and everything was so catastrophic.
I took this picture driving thru a neighborhood when I came back in October after Hurricane Katrina hit.
