August 29th

It will probably be mentioned as an afterthought on the nightly news, but here in Southeastern Louisiana August 29th is a day that is more memorable than the rest of the year. On this date 8 years ago - August 29, 2005 - Hurricane Katrina roared ashore on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, devastating the small towns of Waveland and Bay St. Louis.

She also flattened Gulfport and Biloxi.


I'm not even going to go into the political impact of these storm. I'm also not going to dwell the repulsive comments from our "fellow Americans". Although the haters represent a small chunk of our fellow citizens, their vitriol hurt. And they're still at it today. I feel sorry for people with that much hate in their hearts.

A lot of the immediate coverage was centered around New Orleans, and rightly so.

There are so many stories of horror and survival. Even today - 8 years after the storm - when you meet someone in line at a festival or in the store, the subject usually comes up. We survivors need to talk about "The Storm". I don't think we'll ever NOT want to talk about it. It's therapy to those of us who lived through it and still want to live here.

I've put together a montage of Katrina's devastation on this page. After The Storm I was out of work for 2 months, so I taught myself basic HTML and created the page. It kind of helped my survivor's guilt.

Memories of The Storm are anywhere one travels in Katrina's path: overgrown lots, forgotten decrepit houses, flattened beachfront properties on the coast. To offset those sights, it is still evident that the area is still coming back, 8 years later.

Oh, yeah. Something else happened on August 29th: Hurricane Isaac. The odds of this storm hitting on the same date as Katrina blew us away. Isaac blew away our electricity for almost a week, flooded our streets. He did much less than Katrina, he was just a nuisance.

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We survived both storms and the ineptitude of the U.S. Government in their aftermath. Today - August 29, 2013 - we are blessed with cool weather and clear blue skies. Many thanks to those who've cared, contributed toward our rebirth and all of the prayers.

Farewell, Isaac

It's been almost two weeks since Hurricane Isaac visited and I feel as if I'm just getting back to normal.

We didn't experience any real damage, thank God. But we thought the storm was never going to move on during those three days!

Good things come out of forced togetherness, though:

I got to spend some quality time with my beautiful daughter. We did crossword puzzles together and played monopoly. Seems like hurricanes are the only time we play monopoly. She won, of course.

I managed to fit in a few very happy naps in the darkness of our house. It was very, very nice.

We successfully cooked two delectable dinners on the grill, including a pasta dish.

There is something about being stuck at home with no electricity that drives us to want to eat constantly. I got so bad that when we got to get out to buy groceries on the third day I just HAD to have spaghettios. I never did open the can!

We just moved into our house in April, so we got a good idea of her structural strength and how the yard handles several inches of water. Everything passed with flying colors. An extra plus is how cool the house stayed during the three days without electricity.

The yard is clean now: I got a bucket full of fresh acorns for our squirrel and picked up what seemed to be a thousand pine cones. Looking forward to the end of hurricane season.

7 Years

Mother Nature has a warped sense of humor, bringing Isaac in on this date. Please keep the residents of Plaquemines and St. Bernard Parishes in your prayers, as they are flooded seven years to the day after they were devastated from Katrina.