Katrina: 2 years after..........Living in a post hurricane waterfront community

People ask me all the time, "How are you?" "Where are you living now", its the same scenario over and over, with recovery happening here on the Gulf coast and the anniversary of the worse natural disaster in the United States just around the corner, I am happy to say..."I have a home now", I am no longer "homeless", although I was never homeless, I was misplaced for two years. I am a survivor, not a victim of Hurricane Katrina. I was one of the fortunate ones, I had a place to live, albeit small, but a place and a roof over my head that was not a formaldehyde laden FEMA trailer, I did not have to leave this area, that would have really broke my heart as this area is very near and dear to me and one I am proud to call home with my children raised here in the wonderful public schools. I was "slabbed" which is a term that only people that have truly lost their homes know what I mean, the wind/water just took everything we worked so long and hard for in 6 hours and it is now in the Gulf of Mexico known as "Crosby's fishing reef". I still cannot begin to tell anyone the thoughts immediately following the sight that used to be our neighborhood, it was a war zone. We stood in shock, for a very long time, me in my shrimp boots, (one of only 2 pair of shoes that I owned that day). The silence was only broken by my son's anguished sound of alarm realizing that his pet boa constrictor was "freed" from his cage, he raised "ELVIS" since he was 5. Then I began to hear the cries of my neighbors who made it down a muddy road that used to be our street looking for their houses.... my Husband picked up an abandoned (everything you looked at was abandoned) golf club and started rooting through piles of debris that used to be our house, I knew it was because I could see little matchstick pieces of wood and peach stucco everywhere. We found our mailbox, a piece of outdoor furniture and my coffeetable days later about 3 blocks from where we lived. Sure if we looked close enough to the wreckage of our lives, we could make out some Christmas items here, barbeque grill there, maybe some broken dishes, nothing usable. I picked up an empty tupperware container and started putting pictures in it, some ours, most somebody's, but they were everywhere. I didn't know what else to do, people would stop by talking with us, I can't remember anything that was said, mostly I shook my head.

Part two later..........................................................