Katrina: Day Five (Thursday)

Today is the day we decided to leave our safety of Tennessee and head back home to see what our homes look like. From what little we can gather from the news and the internet Picayune where my parents live is not as bad off as a lot of what we've seen on tv. The westbank where my brother lives, from the phone call my sister managed to get through, did not get hit too bad. Now when I say not too bad, this is all relative to what New Orleans and Biloxi went through. From everything we've heard about Slidell, where I live, the hurricane hit hard and bad. The storm surge was supposed to be fifteen to twenty feet high.

We left at six in the morning. Shirley wanted to cook us breakfast, but we decided to head out as soon as possible. We were going to try and retrace our path to Tennessee, by traveling the back highways. Again we found little traffic on the roads. As we got farther south the terrain began to change. At first we saw a few branches on the side of the road, as we rode on we found trees broken and lying on their side.

After hitting the center of the state gas became almost non exsitent. Everytime we stopped at a gas station they were either out of gas or they had no electriticty and could not operate their pumps. Not far out from Picayune the scenery became even worse. Trees were snapped along the side of the road. Not just one or two, but as we drove down the highway the trees that paralled the road were snapped like twigs. We passed one gas station and the top that covers the gas pumps was blown over. Fronts of buildings were blown over. Trees that were huge, that looked decades old, were uprooted and lying across the ground. Sometimes they were lying across someone's home.

On the side of the road a tree was blown over and was being held up by the electrical wires strung between the poles. The entire thing leaned over towards the street. This was not good, eventually it was going to come down if it didn't get fixed soon.

We turned down a road near my parent's house, one that I've traveled a thousand times. Trees on both sides of the roads were snapped in half. The road was almost unpassable. Many times there was just enough room to travel on the road. Than we came onto a pile, at least twenty feet high, of trees uprooted across the road. We were not going up that way. We turned around and went down to another road which we were able to travel over.

I held my breath as we turned up the driveway to my parents house. They have a long dirt driveway, about forty feet long before their home. In the middle of the driveway was a tree. We parked the cars and walked the rest of the way. They had two car ports off to the side that were now in the middle of the yard. One of them had literally been lifted up, blown over a fence without touching the fenced and was lying bent in two in the middle of their yard. The roof of their shed was peeled back, part of it had been ripped off and was hanging over their patio cover. The side window on my father's shop was broken and the door to the shop was blown off. But all his tool were still inside and looked in good shape.

The good news was that their home was fine. Some shingles had been blown off the roof, but besides that it looked good.

My brother and I went down and cut the tree apart so we could drive all the way up to the house. My father needs a chain saw. We had to cut the tree apart with an axe and a saw. It took us a little while but we managed.

A few more things and than I decided to head home. My brother was going to stay the night. He was going to have to go the long way around New Orleans to get to the West Bank, so he wanted to make sure he had a full day to try and get home.

My gas tank was getting closer to E, but I didn't have that long a trip. As bad as it had been so far, Slidell was worse.

I've never been in a war zone, but I've read how when a bomb goes off it just shatters the land, the shock wave can snap the trees in half. That's what the land looked like
as I tried to get home. When I turned down the street to get back towards my home all I saw was downed trees. It was a lot of weaving back and forth but I thought I was going to make it, till I got almost to the end and a tree was blocking the street. The good news was there was a backhoe there, looking like he was getting ready to move the tree aside. I decided to drive down to the store and see if anyone had made it there while the moved the tree aside.

Two campers were parked in front of the store when I got there. The door was unlocked. A stranger was at the doorway. He was from loss prevention. He said Loretta, our district manager was in the back of the store. I went back and talked with her for awhile. She had talked to just about all the other managers and everyone was safe. When I mentioned that I was almost out of gas she came to the rescue, she had a gas can in her car with gas in it. At least enough to get me around for another day, I was on E now.

I won't mention the fact that I locked my keys in my car when I went in, it was that type of day.

I left to try and get back home. This time the tree was gone. I had to dive under a leaning tree that looked like it was leaning too much, but I made it. As I drove back towards my trailer I was getting nervous. I passed one trailer where the entire side was pulled loose. I turned on my street.

I had a wooden fence around my trailer. Not one part of the fence was still standing. It was flattened. Part of the pine tree in my front yard was on my porch. My gas grill was upside down. I stood in shock. The trailer looked good though. Across the street from me there was a tree across the front of the trailer. In another yard a huge tree was on its side. I took some pictures, I'll post as soon I can get them developed.

I opened the door to my refrigerator and took a step back. Whoah, it smelled. I filled two big garbage bags with the entire contents of the the refrigerator, there was no use to try to save anything in it. I brought in all my food and water I got from Memphis and set up as best as I can. I've got my little portable tv, some food, something to drink. No water, no electricity. I opened all the windows, some of them barely opened, I don't think I've even opened some of them, I use the air conditioner instead of open windows. But it is still hard in here, sleeping is going to be fun. But at least it'll be in my own bed.

I'm going to watch a little more news and than probably head to bed. I'm off to work tommorrow at six, we're going to try and get open where at least people can get some things they may