Building a life at school after rebuilding a home

For as long as I can remember, all I wanted was to leave Louisiana.

My only expectation of higher learning was to get as far away from home as possible. Full of naïve ideas about big city life in far away places, my state was too slow, too predictable. Ready to leave my southern accent behind and armed with my dream of becoming a journalist, I was determined to go somewhere where news actually happened.

But on the verge of leaving for college, news did happen--in my backyard. Within a matter of weeks, Louisiana was slammed by two massive hurricanes, Katrina and Rita.

The storms of 2005 weren't like the mild mannered hurricanes of my childhood, which were mostly all bark and no bite. Both Katrina and Rita made landfall as deadly category 3 storms during one of the worst Atlantic hurricane seasons on record. The double blows were much more than any of us had ever experienced.

Like most kids growing up in the Bayou State, I viewed hurricanes the way kids up north view snowstorms--an excuse to get out of school. Other hurricanes during my childhood either blew by with minimal damage or died somewhere off the Gulf Coast after triumphantly canceling school and causing evacuations.

Stranded two hours between oil giant Houston and culture rich New Orleans, my hometown of Lake Charles has a mixed heritage. The love child of tough Texas and spicy Louisiana, the town doesn't know if it twangs or drawls -- so it does both. But Cajun culture is hard to stamp out and Lake Charles is proof of that.

Having long ago accepted the risk of life on the Gulf Coast, we've always found a way to coexist with hurricanes. In elementary school, we learned to plot math graphs using hurricane charts.

As kids, we all found hurricanes exciting. A storm swirling far away in the Caribbean would catch people's attention days before landfall. Rumors of an immanent hit would begin. If small towns are known for creating gossip, then hurricanes amplify that by at least 100.

In every home the Weather Channel was kept on constantly, like a movie score of impending danger. Everyone became a meteorology expert. We would start to plot our days away from school with fingers crossed that it wouldn't be enough of a close call to have to evacuate, only to cancel class.

As the week goes on, the storm grows closer and the prediction cone narrows. My mom returns from the grocery store with water, canned food and batteries in addition to the usual lineup of sloppy joes and taco night supplies.

My dad begins taping windows, filling bathtubs with water and moving toys out of the backyard. My mom takes the framed photos of me and my sisters at our First Communions, wraps them in quilts and places them in the back of our Suburban. With a worried eye always on the Weather Channel, my dad starts calling hotels and relatives in Texas, looking for places to stay.

Two days before landfall, the long awaited call comes--school is canceled. Cue joy from the peanut gallery. Refusing to believe this will be anything but a fun-filled break from school, friends are called, plans are made and parents are ignored.

The next day, my dad calls from work, saying to be packed and ready to leave that afternoon. Now the big decisions have to be made--what to bring? My beloved doll, of course. A huge stack of books, half of which will later be intercepted and left behind by my mom. I've done this before. At the venerable old age of 12, this Louisiana girl is an evacuation pro.

I go with my dad to fill up the car with gas. Every gas station in town has a line around the block, and some put plastic bags over the pump handles to show they've run dry. It's the proverbial calm before the storm.

The lack of everyday activity makes the apprehension in the air palatable and tension hangs heavier in the thick, humid air than the impending storm clouds. Today, the entire state has limited priorities: hunker down or get out.

Loading up the car. This is the part I hate. Nothing will fit, and we have to leave things behind (in my sister Caroline's case, seven unmatched socks and an empty bottle of glitter hairspray. Always the know-it-all older sister, I roll my eyes at her hurricane incompetence.) My sisters and I battle over vehicular territory, lines are drawn and seats are chosen.

I glance behind us at our house. I've done this too many times to genuinely feel that it's the last time I'll see my home again, but it's hard not to let the thought skip through my mind. I bat it away, snap my Discman shut and focus on the fact that some girl is tearing up Justin Timberlake's heart. Clearly there are people with bigger problems than me.

I-10 is a parking lot. No highway system is equipped to handle the exodus of one quarter of the population.  

Darkness begins to fall, and the people of Lake Charles are reduced to a never-ending trail of headlights. There's nothing left to do but wait.

Katrina

2005 was different from the hurricanes of my childhood. The last few "big ones" had hit Florida, and Louisianans grew complacent, rarely bothering with the stress and trouble of evacuating. Even as category 5 monster Katrina shifted in the Gulf, we didn't worry. It would veer off towards Florida again--why get worked up?

But suddenly, Katrina was on Louisiana's doorstep, knocking hard. Last minute evacuation orders were issued for the eastern side of the state, and we watched residents of New Orleans and Baton Rouge stream in seeking refuge. Last minute shelters were set up and everyone made room in their houses for friends, family and strangers alike.

My Cajun side of the state is vastly different from the New Orleans side. The differences, like everything in Louisiana, all go back to food. You can always tell where someone's from by how they like their gumbo.

A few months earlier, I had graduated high school and begun an internship at the local paper, the American Press. I fell hard and fast for newspapers, and my summer internship quickly became the center of my world. Thanks to my manic desire to work, I became a reporter halfway through the summer and was churning out stories as fast as I received assignments.