Four years ago, Hurricane Katrina devastated portions of the Gulf Coast. One of the hardest hit areas was New Orleans and its suburb, Slidell, which is located on the northeast shore of Lake Pontchartrain. Of one the Slidell residents who chose to ride out the storm, was my Aunt Liz. She decided to batten down the hatches with my Uncle Bob a WWII veteran, who was diabetic and on dialysis. The storm with a fury. Then we waited anxiously for four days to hear if they had survived. Aunt Liz is received the Underwood gift of dramatic storytelling and has enthralled us all with her account Katrina and the ordeal afterward. I asked her to write it down for this blog.Here is Part One of her story:"The Not So Calm Before the Storm"To prepare, I braved the long lines at several stores making purchases of bottled water, batteries, canned food and several lanterns. The shoppers were frantic, the shelves were almost bare and it was every man for himself.
By Aug. 4th the TV weathermen were whipping everyone into a frenzy to evacuate . Tina, Georgia,Mike, Laine, Hannah and Kyle were heading to West Monroe to stay with the Rays in West Monore, about a 5 hour drive.
They pleaded with us to leave with them almost to the point of kidnapping us, but we stood firm. About 11 hours later, they called to say it was "bumper to bumper" and they'd just arrived in West Monroe. Bob and I smiled smugly nodding that we had indeed made a smart decision in staying. Bobby called from Hawaii late that night saying "Get Out" and go to Kellly's folks in Baton Rouge. This suggestion planted a seed that would later be a godsend to us a refugees.
After watching the last dire TV warnings, I turned the AC to 60 in order to store up extra cool for when the electricity went out. We went to bed , said some prayers and settled in for a good nights sleep in what would be the last time we sleep in that bed.
"The Storm"Noisy winds awakened us around 5 a.m. Aug. 5. I cooked a big breakfast of eggs and bacon, biscuits and lots of strong coffee, knowing we'd soon lose power. Anne called to check on us, and I happily replied that we'd watched a few trees topple, but all was well. I called my friends who live near us in a very wooded area to check on them. They are in our age group ,and over their children's wishes had also decided to ride it out. All was well with them, except for a few downed trees. They were going back to bed to get some sleep before the AC was lost !!! They later had to be fork lifted out because of downed trees.
After breakfast, we went upstairs to get dressed and do a little paper work. Soon trees were toppling at a faster pace on the golf course and in our yard. I suggested we'd be safer staying downstairs. Guess I had an "Underwood premonition." The AC was out, but the coffee was still hot, so we sipped coffee, listened to the radio reports of the severity of Katrina's havoc and watched our huge 40 year old Magnolia gracefully topple over, missing our house by a few yards.
Suddenly our house shook like a Mac truck had hit it. We felt like we had whip lash. It was the gigantic pine tree that had fallen on our patio . It had smashed in the roof, but the fallen boards had created triangular protection over Bob's golf cart and he was euphoric of this. Little did we stop to think that this gigantic pine tree had a top that had to land somewhere.
A few minutes later I went upstairs to get a book and was greeted with the sight of pink insulation flying everywhere due to tree limbs in the upstairs hall. Stepping into our bedroom, the shocking sight an exposed attic, a tree in our bed, caved over walls, a window knocked out with the back wall hanging on by a thread.
Very, very gingerly I made my way through the wrecked bathroom to the closet which was missing half a wall. Rain was pouring in from every opening in the bedroom and closet roof and walls. Some of the debris would have surely fallen on us had we not been downstairs. My reaction was to scream," Oh, no, Bob come up here carefully."
His reply before going up was "Liz, aren't you overreacting a bit". Upon seeing the destruction, his blood sugar went haywire and he "Said Liz, get a broom and clean up this mess". He then tried to push a piece of wall back into place . The results being more wall fell on him , knocking him into a big pile of insulation and sheet rock.
Thankfully, he sustained only a few cuts and bruises. After settling Bob into what we hoped was a safe corner downstairs, I went back up where clothes were rain saturated papers from our desk were flying everywhere. I tugged our two filing cabinets our of the closet and pulled them to dry ground downstairs. I also tossed clothing from the closet,papers from the desk and wet clothing from the chest of drawers downstairs.
After that ,we huddled in what we felt would be a safe area downstairs and listened to radio reports. More bad news was to happen to our old house. Soon water from above came pouring out of my oven, light fixtures and ceiling. I went into the garage to get some buckets to catch the water to use to flush with as we had no water pressure.
Oh, oh. there was a tree poking out of our garage roof with water pouring in. I got the buckets and some heavy duty hedge clippers and a saw,to use in getting out after the storm as all of our doors were blocked by downed trees.
I also got the shotgun, but couldn't find the ammo. It was a very long day and night. At one point we heard wind of a different sound and watched as the huge holly tree in our circle was split in two and lifted up. Some of the few remaining trees were being twisted in all manner of directions. Guess it was a small whirlwind of sorts.
We continued to listen to radio reports which kept stating that it would soon pass over Slidell. Not so. It would be about 1 the next morning before the winds left us. By bedtime it was unbearably hot, so we opened windows in the front of the house and tried for a little sleep on the sofa and floor.
I had the unloaded shotgun handy because the radio warned of looting. Our neighbor worked his way into the street with a chainsaw the next day and he and his boys stood guard the next night at the entrance to our cul de sac. He actually did fire a few warning shots in the air at a group walking down the street that night. They quickly heeded the warning.
Coming soon: "After the Storm"
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