An essay composed by 12 yr old Katie Ball (now 13) in November of 2005 expressing her experience with Katrina. She based the essay on the comfort of knowing that God is in control. 

On the morning of August 29, 2005, my life became what seemed to be an unending nightmare. I felt as if I was being hypnotized by what I saw on the television, which was being powered by the generator at my cousins’ home in Baton Rouge. I could not believe anything that I was seeing before me. New Orleans, where I have spent almost my entire life, was literally being washed away on TV right in front of my eyes; washed away and turned into nothing but remains of the place where I had made so many memories. Everything that my family and I watched on that television seemed so unreal, so unbelievable, so strange and unfamiliar. I no longer felt safe in that warm home with all of my family, because I did not know what was going to happen. My mind began to fill with so many questions. Why had Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans? Was my home all right? What had happened to my grandfather’s home in St. Bernard, and my Uncle Kenny and Aunt Nellie’s home in Lakeview? Would New Orleans ever recover from this catastrophic nightmare? It was impossible for me to comprehend the fact that this was where I had spent all of my life even though it looked so different, and so many of my cherished memories of New Orleans had been taken away from me forever.

Evacuating for hurricanes has become a part of my life, good or bad, wanted or unwanted. I have become accustomed to packing up, leaving town for a week, and coming home to see that everything is as I had left it. Evacuating for Hurricane Katrina, though, was a different experience. I woke up late the morning of August 27, because I had been at the Back to School Bash in City Park with my friends the night before, having the time of my life without even the slightest clue of what was about to happen. I walked down into the kitchen to see my mother with a worried look on her face. She had come home from her trip out of town the night before, so I thought that maybe she was just tired from her flight home. Coming up to me, she said that the hurricane called Katrina was gaining strength as a Category 5 storm. I almost automatically rushed upstairs to pack, but not in worry. I wasn’t worried at all. I was excited. As I look back at that moment, I wonder why. Why had I been so excited about a storm that was about to wipe away a city that I loved?  I packed a pair of jeans, a few shorts, and some T-shirts into my old duffel bag from cheerleading. I also packed my journal, which I bring everywhere, so I could write about everything that went on while I was away from home, but I did not realize how long away from home I was going to be.  I almost blindly finished my task in my excitement. My sisters and I were excited that we would see our cousins, the McElorys, again. They live in Baton Rouge and we have always evacuated to their home whenever a hurricane decides to pay an unwelcome visit to our town. Before I knew it, the sun had gone down and it was night. My mother came up to my sisters and I and told us that we were leaving. We all piled into the car, but something felt vaguely wrong.  I had a strong feeling in my gut that something was missing. Maybe I felt this way because my father had decided to stay with our dog and bird at home to try and fight off the catastrophic nightmare ahead.

The first day spent at my cousins’ home was a day of both panic and relief. My Aunt Bonnie and my frail grandfather were also staying with us in Baton Rouge. On that first, solitary day we already had ten people in that one house, with only three bedrooms. My cousin Meagan’s bedroom was occupied by my grandfather, who would need the room around the clock because he needed his oxygen tanks and equipment to breathe, and needed to stay in bed most of the day. My cousin Dylan’s bedroom was where all five of the children slept. That included my sisters, my two cousins, and me. My Aunt Laurie and Uncle Greg’s room was for them, and our cat Joey was kept in their bathroom for a short while. By the time that the moon had come out in the sky, Hurricane Katrina had become an even more dangerous storm. That was when my mother knew that our father had to come. He could no longer be safe at home. My heart began to beat, faster and faster, finally so fast that I could not sit down. All I could do was wait while my mother tried to contact my father, and finally he answered the phone. He told us that he was already on his way to evacuate with Wishbone and our bird, so we need not worry. Right then, at that very moment, I smiled. I smiled because my father was going to be all right; I smiled because my family would all be together and safe. Now our house number would total to eleven, but the more the merrier. The next morning was anything but merry though, because on that morning my nightmare began. Our electricity had gone out, so we had one generator to power my grandfather’s breathing equipment, and another to power the television.  At that moment I realized how much we really do need electricity to live our day.  As I stared at the small television, what I was watching did not look like New Orleans, or St. Bernard, or Old Metairie. Everything looked different; nothing looked the same. I stared at my family and saw their faces of shock, and worry. My own face was a mixture of sorrow, surprise, and regret. My regret was from how I had thought that nothing was going to happen and that everything was going to be all right, but New Orleans in front of me on that tiny box with moving pictures was not as it was before.  As the ABC news reporters received more videos from helicopters flying over the destroyed city, my whole family realized one thing. My grandfather’s home in St. Bernard was underwater over its rooftop, but we had another problem as well. The phone rang and my mother answered to hear my Uncle Kenny. He and my Aunt Nelly had decided to stay at their home in Lakeview for Katrina, which we all quickly learned was a huge mistake. My uncle told of how he was forced up into the attic because the water had risen so high in his home. We all panicked, knowing no way to help them. That night my grandfather and my Aunt Bonnie left for Lafiette where my Uncle Steve and cousin Austin were staying, lowering the house number to nine. My aunt and uncle stayed in that attic for three days and three nights after that, trying to get help while we called the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, FEMA, and the Red Cross. I was in panic because I thought that my aunt and uncle were going to die. I had no way of helping them, and even worse was the fact that no one was answering the phone when we called for help. Miraculously, my uncle cut a hole through the roof and one of my uncle’s neighbors had found an abandoned boat, and they all escaped in it, leaving my Aunt Nelly’s cats behind because of lack of room in the small boat. Ironically, the electricity came back on at our house in Baton Rouge that same day that they were rescued, so we could phone them to find out where they were.  My Aunt Laurie picked them up from a rescue center located in Thibodaux, and again we had a full house, but it felt good to have more people. Having more people there meant that more people were safe and okay.

Watching the news became almost a constant chore while staying in Baton Rouge. We were desperate to know what happened to our home, our town, and our life that we had left behind. My family left four weeks later to go back to Jefferson Parish, to Old Metairie, to our home. As we drove past all of the destroyed homes, shops, signs, and streetlights, I began to feel more and more uneasy.  I knew that my home hadn’t been flooded, but this place that I was traveling through felt unfamiliar and unwelcoming. Nothing that I saw was as it used to be. I had been wrong about coming home to the same life and town.  As I passed by old buildings, I remembered times that I had spent there. I started to remember so many things, and then my mind went blank. I could no longer remember anything. The buildings looked so strange to me that I felt they were not the ones that I had seen before.  We finally came to the corner of my street, and at that point I could no longer breathe. I was edging more and more off of my seat in the car until we finally reached my home. My home was fine. Everything about it was fine. I breathed. I breathed a long, relaxing breath. It finally dawned on me that through everything, I needed to relax. Even though everything around me might be falling down, I would stand and be relaxed through it all.  After we moved back into our home and got accustomed to the strange smells from the refrigerator, we felt life returning back to normal, or at least finding its way back to normal. That was until our parents decided to let us go see our grandfather’s home in St. Bernard. The sight of my grandfather’s street alone made my stomach churn. All around me was dust. Dust, disaster, and destruction. Seeing houses blown into the street, trees on top of roofs, and boats crashed into houses made me feel cold inside, but the worst was seeing my grandfather’s home. I cannot describe how horrible I felt when I saw his home. I felt so guilty that I had a home that was perfect and undamaged, while my kind, loving grandfather had nothing except for mold, caved-in ceilings, mud,  and dust. We tried to salvage whatever we could find, which was not much at all. As I looked around the interior of my grandfather’s home, I felt that as if all of those Christmas parties, Thanksgiving dinners, birthday parties, and weekly Sunday visits had been stolen away from me forever, never to be found again or remembered. Somehow though, I found the strength to travel into the dusty jungle backyard with my sisters. The car that used to smell like my grandfather’s cigarettes smelled like nothing at all now. I found a CD inside of the car and opened its case. Inside, the CD looked brand new. Seeing the CD somehow gave me hope that inside of all of the chaos around us, we can find hope, love, and peace. I decided to take the CD and its case home with me-and I still have it- just in case I ever need a little more hope.

Hurricane Katrina has left huge holes in my life, my memories, and my childhood. I have felt sad, afraid, alone, cold, shocked, and panicked, but through this whole mess of emotions I found happiness and warmth amongst my family. I have realized that something that you hold so dear to you can be "washed away" from you in the blink of an eye, no matter how hard you try to get it back. I have learned that nothing is ever what it seems, and that everyone makes mistakes.  Through everything, though, you must relax. You must relax and know that God is watching over you.  Relax and cherish every moment of life. From the butterflies to the birds, from watching the clouds to just sitting around the fireplace with your family- cherish everything and keep close at heart the little things that matter, not the big things around you that seem to be so different. "Be still, and know that I am God."