August 29, 2005
Hurricane Katrina
My son and I rode out this very powerful catagory 4 hurricane in our home. A decision that may not have been right but the experience is definitely one neither of us will ever forget. The electricity went out at 1:00 a.m. Monday morning before the wind and rain had hardly begun. The wind began to pick up speed around 3 a.m. and by about 6 a.m. I could hear the limbs of the tree at the end of the house beating the roof over my bed room. I watched the trees sway and bend as gusts of wind caught their branches. The wind was lifing the roof on the Firebird cage (my shed) as I watched it bend and twist and eventually tear away. The top of the deck was getting a beating from the horizontal wind and rain till it began to give way. I watched from my bedroom window as long as I felt safe. I watched the playhouse as it stood on 5 foot poles sway and rock until the wind had taken it's tole and the whole thing fliped over and was tossed against the tree. The 6 foot mesh satellite dish was leaning onto the ground and I knew the trees weren't going to be able to take this wind. As the wind got stronger and the gusts howled through the rafters of the house, I prayed. I asked God to be with my family and to please keep our houses in tact. A prayer I found out later he answered. As it became more terrifing to watch out the window, I took blankets and laid in the hall. I tuned into the New Orleans radio station with my battery radio and tried to see what the storm was doing. The last time I saw it on TV it was 160 miles off the Louisiana coast and headed for New Orleans, that was just shortly before midnight the night before. All I heard on the radio Monday morning was how glad the DJ's were that New Orleans had "dodged the bullet", nothing on the wind speed, direction it took or the info that it had been downgraded to a catagory 4. There were people calling into the radio station stranded and in need of assistance but no one could help them in the midst of the storm. It was heart-wrenching to hear. I had to turn it off. I still have not seen on TV the path it took but I know all too well where it was. At around 10:00 a.m. the eye wall came through our area. We were pounded by wind and rain and the house began to literally vibrate. The sounds outside were horrible. I just knew at any time my roof was going to release from my house and there we would be lying in the hall with the sheetrock all around us. Then I heard water dripping in the closet in the spare room. Then I heard it in the hall too. I grabbed a bowl and a pot to catch the water which stopped when the eye came over us. That's when I ventured out to see what had happened. I was surprised to see I only had shingles missing from my roof but all my pretty trees were down. I was just so thankful I still had a home, though. My mom yelled from next door, "Are ya'll alright?" My son walked through the maze of downed trees to go over and talk to her. All around the house were shingles and limbs and wet leaves stuck to everything. We secruded the top to the hot tub before the second half of the storm came through. I still had phone amazingly at this point and I talked to a few friends during the eye and assured them we were ok. The second half of the storm wasn't nearly as frightening as the first half and there was little left to be damaged at this point. The wind picked up again and the rain began again and we were back in the house listening and waiting once again. After all was said and done, I went to my mom and dad's house and checked out the damages they had. They had lots of shingles off and even some of the plywood showing on their roof but they were ok. My brother had a tree clip the edge of his roof where it overhangs but nothing more than shingles missing other than that. There were trees lying everywhere all down our road in both directions. My dad and brother got out there with chain saws and the Bobcat track hoe and cut and removed the trees from the road so people could get back to their homes to see what had happened. Some had nothing left. Some had little left but we had all survived it at least. Thank God we survived it because so many did not.
Dina Knight - Picayune Mississippi |
