i was in hurricane katrina

I was living in Houston when that happened, working at an IHOP and we struggled through one of the busiest days we ahd ever had there. So many people that had evacuated and made it as far as Houston went out to eat from their hotel rooms, just to kill a little time through the media balckout of the actual hurricane, and then left only to return later that day. It was awful to watch them return, they had all been joking - you know how some people take that "hurricane party" attitude - and once they had made it back to a television and knew they would have no where to return to, so many people just came back and sat there. We watched one lady call and call and call to search for her parents, both of which were in the same nursing home, one of the ones where so many residents ended up drowning in their beds. She hung around the restaurant for over a week, not knowing the area as she had actually driven down from Minnesota and couldn't locate her brother from N.O. either. To the best of our knowledge, all were lost in the hurricane. It was horrendous watching on the news the people trapped like a herd of cows in a football stadium and seeing nothing being done for days. Several people I know drove out from HOuston in an attempot to rescue friends and family there and were turned away by the national gaurd - before the national gaurd was evening rescuing people!!! One close friend actually launched his little 17 foot fishing boat and floated around following maps the best he could until he made it to his sister's house, where he found the whole family waiting rescue on the roof - with not a single hint of any kind of government help in sight. I am still amazed by the influx of people we took in in Houston alone, not to mention the rest of the country. I have been through the area post Katrina, and though it looks familiar, like a place I had once frequented, it more reminded me of an old west ghost town. I can't believ how much money our government and our nation is spending on a frivoulous war in the middle east and rebuilding that country, and yet seemingly nothing has been put into the area devasted by Katrina. It's pitiful the way our country is prioritising it's spending and letting it's people at home suffer. But somehoe not surprising, look at the president himself. Wasn't he on vacation when katrina went through? Didn't he wait days to even bother to go down there?

I don't life in New Orleans, but I visited a few weeks ago. I've never been there before, so I can't compare before and after. I was on bourbon street and it looks like all the shops, restaurants and bars are open. We drove through a residential area and noticed that there were trailers parked next to many of the houses.That was the one thing that I saw that indicated that everyone is still in the process of rebuilding. My hear goes out to all the people who suffered through all of that devastation.