hurricane katrina - my story - day 1
i guess i actually have something to write about now. currently, i am in memphis. got here early thursday morning after driving for more than 12 hours straight,in my evacuation from new orleans. it's still so hard for me to believe that just last week, i was going about my usual daily life, going to work, coming home, waiting for friday to rest and relax. saturday morning i get a phone call from my supervisor at work, telling me that the hospital was implementing its hurricane plan. and since i am on the designated hurricane team list, i must report to the hospital no later than 6am monday morning, since the hurricane was scheduled to hit monday at 8am. it still didn't seem real. that day, it was sunny and hot, a typical day in new orleans. yet once you hop in your car and drive out of the neighborhood, you can see that this saturday was starting to be different from all the rest. i went about some usual errands that i make on the weekends, and decided i had better fill my gas up in my SUV, just in case. then i find a line of 15 cars at the gas station - all people who were preparing to flee the city that day. then i go to the grocery store to start buying supplies: gallons of water, batteries, bread, lunch meat, etc. when i get home that day, my husband Pov is saying that he will wait until sunday morning to see the news, and make his decision then about whether he will ride the storm out at home, or flee to memphis, where our families live.
i don't know how to prepare for a hurricane. i'm not from new orleans. all the other times that hurricanes have come towards the area, we would evacuate, but then somehow the hurricane always turned at the last minute and hit the coasts of mississippi, alabama, or florida. well, so then i figure that i can at least start preparing the house in case it really does get bad and the windows get blown in or if it floods. so i begin to take all the pictures down off the walls, and wrap them in plastic walmart bags, wrap all of out wedding pictures, and vacation pictures. we stay up until 2am watching the weather channel.
sunday morning, aug 28th, we wake up and the news is full of the impending doom, that the hurricane is heading straight towards us, has upgraded to a category 5, and is highly unlikely that it will turn this time. Pov decides that he must evacuate ASAP, before the weather gets worse, and before the traffic becomes too bad. he tells our friend phin, who is living with us, to pack enough clothes for a week, while he throws some clothes of his own into a duffel bag, gathers some food together for our dog pele, and loads the car. i am starting to get anxious, because i still don't know how in the world do i prepare for this? i pack up our important documents, CDs with all of our wedding and vacation pictures stored on them, jewelry, and a small suitcase of my own clothing for pov to take with him. pov, phin, and the dog left at around 9am. i had to tell myself, "now is not the time to panic. stay calm and think straight." then i start going into this packing frenzy, gathering all the gallon water jugs and food together, my air mattress, pillows, blankets, scrubs, shoes, socks, other clothes that i thought i might could wear when i finally get home, toiletries, etc. i wrap all the computers in plastic, place them on top of chairs in the middle hallway, which is an interior room with no windows. in there, i also place all the photos and picture boxes that i wrapped the previous night. i take a shower, because i don't know when i will be able to do so again after i get to the hospital. i wash my favorite quilt, thinking that i might be able to take it. i clean all the dishes in the sink to get rid of more nervous energy. then around 12:30noon, i can't take it any longer. the mayor is on TV telling people to "GET OUT NOW," the clouds are beginnin to darken outside, the neighborhood is eerily quiet. so i pack the car, close the doors in every room, take one last mental picture of our cute apartment in Lakeview, a beautiful neighborhood that we were so lucky to have found in new orleans, where Pov and i shared our first 2 yrs of being real adults with careers after college, where we spent our first year of marriage. i said goodbye to our home, trying to convince myself that i would be back in 2-3 days and everything will be alright. then i get in the car alone, and drive down to the hospital, through the ghost town of new orleans pre-katrina.
i park my car in the parking garage, on the 3rd floor, right outside the entrance to the walkway, which leads into the hospital. i make sure i choose a good spot, one that is not right by a window where debris could fly in with the wind and smash into my SUV, where hail could not hit it, and yet is still visible from the door. as i begin to unpack the car, my supervisor marylee walks by with a cart, about to unload her own car. she kindly offers the cart to me to let me unload first. i take my 4 bags of clothes and 2 bags of food and water out, thinking to myself "maybe i overpacked... i feel silly." once i enter the hospital, i find it crowded with family members of other employees, rushing about. i make my way to the 9th floor, where the rehab gym and offices are located, and place my belongings in the M9 therapy office, right next to my desk. i am the first one there. i call rachele, my co-worker, to find out where she is evacuating to. she almost sounds excited on the phone... "we're going to ft. walton beach... just me and gary..." i almost feel jealous. it's like she is on a mini-vacation while we sit and wait in new orleans for this monster storm to arrive. in the meantime, pov is still sitting in traffic, hasn't barely made it 20 miles out of the city. i miss him already.
i decide to leave the office and wander around, hopefully to find any other PT's or OT's who had the unfortunate luck of having their name picked out of the hurricane list lottery. i get to the 1st floor and meet with georgeann, another OT, who is already in a panic because she had to kiss her baby girl Bella goodbye, along with her husband, not knowing when she will see them again. soon other therapists filter into the office: melinda, erinn, frannie, elaine, ken, susan, renee, annie, debbie... just to name a few. marylee and barbara (the PT supervisor) tell us just to hang out, set up where we will be sleeping, because we are not actually "on the clock" until monday morning.
so we go set up our mattresses in the M9 office, where we feel is safest since it has no windows. 8 women all crammed into this tiny office, almost like having a slumber party. we watch movies as night falls outside, trying to distract ourselves from the hurricane and the worry. no chick flicks, no dramas, and no scary movies - we have enough to cry about and to be scared about at the moment. so we settle down to watch forrest gump, a feel good movie. unfortunately when it ends, we come back to reality and can't help but be drawn to the M9 gym, which has 3 walls of floor-to-ceiling windows - a beautiful view that is calming and therapeutic for our rehab patients, but a potential hazard during a hurricane. we decided not to sleep in the gym, even though it is large and airy, has comfy mats that we could sleep on, good ventilation, and is right down the hall from the bathroom, the nurses station, and next to the kitchen. we didn't want to chance that the windows could be blown in from the winds of katrina, even though we were told that they were built to withstand 200 mph winds, a category 5 storm. sounds reassuring, however, they have never actually been tested... anyways, some of the nurses and aides have already claimed the gym for their families, and they were set up with the TV, watching the news of the storm. we all gather around the tv at 10pm sunday night. the hurricane is about 9-10 hrs away from making landfall. outside, the winds have picked up and rain is pelting the windows.
i called pov around 11pm. he finally made it home to memphis, and was safe and dry in my parents house. suddenly, i feel so sad, that this is just the beginning of a bad dream that has become real, that i don't know when i will see pov again, that our happy life we led may actually be changed within the next few days.
we go to sleep in the office around midnight. safe, dry, cool, clean, and scared.....
i don't know how to prepare for a hurricane. i'm not from new orleans. all the other times that hurricanes have come towards the area, we would evacuate, but then somehow the hurricane always turned at the last minute and hit the coasts of mississippi, alabama, or florida. well, so then i figure that i can at least start preparing the house in case it really does get bad and the windows get blown in or if it floods. so i begin to take all the pictures down off the walls, and wrap them in plastic walmart bags, wrap all of out wedding pictures, and vacation pictures. we stay up until 2am watching the weather channel.
sunday morning, aug 28th, we wake up and the news is full of the impending doom, that the hurricane is heading straight towards us, has upgraded to a category 5, and is highly unlikely that it will turn this time. Pov decides that he must evacuate ASAP, before the weather gets worse, and before the traffic becomes too bad. he tells our friend phin, who is living with us, to pack enough clothes for a week, while he throws some clothes of his own into a duffel bag, gathers some food together for our dog pele, and loads the car. i am starting to get anxious, because i still don't know how in the world do i prepare for this? i pack up our important documents, CDs with all of our wedding and vacation pictures stored on them, jewelry, and a small suitcase of my own clothing for pov to take with him. pov, phin, and the dog left at around 9am. i had to tell myself, "now is not the time to panic. stay calm and think straight." then i start going into this packing frenzy, gathering all the gallon water jugs and food together, my air mattress, pillows, blankets, scrubs, shoes, socks, other clothes that i thought i might could wear when i finally get home, toiletries, etc. i wrap all the computers in plastic, place them on top of chairs in the middle hallway, which is an interior room with no windows. in there, i also place all the photos and picture boxes that i wrapped the previous night. i take a shower, because i don't know when i will be able to do so again after i get to the hospital. i wash my favorite quilt, thinking that i might be able to take it. i clean all the dishes in the sink to get rid of more nervous energy. then around 12:30noon, i can't take it any longer. the mayor is on TV telling people to "GET OUT NOW," the clouds are beginnin to darken outside, the neighborhood is eerily quiet. so i pack the car, close the doors in every room, take one last mental picture of our cute apartment in Lakeview, a beautiful neighborhood that we were so lucky to have found in new orleans, where Pov and i shared our first 2 yrs of being real adults with careers after college, where we spent our first year of marriage. i said goodbye to our home, trying to convince myself that i would be back in 2-3 days and everything will be alright. then i get in the car alone, and drive down to the hospital, through the ghost town of new orleans pre-katrina.
i park my car in the parking garage, on the 3rd floor, right outside the entrance to the walkway, which leads into the hospital. i make sure i choose a good spot, one that is not right by a window where debris could fly in with the wind and smash into my SUV, where hail could not hit it, and yet is still visible from the door. as i begin to unpack the car, my supervisor marylee walks by with a cart, about to unload her own car. she kindly offers the cart to me to let me unload first. i take my 4 bags of clothes and 2 bags of food and water out, thinking to myself "maybe i overpacked... i feel silly." once i enter the hospital, i find it crowded with family members of other employees, rushing about. i make my way to the 9th floor, where the rehab gym and offices are located, and place my belongings in the M9 therapy office, right next to my desk. i am the first one there. i call rachele, my co-worker, to find out where she is evacuating to. she almost sounds excited on the phone... "we're going to ft. walton beach... just me and gary..." i almost feel jealous. it's like she is on a mini-vacation while we sit and wait in new orleans for this monster storm to arrive. in the meantime, pov is still sitting in traffic, hasn't barely made it 20 miles out of the city. i miss him already.
i decide to leave the office and wander around, hopefully to find any other PT's or OT's who had the unfortunate luck of having their name picked out of the hurricane list lottery. i get to the 1st floor and meet with georgeann, another OT, who is already in a panic because she had to kiss her baby girl Bella goodbye, along with her husband, not knowing when she will see them again. soon other therapists filter into the office: melinda, erinn, frannie, elaine, ken, susan, renee, annie, debbie... just to name a few. marylee and barbara (the PT supervisor) tell us just to hang out, set up where we will be sleeping, because we are not actually "on the clock" until monday morning.
so we go set up our mattresses in the M9 office, where we feel is safest since it has no windows. 8 women all crammed into this tiny office, almost like having a slumber party. we watch movies as night falls outside, trying to distract ourselves from the hurricane and the worry. no chick flicks, no dramas, and no scary movies - we have enough to cry about and to be scared about at the moment. so we settle down to watch forrest gump, a feel good movie. unfortunately when it ends, we come back to reality and can't help but be drawn to the M9 gym, which has 3 walls of floor-to-ceiling windows - a beautiful view that is calming and therapeutic for our rehab patients, but a potential hazard during a hurricane. we decided not to sleep in the gym, even though it is large and airy, has comfy mats that we could sleep on, good ventilation, and is right down the hall from the bathroom, the nurses station, and next to the kitchen. we didn't want to chance that the windows could be blown in from the winds of katrina, even though we were told that they were built to withstand 200 mph winds, a category 5 storm. sounds reassuring, however, they have never actually been tested... anyways, some of the nurses and aides have already claimed the gym for their families, and they were set up with the TV, watching the news of the storm. we all gather around the tv at 10pm sunday night. the hurricane is about 9-10 hrs away from making landfall. outside, the winds have picked up and rain is pelting the windows.
i called pov around 11pm. he finally made it home to memphis, and was safe and dry in my parents house. suddenly, i feel so sad, that this is just the beginning of a bad dream that has become real, that i don't know when i will see pov again, that our happy life we led may actually be changed within the next few days.
we go to sleep in the office around midnight. safe, dry, cool, clean, and scared.....