On Friday August 26, 2005 Mark and I arrived at the Denver airport to visit our great friends who are also from New Orleans. As we picked up our luggage to load into the back of her car, B said to us, "Did you see that the hurricane has turned toward New Orleans?" And from there, our lives would never be the same.
Earlier that week I was traveling between Houston and New Orleans. As I headed home on Thursday to get ready for our long weekend in Denver, I sent Mark this text: "What's up with this Katrina chick?" She had formed on Tuesday 8/23 and made landfall in Florida on 8/25. His response was "Who's Katrina?"
We packed our bags and met at my house on Friday morning. A spur of the moment decision was made about who's car to leave at the house and who's to take to the airport. His car was in the back of mine in the driveway so we decided to leave it in the airport garage. At the time, it was such a small decision.
As was my usual procedure for short trips, my neighbor was going to check on the two indoor and one outdoor cat each morning to make sure they had food and water. We dropped Mark's cat and dog off at the vet for their yearly shots. No big deal. After all, we would be back on Monday afternoon, right?
The television in the airport still had projections for Katrina pointed toward Apalachicola, Florida - about 400 miles to the east of New Orleans. Obviously, the storm took a jog to the west.
While in Denver we tried to proceed with the plans we'd already made. We relaxed on Friday night and had plans to take a train up to Winter Park on Saturday for a day in the mountains. Mandatory evacuations began to spring up for parishes all over the greater New Orleans area. I started to panic. I was stuck on a train heading through rock tunnels and up a beautiful mountain with limited cell phone service. I was totally ignoring the majesty of it all and instead spent the whole time trying to find someone to pick up my kitties and take them to safety.
Winter Park was beautiful but it's beauty was marred by the stress of the events happening far away from me. I had the thought of going home to get my kitties but Mark convinced me that was insane. I knew it was, but I felt the need to do something, anything. I got sick in the train's bathroom as I tried to come to grips with what was about to happen.
My Mom - the greatest woman who ever lived - drove into the city as everyone else was leaving and found all three cats and packed them up to take with her and my Dad on their evacuation. We couldn't reach the vet to find out about Mark's pets.
Saturday night the four of us sat glued to the television as we watched the mayor of New Orleans call for a voluntary evacuation. He urged people to leave but wasn't sure if he could call for a mandatory evacuation. Katrina got stronger. On Sunday she became a category 5 storm. We called the airlines and canceled our flights. We didn't know where we would go or when so we simply suspended our tickets. Frontier Airlines was incredibly understanding and helpful. Thank God for companies like them or I may have lost my mind really early on.
At 6 a.m. Katrina made landfall in Buras, Louisiana and caused major wind damage and flooding. St. Bernard Parish and Plaquemines Parishes were hit hard from the water pushed up from the Gulf of Mexico. Monday afternoon the levees broke and so did our spirit.
I was luckier than many in that I didn't lose any loved ones and I didn't have to deal with deciding what to do. I was already away from home so all of the normal stresses surrounding a hurricane evacuation were a non-issue. I didn't prepare my home or move my car. I didn't gather important paperwork and pictures or move trash cans or make sure that I had battened down the hatches. I just left for a three day trip. The New Orleans that I passed through on Friday on my way to the airport was gone.
We all were glued to the television for hours at a time. We didn't know the fate of our homes or, in Mark's case, the pets. Since cell phone service to anyone with a 504 area code was non-existent we managed to keep in touch with my parents by text message and found them a hotel on the Internet. They had been stopping at every exit since Shreveport to check for openings. There weren't any. We sent them directions to the room we booked them in Arlington, Texas via text. It took them 17 hours in the car with 5 cats to get there, but they made it. Our little Denver support group finally headed out for dinner to pull ourselves away. Many beers later (for everyone but my friend who was pregnant - even harder for her) we headed back to their home for our last day of commiserating.
Since I didn't find the need for work clothes or dress shoes on a hiking trip, C and B made arrangements for us to use one of their cars for the day and Mark and I headed to the mall to get just a few outfits to wear when we reported to work. My job had an alternate location in Houston and Mark's was looking for him to head to Reston, Virginia. End of season sales are wonderful things, so for only $200 I got one pair of pants, three dress shirts and a pair of shoes.
I was impossible to be ready for what would come next.
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