A Year Ago Today........August 14, 2016

My life would never be the same.  I feel permanently marked.   You have no idea what you lose of yourself.  Material goods aside, your core is shaken and you will never be the same. 

It is Sunday.  I spent the night trying not to throw up.  Frank spent the night collecting important papers.  Moving things to higher places.  Money from the safe.  During Katrina's aftermath, electricity was out across wide areas from west of  Baton Rouge to east of Mississippi.  Banks were underwater.  You had money, but you couldn't get to it.  In the end, bank records were flooded and there was no longer proof you had money. 

Now everyone prepares hurricane supplies with cash.

In the light of the morning, I saw the water on my patio, at my back door.  When it started to come through the walls and up through the slab, it sizzled like a frying pan of hot grease.  The sound was freaky, odd and terrifying. 

Frank was frantic.  But I felt like everything was in slow motion.

Still, we thought it would be just an inch, or two.  No more.  I sat on the sofa and watched the water cross the floor of my den.  It was coming up fast.  We still thought it would stop at just a few inches.

The boys were with me on the sofa.  I looked at Chloe, she was in her bed surrounded by water that was now 2 inches deep in my living room.  I convinced her to move to the fireplace hearth which was a foot high. 


When the water reached the top of the hearth, I told Frank we needed to leave.  If the water got much higher, my bassets would not be able to walk.  I couldn't risk losing my dogs.  My brother had lost their beloved pot bellied pig during Isaac when the water rose so fast in Laplace they had no time to work on getting her in the truck.  He still has nightmares.


Shocking both of us, we realized the water outside was nearly a foot higher than it was inside.  Frank was concerned he would be unable to get the door open, but it opened without a problem.  Two problems you have in floodwater are snakes and red ant piles that float in the water.  You can see neither until they are on you.  


We had no contact with the outside world.  ATT was completely down since early when the flooding started.  We could text Carrie until the water was a foot high.  We texted we were going to leave and had no idea where we were going.  She texted she would try to get a boat to us soon. 

Convincing the dogs to jump off the sofa into the water was a bit more difficult than I imagined.  Finally when the confident DiNozzo jumped off the others followed his lead. 

The water in the street was chest high on Frank.  We had to float the dogs by holding them up with their harnesses as if they were luggage.  We got them across the street on to the porch of a vacant house that was somehow built higher. 




These armadillos are actually great swimmers.  They lived under the porch.  We spent the next 4 hours watching the water rise higher and higher and fighting the armadillos off.

My house.  My beautiful house.  Our life was in this place; we worked so hard to bring things we treasured to this house.  We never stopped working on the yard or the kitchen; or updating baths and fixtures.  We planned on staying here after retirement and beyond.  And the water kept rising. 

Everything we owned was gone.  Clothes, sewing machines, my vibrating bed I had just bought. Our cars, both of them.

I still did not cry yet.  That would come later.  It was this feeling of disbelief; I could not feel my body, my mind.  It was like we were alone and helpless.

All I knew is that I was responsible for making sure my dogs were safe.  And I had no idea how I was going to do that.

The water was still rising, it was beginning to come through the boards where we were standing.  None of us had eaten since dinner the night before and it was going on noon.


 About 1:30 pm some boats began coming through the back of the subdivision through Jones Creek.  It was the Cajun Navy!  Private citizens with fishing boats or duck boats rescued so many people from hundreds of neighborhoods across the area.  No national guard, no police but private citizens. 




We loaded up three bassets to the boat.  Surprisingly, they loaded up easily and seemed to enjoy the ride. 


We were transferred to another boat and brought out through the back by riding down the swollen flooded Jones Creek. 








We passed many houses and trailers that were under water. 





Eventually we were handed off to Andrew's cousin who had been saving people all morning in another area.  He came to find us.  

You can see the defeat in Frank's posture.  He had just lost his home, his vehicles and everything we had.  And he blamed himself for not being able to save us.  I couldn't help him, I couldn't save us either. 

I was just putting one foot in front of the other.  We were brought to Carrie's friend, who fed us and the dogs and made sure we had water.  She pushed us to her shower to clean our bodies of the muck and water.  She washed and dried our clothes so we would have clean dry things to wear.  She helped us to make calls for non-existent rental cars, for booked up hotels. 

And she assured us we were OK.  And she was going to help us take the next steps.

Finally, my phone received a text.  Our friends Dee and Greg had been frantically trying to find us.  They had their dog showing RV available for us.  We moved once more, across town with the bassets, to a place where we would sleep for the next 5 days.