Part 19: The era they call "K+1"

We are, officially, in the era called "K+1." We had a child psychologist speak to us during staff workshop week, and he used this term. It's been popping up everywhere lately. Ad nauseum.

But it's here, and I don't have to like the name any more than I don't have to like those cutesy celebrity coupling names. (Look, I actually have paid attention to some of the rest of the world in the past year...) But it fits what I'm discussing, and so use it I will. Nyah.

Tomorrow is it. 8-29-05. Numbers I will never pick in the lottery. If I ever decide to have a child (and shoot me if I do), and the due date is that date, I will schedule a C-section just to not have it happen. And I'm not a fan of people doing that. But I can never celebrate anything happy on that date whole-heartedly.

I have a friend...a former camper...whose birthday is tomorrow. He said he wasn't even thinking about celebrating this year. He's a senior in high school this year. That made me sad to hear. On the one hand, there's that part of me screaming, "You're young!!! Do something fun!!!" But then there's that other part of me that says, "Hey, I understand." He didn't even lose anything, and his house damage was minimal, and he still feels that way.

What a day to be born.

I have a lot of other friends whose birthdays are this week. Chanukkah and Christmas presents, I guess, haha. Anyway, even they feel down about their birthdays. You have to figure: most lost a fun day. If their birthday was in the week before, they had a fun time. If it was that day, or the couple days before that involved evacuating, that is miserable. And if it was immediately after, then how could you really have fun? Those were horrible days.

One friend is turning 30 this Thursday. She's already not happy because of the Big 3-0. But her birthday also falls on Katrina week. And now, as a weird side effect of this whole Katrina debacle, she is being evicted.

She lives in a studio apartment in Metairie. Not bottom floor. Her patio was damaged heavily, but otherwise, she's fine. In May, they said that they were turning the complex into condominiums. Her 500 square-foot studio is selling for about$87,000. As a single teacher, that is not an option.

She's been searching ever since, but rent is so high, and she needs a roommate but can't find one. She asked us to go in on a house with her, but we cannot do it. We need to be alone again if we are to survive. No roommates for married people who have spent a year living with their parents in a medium-sized one-story house. That can only lead to worse trouble. And for that, I feel awful. But what can you do?

364 days after the storm, and I'm still dealing with Allstate. They gave me money for my poor little car. I signed the check over to the dealership when I bought my new car. I signed all of the Power of Attorney papers involved before my check came. Back in January or so, Allstate called me to say that they didn't have my papers on file, or something, and could I please meet a notary somewhere to resign the papers. At the end of the school year, they called me again, saying that the papers were all so backlogged that they missed sending in the papers by the deadline set for the company, and could I please sing them a third time? I blew up on the phone. I just want to try to move on, but so long as they keep making me sign papers, I can't. I apologized to the lady, letting her know that I know she is the messenger and not the responsible party, but gave her an earful to pass along to whomever. Everytime they called me to do this, it was inconvenient...7/8 class trip...exams...moving schools...starting camp...a Houston trip that ended up not happening....starting school again.... Finally, on my way home from work today, the actual notary called me to say he'd meet me anywhere. I told him I'd be home in an hour, meet me there. Now my car is, hopefully, officially no longer mine and will be crushed and my license will not be flagged.

Again, I'm reliving the loss. I'm not feeling very happy right now.

I haven't been happy in a while again. I'm also taking it out on everyone around me, and I know this. A lot of it has to do with the anniversary. A lot of it has to do with my half hour morning commute that becomes an hour or so afternoon commute, and includes several stops on the misery tour, including City Park, Lakeview, and Mid-City. A lot of it just has to do with our situation in general.

I need a vacation.

We have a prayer service tomorrow at school. (It's a Catholic school, remember.) They are focusing on the religion department's self-imposed theme of gratitude. I know that that is one of the topics for the journal tomorrow. It may be the hardest, yet the easiest one of the three.

I said this wrap-up would be tomorrow. But, as I told my students, I don't give them an assignment until I know I can do it, too. And they gave us a list of suggested journal topics for tomorrow. So tomorrow, I will do the entire list, as opposed to whichever one I assign my students.

Anyway, some of our students will be at a special Mass at St. Louis Cathedral. The rest of us will have a quasi-normal day. I had a few students tell me that they will not be in school tomorrow.

I know it will be hard for me, too. I intend to treat it as a funeral. I will wear a black skirt with a cream and black top and black heels. I will wear my Anniversary Amulet from Mignon Faget. I will shed many a tear. I will try to celebrate the life that we once knew. It will not be to the extreme of my grandmother's Irish wake, but I will try to do as they are instructing us to have the positive come out.

But don't hold me to that.

Some people say, well, it's got to be better, right? Some aspects, yes. Everything west of the 17th St. Canal is coming back. More restaurants are open, and places are starting to extend their hours and menus. Traffic is awful as ever.

But that's all to the west.

To the east, my father is still pretty much the only game in town, which is both good and bad. Good, because he's got a sort of accidental monopoly on Lakeview services. You figure he has $1,300 day sales in soft drinks alone. Each drink is about a dollar apiece, if you average them. Which means he is selling roughly 1,300 soft drinks a DAY. It's a bad thing, though, because of the long hours he's putting in.

It's also a bad thing on a less personal note. Where is everyone? I bought a T-shirt this summer that says, "Lakeview: If you rebuild it, they will come." Well, some of us are trying, and it's just oh-so-slow.

I'm sure by now you've heard the latest Nagin "bon mots." In a national interview, he was being hassled about "why can't we get our acts together and be better recovered?" His reply, and again, I'm paraphrasing, was to the effect of, "Well, in New York, you guys still haven't done anything with just a big hole in the ground, and you've had 5 years."

You know what? I stand behind him on that.

When 911 happened, it was a horrendous national tragedy. I agree there. Many people were affected and killed that day. But it didn't destroy an entire city. People didn't sit there debating the sense of rebuilding New York. It didn't leave people homeless. It rallied a nation around itself and won the Dub some major brownie points.

When Katrina happened, it was a larger surface area. People were killed. People were left homeless AND jobless. It separated families and scattered them across the country. People lost their pets in this storm....and if they survived, they were euthanised in hospitals (as my friend Anne reminded me in an e-mail today), or they were shipped across the country and adopted by other people. People rallied until they lost interest. They said it couldn't be so bad as we made it out to be. They said we shouldn't rebuild. People in high positions lobbied against rebuilding our home, calling us a lost cause. They said it couldn't and shouldn't be done. But most of all, appointing "Brownie" cost the Dub a lot of points.

And we've only had one year, to do it alone. The amount of debris is staggering. I was looking at roadside debris today. Mangled fridges, stained and faded toys, soggy appliance boxes. All still in Lakeview.

Ok, so it cost Dub some brownie points to everyone but this one guy from Chalmette. He made a replica of his FEMA trailor and drove it to DC. People were excited about this. We figured Bush wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole. Then I heard the man was granted his audience with the "president." All RIGHT! I thought. Then I found out why he was allowed in: the man is an ardent fan of Bush, and he went up there to THANK HIM. WHAT?!?!?!?!? Of all of the regions to be from to do that, Chalmette would be one of the last places I would expect that.

I'm moving from melancholy to anger, in case you haven't noticed. I haven't even seen the Spike Lee movie yet.

I want to see it, yet I don't. I hear that one of the main "stars" in it is Garland Robinette. Remember him? He's the talk show host who stayed on the air as the WWL windows were blowing out, and he ran through the building to continue broadcasting, even though the ceiling was sucking up and down due to the pressure changes. Apparently, he has a beautifully, painfully moving portion of the movie. I want to see his version of the events. When you watch the movie and see him, remember what you've read here. His story, essentially, is our story back in the first installments of this portion of my blog.

God, I really can't wait to see the day when I can do a totally random and silly blog again. I hope it happens. I want it to happen soon, but I doubt it will. Someday, as the wounds heal. But that day is not today.

Part 16: More thrills, chills, and spills than Disney World.

Recap: Last time, we had a smaller, but (mostly) very fun Mardi Gras experience, and things seemed to be looking up.

But now it was April, and we were still moving my dad's reopening date back. He had originally expected to be open by mid-February. And now it was April. Things felt bleaker once more.

And it was my second sinus infection of the year. It was right on the heels of the first. Fun.

April 1 was on a Saturday. Apparently it was a tradition at school to really "get" the principal. He went to Tulane University and is, therefore, a huge Tulane fan. Tulane fans tend to not be LSU fans. So, since his children's school was destroyed by the storm, and they were attending our school for the year, his children were pawns in the game.

One of the teachers had a pet snake in her classroom, and the youngest son loved it. So she had him pose with a picture that said, "Tigers" and wrapped the snake around him. The older son was handed a sign that said, "Geaux."

Quick lesson in south Louisiana culture: Many Cajun surnames end in "-eaux." Boudreaux, Thibodaux, Gautreaux, etc. This letter configuration makes an "o" sound. And so, many people find it "fun" to make words that end in an "o" sound end in "-eaux." One such instance is LSU, which has signs and merchandise labelled "Geaux Tigers!" End note.

The older son was only in 4th grade and didn't know the "Geaux" thing. The younger son was in kindergarten, and he couldn't read "tigers" yet. They had no idea what they were being asked to do.

A big banner, decorated by the teacher's clss was hung outside the building, anf the two pictures of the sons with the signs flanked it. His office was covered in taunting handmade signs, courtesy of that class. He was a better sport about it than his sons, who, upon being told why their pictures were hanging up, went to the teacher and yelled, "YOU USED US!" Haha.

April 6 was our 4th wedding anniversary. I went to work and had a normal day, and then came home. My mom had stayed home from work that day with an intestinal problem. I got home from work and found her car gone. I called her cell and had no answer. Mark and I were going out to dinner somewhere that night, and so I set about getting ready after leaving her a voice mail, accusing her of being a faker.

As I got out of the shower, the phone rang. It was my father, informing me that my mother had been passing blood, and she called the gastroenterologist, who told her to get to the emergency room. She had to drive herself there because my dad couldn't leave work. Something big was going on. He met her there later. Come to find out, all of her digestive problems, which developed in the last month or so prior, were being caused by, not only acid reflux, but an ulcer. Neither condition was around more than a few months. Once more, my family felt the wrath of Hurricane Katrina. My mom was being kept at least overnight for observations, we were not to worry, and we were to have a nice time at dinner.

Mark came home with news of where we would be eating. His radio station is a news-talk-sports format, and they have a food critic, Tom Fitzmorris. He asked Tom for a nice restaurant in a certain price range in Metairie. Tom immediately named Impastato's. What's more, he called in the reservations for us. So at 8, we went to enjoy our evening.

First, they had a nice table ready for us. Then, as we were ordering dinner, one of the staff came over to congratulate us on our anniversary and to present us with a bottle of champagne. It was very sweet, but very good. A little while later, they came over and presented me with a dozen red roses. The food came and was absolutely delicious. It sort of reminded me of Tony Angelo's, a place that was cattycorner from our house. It was a multiple-course Italian meal that was to die for. I still remember my meal: an appetizer of shrimp au gratin, a salad, panéed veal topped with crabmeat, artichokes, and shrimp and crawfish with a divine sauce on it, pasta alfredo, and, for dessert, a slice or Oreo cheesecake. I don't remember what Mark had...I think it was soft-shell crabs with a topping similar to mine. Either way, we thoroughly enjoyed our meal. All night, there was a jazz combo with an elderly man singing for them. While we were waiting for our desserts, the old man came over to our table, carrying a single peach rose, which happens to be my favorite. He greeted us, wished us a happy anniversary, and asked if he could sing a song for us. He asked if we'd ever seen "Sleepless in Seattle," then told us that the song was in that movie. He sang, "When I Fall in Love." It was a highly embarrassing moment, as he made us hold hands across the table. We wanted to die from holding in our laughter. It was all very nice, though, even if I could have done without the serenade. In all, it was a very lovely evening. My dad left me a voice mail asking if we could stop by the hospital to bring my mom's car home, so we did.

My mom ended up with some trouble, so she stayed in the hospital a little longer than expected. She didn't come home until either Sunday or Monday. It was a gloomy period, yet again.

Ah, April. Formerly a month to enjoy, now tainted with my mom's illness, as well as living with my parents, still. And then, when I thought it couldn't get any worse, I almost lost one of the most important parts of my being able to go on after Katrina.

We'd had our observations and performance reviews. We were supposed to have our contracts soon. But the contracts never came.

They called a staff meeting, and things seemed bleak. Through my friend, who was on the high school staff, I learned that the Archdiocese wanted to "restructure" the school, and that the principal for the high school, a man I was excited to be working under the next school year, would be leaving. See, in my evaluation session, I was awarded the chance to stay at the High School's campus. Same president, different principal. And as much as I enjoyed working for the Academy's principal, I'd heard good things about working under the High School's. And now that I knew which campus was employing me the next year, we could look at neighborhoods to move to.

However, a lot of speculation lead to a lot of fear. All we knew was that when the superintendant of Catholic schools came, trouble was ahead. What made it worse was that our administration honestly didn't know what was going to happen to us. They were kept out of the loop.

The day of the meeting finally arrived, and no one was in a good mood. We knew people were getting the axe. But who?

The meeting happened, and it was worse than we thought.

Our president called the meeting "one big, not funny episode of 'Seinfeld.'" She rules. Anyway, it was, as you may have guessed, a meeting about nothing. But it wasn't exactly nothing. It was a lot of bad stuff, but we had almost as many questions after as we did before.

Fr. M started the meeting saying how much he admired us, blah blah blah...and how he loves the program and always supported it 100 percent (note: he called us a program instead of a school, and he used past tense. He continued to use past tense for the first half of the meeting.)

For the first 10 minutes of talking about nothing, really, it sounded like everyone was out of a job. This is where we learned that apparently the administration was telling us the truth, because they had genuine reactions to everything he said.

Then he said that what he was saying wasn't affecting the majority of the room. And we started suspecting that he meant the high school. And he was.

They opened the school this year. No building costs, per se, because they took over an abandoned school. But it needed Internet wiring, phone lines, fire drills, P.A. system, paint, remodeling in places, repairs in places, etc. Plus furniture. Plus supplies. Grand total of opening costs, post-Katrina? 1.5 million. Not bad, right?

Well, in the Post-K world, huge deal, apparently. However, you gotta spend money to make money. Pre-K (Katrina, not the grade level!) the HS had 50-something kids. Post, they had 32. Here's where the president officially stopped liking him: he said, and I quote, "That makes the per-student cost over $57,000. If you can meet the lofty goal of 65 students for next year, and that's if, then you will have a per student cost of $21,000, approximately."

First off, he said we had only 29 students. So, he was wrong there. We had 32. Second, we had accepted 66 students already for next year. I'm not so good at math, but I am pretty sure that that means that we are pretty much above that "lofty aspiration."

Second, when the Academy opened, there were 36 students. The next year, they doubled it to 60 something students. The next year, they doubled it to 120 something students. They decided doubling at that point would break them, so they took in another 60. The following year, they tried to keep it the same, but ended up with 204. This year, Pre-K, we had 230-something. Post, we had more than 100, but less than 200. We even took in a lot of students whose schools were nonexistent Post-K. And when people came back at the end of the school year from wherever they'd evacuated...who knew what would happen. Plus, we always, apparently, end up with new students registering after the first day. My 3/4 class grew by 3 kids before the storm. That was 2 weeks of school. So, the growth potential IS there.

Third, the budget projections had us paying off the start-up loan by the 5th year of existence. They told the Archdiocese that they would have it paid off by year 6, but that was a just-in-case cushion. They were expecting it no later than year 5, but, barring any more major national disasters, possibly year 4.

So he talked in circles, told us that they couldn't offer contracts to any high school employees, that it would take "several" weeks to come up with a solution. Meanwhile, our administration had been kept in the dark about everything. EVERYTHING. They truly did hear it all for the first time that day.

At this point, many people were crying. We passed around a Kleenex box. The rest were seething.

He said they were "looking at several options for a possible solution," but only told us one. And it wasn't a good one:

They wanted to make us a "School within a school" at 5 other Catholic schools in the area. Um, NO. Our kids are with us because they can't hack it in a regular learning environment. They learn differently. They need to be taught differently. And if we're a school within 5 schools, the kids will be divided. Two are single sex schools. So that right there divides them. As does geography.

Plus, where would that leave us? Yeah, we'd all find some sort of job, somewhere, eventually, but what about those kids? Who would help them? They would be labelled and ostracized. Not necessarily by the schools, but definitely by the kids. They would be looked at as special ed. And they are NOT.

So one of the teachers, whose son has dyslexia and was in 6th grade at the Academy, asked what the other options would be, because she had a very personal interest in the school. She made me cry when she asked where her son was supposed to go. She's one of my friends, and she is such an eloquent speaker. She had several people crying.

Only other option was to go K-12. But that wouldn't work. We'd need new space anyway. We're too needed, and our presence is growing in the city.

Did I mention that they cancelled a parents' meeting at the request of the Office of Catholic Schools? They feared the parents. I said unleash the parents on them. They'd see how important we are.

So then he told us he can't really answer a lot of questions and gives us about "10-15 minutes." People ask a lot of questions. The parish priest, a man he called by the wrong name the entire time, got up, near tears, and plead to let us be part of the planning process.

He also, let me note, referred to the H.S. principal by the wrong name the whole time.

He left after 5 p.m., Pres walked him out and came back. No one moved, but everyone was upset and/or angry. She came back and watched out the window as he walked away. She slammed the door on her way in. She was raging. At that moment, I truly loved her.

She said, "I told him I would be e-mailing him corrections for all of his inaccuracies."

Boo and yah.

We talked about how blindsided and hurt we felt. We started thinking of solutions. We raged. We united. It felt a little better.

Then she said that apparently, the Academy is to remain as is. And that anyone hired to teach 7/8 at the High School will slide to the Academy, so apparently, I, too, was safe. Where I'd be, I didn't know. And we wanted to start looking at houses, but couldn't apply for a loan until we knew what my salary would be next year.

As a staff, we followed Dylan Thomas' words.

We left at 6 p.m. Father was STILL THERE. Sitting in what would have been my classroom if I had stayed 3/4. When he left, we learned that the woman he talked to was a REPORTER. We assumed she was with the Archdiocesan public relations newspaper. How ballsy of him to leave us to interview, most likely about us, on our OWN CAMPUS.

They had the H.S. current staff stay behind. There is a letter. I find out later that it is basically a condensed version of what was just said regarding how the H.S. can't get contracts yet because the school and its budget are under review. Something the admin didn't know about until the meeting. Pres's eyebrows shot up when he said that.

This letter was not on letterhead. It was on regular paper. No signatures or seals or logos or anything. They passed out copies to the staff. When they finished, Pres let hers drop to the floor, while the H.S. principal crumpled his and threw it behind him.

I love this administration.

So, we didn''t really know any more than we knew that morning, other than I apparently would be employed...but where?

I was sad and furious all at once.

Jazz Fest is very close to my school, and as it falls on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, we use Jazz Fest as a chance to raise money. We sell our parking spaces for $25 per car. This is cheap, actually. We don't have school those two Fridays. We filled 88 spaces in less than 2 hours. We did it again the next Friday. And everyone who was there seemed positive that we would beat this. We just weren't sure how.

So they had the parents' meeting the next Tuesday night, and the parents, understandably, were outraged. They pulled out their checkbooks. A contractor offered his comapny's services to hold a raffle for a house gutting and sheetrocking (this, if it happened, would have been a huge success, as many homes still have not been gutted post-K). By the end of the evening, over $50,000 had been collected.

That day, there was a meeting telling us that they came up with a comprehensive plan to let the Academy return the High School's favor by hosting them under one roof for one or two years. Money was the only obstacle, other than Archdiocesan approval. Then they collected money that night, and donations were in full-force.

At the teacher appreciation luncheon, they announced that money was no longer an obstacle to moving and keeping us operable next year. The only issue is having the Archdiocese okay the plan to move us together. As one teacher said, "He'd better have a damned good reason for teling us no."

However, it would take a few million to keep us at our current site. Sigh.

The next week was the 7/8 grade class trip. Our high schoolers were supposed to go on a school retreat in Alabama near Tennessee at a sleepaway camp. The were scheduled to leave Monday, August 29, 2005. The day Katrina hit New Orleans. Obviously, they cancelled the trip. Thank goodness they were smart enough for that...

Our 7/8 trip was supposed to be swimming with the manatees in Florida -- something I would have killed to do! But they feared parents wouldn't be able to afford a trip like that, so they picked a less-expensive idea: joining the high school in Alabama. Two seperate trips at one location at the same time.

The trip was a lot of fun. We took a train for 8 hours, which was followed by a two-hour bus ride. It was in the mountains, and it was so nic to see green spaces and trees that weren't creacked or twisted or dead from hurricane-force winds. It was like paradise. The last night of the trip, we had a campfire with a singalong, and the rain held out just long enough for us all to have a magical night of bonding as one.

But I'm a little ahead of myself....

Our president and the Academy's president DROVE to the camp to hand-deliver some news.

THE MOST AMAZING THING HAPPENED!!!!!!!!!!!!

First off, we were all going to be okay. The parents and several corporations/anonymous donors stepped up. I don't know the total now, but the $100,000 it would take to move the High School to the Academy was no longer an issue. The H.S. would occupy the second floor of the Academy with 7th and 8th. The lower grades will take over some storage space and church-owned rooms downstairs. We would all be together again for one, maybe two years, and then, the Archdiocese said we can pick a campus to move to.

That in and of itself is incredibly amazing. BUT....

We got our very own patron Saint. Yes, I capitalized that one word for a reason. As you may have heard, the Saints drafted Reggie Bush this year. He is committed to helping rebuild our city, and wanted to help a school damaged by Katrina. While our physical campus was fine, our school itself was falling victim 8 months later. One of the kindergarten parents got in touch with the Saints and Reggie, and he checked out our website and talked to people, and came to the conclusion that a school like ours, which was open for a grand total of 8 days before Katrina hit, could not fall victim to her again. He pledged matching funds for most of what the parents have raised, and also a long-term commitment/partnership to our school!!!!!

WE'RE ALL GOING TO BE OKAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

May 15 was a special day....Reggie Bush Day....we were covered in ESPN, the Associated Press, MSN.com, Yahoo.com, local news outlets, and other national news outlets. We even had a big mention in the Washington Post over the summer. Reggie came out and presented teh first of what will be many checks: this one for $50,000. He was so humble and so wonderful. We all took a huge group photo with him, and the NFL channel used the positioning as stock footage in a story about him over this past weekend, when the Saints played their first pre-season game.

I hate football. I usually hate pro-athletes. But all of a sudden...I'm a pretty big fan of Saint number 25...

Stay tuned to the month of May...

Part 10: Finding out what is lost.

Recap: We had just survived Hurricane Rita, just weeks after Hurricane Katrina. My job called me back to Metairie, so I moved in with my parents. Mark, however, would remain in the RV in Baton Rouge.

My school was, miraculously, fine. Located in Mid-City, it was truly an island. However, due to its location, we had no idea when electricity, water, and sewerage would be restored to our campus. We opened a high school in a defunct elementary school this year. Being so small, there was a ton of space available. And so, our administration, combined with the Archdiocese, decided that we would have to move the elementary school to the high school campus. Because it would be such a monumental task, we would remain out in Metairie for the school year. By this point, we were six weeks out of the storm. That's half of a summer vacation. It seemed like school would probably run until July.

The Monday after Rita, I had to report to school. Almost 80 percent of our staff was planning to return. But, in some small part thanks to Rita, many of them could not yet return. Others needed a few more days to come in. But most of the 80 percent would be there to help move.

I arrived at 9, and found myself in a room of the shell-shocked. Then one teacher, who was one of the rookies with me, came up to me while I was reuniting with Melissa, my teaching partner. Melissa lived in St. Bernard Parish, as I think I said before. We'd been in contact during our exiles, but we had not seen each other yet. We were a great match for each other. We are the same age. She'd taught for 3 years in another school, and was experiencing her first year at this school. We had some common interests. Both of us curse like sailors (not in the classroom, naturally, unless the kids are gone), and both of us can burp better than most men can (also, when the kids are not in the classroom). She was really helping make my first year as a teacher a lot easier. It was great to see each other.

But this other teacher came bouncing up, hair in a a perky ponytail, wearing her own clothes. Melissa and I, like so many others, were in borrowed clothes or clothes we'd evacuated with. We'd lost everything else.

Don't get me wrong...this other teacher is great. I like her a lot, as do the students. But what she did next still has me floored. She came up, happy and perky, and said, "So....how'd you guys do?"

Melissa and I looked at each other, then the other teacher. "Pretty rotten," I said. "About as bad as you could have," Melissa said. We each briefly stated our neighborhoods, and I mentioned having had to go through the storm. The perky demeanor was immediately replaced by an uncomfortable one. Another teacher came up, and she edged her way out of our conversation and into another one.

After about an hour, enough people were there to get started. The administrators knew we all wanted and needed to talk. So, while we sat around the tables, we told our stories. Most were fine. They evacuated early, went on vacation while in exile, stayed with family and friends, enrolled their kids in schools, etc. Some had no damage (the ones from River Ridge), others had downed trees, an inch to two feet of water in their homes, etc.

Those of us who lost so much seemed to seek each other out. We had a lot of teachers from Lakeview and St. Bernard. Most of us were in a group together. I'll interrupt for a second to say exactly how wonderful it was to FINALLY be with someone non-immediate family who understood what I was going through, and how I was feeling. You can say you understand, you can say you have sympathy, but until you experience what we have experienced, you have no idea. Don't even try to pretend.

As soon as we got to our area, the Kleenex boxes came out. Dry eyes were few and far between. Sometimes, it was the story-teller. Other times, it was other people. Most were not here for the storm. I was a rare breed there. One of the religion teachers, a sweet little old lady, lived in the Upper 9th Ward. The Lower 9th was obliterated. The Upper, not as much, but still bad. Anyway, she stayed in her home, by herself. She was trapped by water. She slept on her porch at night, because it was cooler. She was evetually taken out.

When I spoke, the room was silent. No one knew about Mark working at WWL. When I said he worked there, the president of the school said, "Oh, the heroes!" I hadn't realized how important where we were and what was done actually was. I wasn't entirely comfortable with talking about it all, but once I started, I couldn't stop. I spoke of everything we'd seen, felt, and heard, from the windows, to Garland running, to looting, to Spud's heroic efforts. I talked about our house, my father's business, Mark living in Baton Rouge, and moving in with my parents.

At the time, I didn't realize how long I'd been talking. But my audience was captivated. They sat and listened. When I was done, many had tears in their eyes. I didn't realize how much attention people had paid to me. But for weeks afterwards, people would talk to me about it all, ask me how we were doing. It felt so good to see real people caring. Up until that point, I felt no one did, locally. Everyone was caught in their own drama. I had only seen the generosity of total strangers and long-distance relatives. But now I had the support of my colleagues. These were people who didn't know who I was until I spoke. Most...not that they didn't care...they just didn't know who I was or what grade I taught or anything. I was a nameless face they worked with for 2 weeks. Suddenly, people cared. And it wasn't just about me. It really brought a lot of our staff closer. Those who faced little to no damage were trying to do everything they could for those of us who were devastated. We started a donation room that quickly filled up. People brought in clothes, snacks, supplies, household items, shoes, uniforms, you name it. Some came from staff members and their families. Others were trucked in by schools that had adopted ours. And everyone was there for each other.

The first thing the school did was set up a healing team. We have an ecclectic staff, which includes social workers, counselors, and psych degrees. These people worked tirelessly to put together a very comprehensive plan for helping the kids and teachers cope with what happened. We knew it would be a very rough year. We knew we would probably never see some of our students again. Or some of our coworkers. We'd all been through so much in those six weeks. Our healing team has earned several grants, and they also have been approached by various agencies in the city to adopt their plan. The whole Archdiocese will implement it, as well. They're amazing.

Due to Rita reflooding parts of the city, our return to our Mid-City campus was delayed. Instead of getting in there Monday, we could not go to Orleans Parish until Thursday. We had to get special permission to set up an emerggency caravan to get through. So on Monday and Tuesday, we regrouped, discussed the Healing Team and the plans, and waited for our numbers to rise.

We were promised that all of us would have some sort of job, even if our numbers were low. We are a necessary school, since we serve special needs kids in a Catholic school setting, and no one else does. They created some positions to retain people. We were so lucky: the Archdiocese was laying off thousands of workers due to insufficient funds. However, they were not really telling us what we could do. The newbies, like Melissa and I, worried. We were the newest employees. Those who were there longer would surely be the ones to definitely have jobs. Even though we were all being promised positions, the promise was not set in stone. The promise was more of a "we'll try our hardest to keep you and justify it."

Some of us went to Target, which had just reopened for about 4 hours each morning, and a manager stopped us. "Do you all have jobs yet?" he asked. We looked at each other. "Maybe," Melissa said. We're supposed to know soon. Why?" "Because we're raising our salaries for three months. The regular starting salary is $6.25. We're promising a $3 increase for at least these three months. The guy pushing carts in teh parking lot? He'll be making $9.25 an hour."

We were shocked. But this apparently became a trend. Workers were scarce, jobs were scarce, and companies instituted incentives. Work for Burger King? Earn $9 an hour, plus get a $6,000 bonus for working for 12 months. McDonald's? Extra $125 per week, plus $10 an hour. There is now no shame in asking someone if they want fries with that.

Because we could not cross over into Orleans yet, Wednesday was an optional day. I woke up to the sound of my phone vibrating with a text message. It was Geoff. "Kev says no roadblocks into Orleans. Go while you can." I ran down the hall, read it to my father, and called Mark to tell him. We were making a try for Lakeview. Orleans was not open to anyone other than emergency personnel. Mark said, "I'll be there in an hour." Mom and I ran to Target to buy some ratty clothes for him to wear, along with boots for him and for her. I bought some "designer" Isaac Mizrahi boots from there on Monday. They were white and had his name printed all over them. They were the only boots I could find. Designer "Cajun Reeboks." Joy. I donned Karen's castoff clothes, pulled my hair into a ponytail, and prepared myself. I had seen Kevin's pictures of his parents' Lakeview home. He has a construction permit, which allowed him in. He'd seen our house, and told us that we had broken windows, but that it was standing. He'd taken pictures of Phil's Firehouse Snowballs, the best snowball stand in the city. It was almost across the street from us. It looked bad, as did the gas station behind it. I knew what I would expect.

We drove up Verteran's Blvd. to the parish line. Army men stopped us. "Can't get in." My dad had been in the week before to survey what was left of his Lakeview service station. It was not pretty. I'd seen those pictures, too. He hadn't been able to get to us, though, because Rita had broken through the not-quite-repaired 17th Street Canal breach and caused minor flooding which hadnot yet gone down. But he's also been with an Orleans Parish cop he's friends with. Anyway, he tried saying he was getting in to work on his business. However, that did not fly any more. And with no cop accompanying us, we were shot down. Mark flashed his press pass. The Army guy told us that if Mark was in his own car, he could get in. It was no use arguing the stupidity of that statement.

So, we went up to Metairie Road and crossed the canal there. How? Dad and Mark switched seats, Mark flashed his press pass, and in we rolled. We drove down Canal Blvd. in silence. The devastation increased the further in we got. We ran through some standing water by the train tracks. We gawked at the water lines, the downed trees, the crumpled homes, the flooded out cars. We passed my first elementary school on Harrison Ave. It looked awful. We paued at a great Po-Boy shop, Charlie's Deli, and thought sadly about how we may never eat there again. We stopped at my dad's employee's home on Harrison. It was in bad shape before. It was to be condemned in a few days' time. We crossed West End. Blvd., then Pontchartrain Blvd. We saw Phil's and the gas station. They looked worse thatn the pictures. We turned down Fleur de Lis. Everything was brown and in states of ruin that one could never imagine. We turned onto 26th. We were on the corner. I set my jaw. The house looked bad. My car....my poor little car.....it had floated and was blocking the door under the carport.

The front door was hanging inside. The screen door was ajar. The first spray-painted X for our house was on our roof. Rescuers left these marks basically, to say who checked it, when it was checked, and how many live and dead bodies were found. On Sept. 11, my house was still so under water that they reached it by boat, rapped on the roof, had no answer, sprayed the X mark on the roof, and moved on to the next house. Our second X came just days earlier, Sept. 25. It was painted on the screen door. The elderly neighbor had evidently left, as we'd been worried about. Her marks said there were no bodies found. We were relieved. She wasn't the nicest neighbor, but you don't want anyone to die like that.

I thought I was okay. I thought I could handle it. Then I stepped cautiously into the doorway. We had to move the door out of the way, but could not get it far, as the sofa had floated across teh room and was right behind it. Mask, gloves, and boots on, I looked inside for the first time.

I thought I was prepared. I'd seen enough photos in the past few days, especially of places I knew. But nothing, absolutely nothing can prepare you for this. I burst into hysterics.

I could not be consoled.

I composed myself, put Vick's Vapo-Rub inside and outside of my mask (thanks, CSI:!) , and removed myself from it. I pretended none of it was mine. I tried to find the funny (cat bed on top of a halogen lamp, perfectly centered) and the bizarre (the way the refrigerator flipped). I went home, and Mark went to Baton Rouge. I cried myself to sleep.

I won't say much more about this. It's very hard to talk about, yes, but this sort of pain can not be served justice by the English language. I am tearing up right now, actually, and will leave you with this:

I wish this on no one. Not Hitler. Not Vlad the Impaler. Not David Duke. Not Atilla the Hun. Not anyone I hate. Not even Bush. I wish it on no one.

Next time: Part 11: It takes a village to move a school.

Part 4: Where do we go now? Where do we go now? Ahhhahhahhhahhhahhhh...

Recap: The Entercom Bigwigs were just telling us that we had two choices: Go to the Superdome, or try our luck in an SUV. People without SUVs (us included) started panicking and crying. We didn't know what to do. The Dome was not an option for us, but we didn't have an SUV, either.

Mark remembered that Spud McConnell was talking about his 4Runner earlier, and how he had half a mind, as the waters started coming up, to just get in and leave. But he wouldn't do that to the company. He had a job to do. He signed up for it. He wouldn't abandon it. But now his job was ordering him to do it.

Before the people in charge finished speaking, Mark silently got off the couch next to me and made his way over to Spud. My mind racing a billion miles an hour, worrying about our lives and the cats' lives, I lowered my head into my hands. Suddenly, Mark was back at my side.

"Spud's going to take us," he whispered. I looked up quickly at him, then at Spud. The speech was over. Two more people walked up to Spud, Layla, a news girl, and Charlie, Mark's former supervisor when the Bayou was still adult contemporary and he was a DJ there. I looked at Mark again. "What about the cats?"

"Spud said we can bring them."

We ran down to the production room, packed as many things onto our backs as we could, leaving cat litter and water and our pillows behind. We met up with Spud near the stairs. He ran back to his office to get something.

The generator system was set up weird. There was one just for broadcasting purposes, and one just for living purposes. That one had been shut off for conservation, I assume. So all of Entercom, friends, family, and pets included, had to go down four flights of pitch black stairs in order to make it to safety. At one point, just as I didn't think I could make it anymore, Oldies sation Kool 95.7 DJ Tommy Tucker appeared behind me and offered to take Lily's carrier from me. He carried her until we reached the bottom and we had to split up to go to our respective parking garages.

Spud was parked in the Superdome garage. We were in the New Orleans Center garage. We did not have time to even check on our car. We had to go. Spud opened the back of his 4Runner and threw out his kids' sports equipment and a baby seat. "We needed a new one of these anyway," he said. He threw out a few jugs of water. A security guard walked past. "HEY!" Spud called, gesturing to the jugs. "Take these. You may need them!" The guard waved in acknowledgement. We piled all of our belongings into his vehicle. As we were about to pull off, Spud said, "Whose suitcase is that over there? That's not any of yours, is it?" Charlie looked at it.

"No, but it IS yours."

"Shit." He threw the car into park and grabbed it. I held it on my lap.

We flew out of the garage and met water instantly. We eased onto the street. We followed the directions we had been given for our evacuation. The water got deeper and deeper.

I should mention here that when they told us to evacuate, the water was only about halfway up the hubcaps of the cars left on the street. It took us maybe 15 minutes to get downstairs and load the car, then pull onto the street. By this point, the water was up to the windows of the 4Runner. That's about 3 or 4 FEET. In 15 MINUTES.

We ventured into the deep water. Suddenly, we stalled. In water up to the windows between the Dome and the New Orleans Arena. No one said a word. I closed my eyes and whispered, "Oh please oh please oh please oh please" over and over to myself. Spud kept turning it over and over and over, sweet talking the engine. "Come on, baby. Come on." I was running through my head what we could leave in the truck in order to save the cats, thinking we were about to lose my textbooks and our clothes and bathroom gear, when suddenly, the 4Runner purred to life. Spud thre the car in reverse and sped backwards. He turned around and went flying past the FEMA, National Guard, Red Cross, and local law enforcement guys. They all motioned for him to slow down, as he was kicking up an impressive wake. He rolled down his window and said, "No way. Not if I want to make it out!" A couple of large trucks from Wildlife and Fisheries pulled in front of us and went slowly. We were afraid of stalling again.

When we got to Loyola Drive, it was DRY. We flew down Loyola and made it to the first on-ramp to take us to the Crescent City Connection. When we got up the ramp, three vehicles were in front of us, and a fire engine was blocking our path. They were not allowing us up there. Spud backed down the ramp and went to Tchoupitoulas St., and was able to get on there. We made it onto the CCC and crossed the Mississippi River. We looked over and saw what we had just escaped. The Hyatt and the Dominion Tower looked like Oklahoma City. As we drove up the ramp and over the bridge, we saw old-time New Orleans-style houses that had collapsed. Bricks were everywhere. Trees were in buildings. Rooftops were missing. Water was rising everywhere around the CBD. The Dome? Even more impressive in its nakidity now that we could see the whole thing. No one looked back. Just ahead and sideways. We drove silently on.

Until Spud spoke.

"You know," said our actor savior, "In the movie version of all of this," he looked next to him at Layla. "You and I would be having an affair." He glanced behind him to see Mark behind Layla and me in the middle. "You two would still be married, but you would be 9 months pregnant and ready to pop." He looked in the mirror and saw Charlie on my left. "And you would be gay."

"Wait, why am I the gay one?"

"Two reasons. One, you're the only one I can't pair up with someone. And two, I'm not going to be the gay one. This is my movie."

We needed that. So desperately. We all lost it and giggled like school girls. Then we made it across the bridge.

Here on the West Bank, it was not water damage but wind damage. Billboard signs were bent in half. Buildings were missing fronts. Trees were down, blocking HWY 90. Spud messed up his antenna driving through the forest that was now HWY 90. We basically rode in silence, listening to WWL. It hit us. There were people on the air who were supposed to be leaving with us. Evidently, they didn't make it out due to the water. It was people we'd seen gathering their stuff and heading to vehicles. At the same time we were. They must have been in a different parking garage and were unable to get out.

We got to the 310 exit, and headed towards Baton Rouge. Spud asked if we had anywhere in particular we'd like to be dropped off. At this point, we had not even considered it. We just wanted out. Charlie and Layla are both LSU grads and had contacts. Charlie worked for a radio station, so he was going there. Layla's friend's parents live in Baton Rouge, so she was going there. Our cell phones were not working. We had no way of contacting anyone to tell them what we were doing or to see if someone could take us in.

I reached in my purse for a pack of gum. I realized that I had not brushed my teeth since Sunday night. That was also the last time I'd showered. On top of that, I'd just put on my clothes from Sunday after my shower because I was rushing to get back to the Dominion Tower before the Hyatt's evacuation took place and grabbed the wrong clothes. It was now Tuesday morning. We realized we were all probably pretty ripe. This was especially true for Charlie, Spud, Mark, and me, since we'd been in our sanctioned looting of the Sundries shop.

We discussed at one point that we felt like all of our work raiding the shop was for nothing. But once we turned on the radio and heard their stranded coworkers back on air, we felt we'd done something good. They would have plenty of food, drinks, and medicinal supplies. Enough to last for a while, if necessary.

We all chomped on that gum in silence. Everyone was grateful for it, as we were all so rank.

Around Gonzales, I checked my phone again. It worked!!! Verizon towers in the Baton Rouge area were apparently unharmed. I called my parents and told them that we were forced to evacuate. We were headed to Baton Rouge, but that was all we knew. Mark called his parents. They said they would pick us up in Baton Rouge and bring us to their house in Morgan City, which still had electricity. Charlie said we could hang out at the radio station until they came, if we needed to. We had a plan. Finally.

Spud decided he wanted to go to a Baton Rouge news station, because he felt they would want the personal story of us making it out of the storm, and going through it, too. We pulled up at Channel 2 Baton Rouge, and Spud led the way. He spoke to some people, who liked the idea, and they mic'd him up and put him on. They let us stand in the back, behind the camera man, to watch.

Here, we saw visuals of the city for the first time. We saw the extensive flooding. We saw buildings on fire. We saw flaming gas leaks. We saw submerged homes and cars. We saw crumpled buildings. We saw people waving for help on rooftops. We saw people carrying bags through chest-high water. We saw crying babies, children, adults, and eldery. We saw lost wet pets wandering streets and standing on houses. We saw trees down. We saw things you see in blockbuster summer disaster movies.

Then we saw Spud cry.

He lost it on the news. In front of the viewers. In front of the cameras. In front of the anchors. In front of us. We teared up with him. he shook his head, placing it in his massive paws. "I keep thinking of all of those people who called me last night. I bet 60 percent of those who called me, asking to be saved, scared out of their minds....I bet I was the last person they spoke to. And I couldn't help them. I bet 60 percent of those people are gone." He dissolved into tears.

Watching this large, confident, boisterous man break down in front of people was hard. He was our cheerleader. He was our savior. He was our guardian angel.

I swear, if anyone had told me a few days earlier that my guardian angel would be a very large foul-mouthed chain-smoking actor named Spud, I'd have laughed in that person's face. But here we were.

I leaned into Mark and cried quietly into his chest. Layla and Charlie wiped tears from their eyes. The anchors looked like they didn't know what to do. We composed ourselves, and Spud told the story of the rising waters, what the CBD looked like, and our dramatic escape. Then we were interrupted by a confirmation on where the 17th Street Canal breeched.

It was on the New Orleans side of the Canal. Near the Old Hammond Hwy. Bridge. One street and about 6-10 blocks away from our house. It was two blocks long, and there was no stopping the water yet. I choked back a huge sob. Mark pulled me out to the newsroom and outside. I launched into hysterics. I grabbed my cell phone and called my parents. I held myself together long enough until I told them the news. Then I was inconsolable again. This meant that not only did we lose our home and everything in it, we lost my car and my father's BP service station. We still weren't sure of the status of my brother's house in Old Metairie, nor did we know about my parents' house in North Metairie. Quite possibly, my family was completely wiped out.

Between Mark and my father, I quieted down. Then I talked to my mom and my brother and had to be calmed down every time I spoke to a new person. By this point, it was almost noon. We'd left Entercom around 6:45, 7 a.m. Spud was ready to roll.

We went to find food. We found out that Great Wall in Baton Rouge was open, and Spud praised it to the skies. When we got there, we were given a choice between a long table and a round table. Spud said, "Give us the round one. We want to be able to look at each other." It was a buffet, and it was just what we needed.

I thought back and realized that all I'd eaten since Sunday afternoon was: a small bowl of chicken and sausage gumbo, a packet of cheese and peanut butter crackers, a couple of Pringles, and a hot dog or two. It was now lunchtime on Tuesday. I hadn't eaten anything that day.

We scarfed our food like we would never see food again. Buffet was a great idea. We were so hungry. When the bill came, Spud grabbed the check. He wouldn't let us pay. He said that he had another job working on a movie in St. Francisville, but our jobs were probably doubtful. He said he makes a lot more money off movies than radio, so lunch was on him. He wouldn't let us touch the check. We were even more in this man's debt, but he wouldn't hear any of it from any of us. His word was final.

We dropped off Charlie and Layla at the radio station. Spud brought us back to Channel 2. Before he left, I gave him a huge hug. We sat around waiting for Mark's parents.

They got there shortly after, and we took the almost two-hour ride to Morgan City. We were supposed to be there the next weekend, Labor Day Weekend, for the Shrimp and Petroleum Festival. (Yes, you read that right. I like to call it "The Greasy Prawns Festival.")

Stay tuned for Part 5: Everything starts sinking in in Morgan City.

Part 3: The End of the Storm Was Really Only the Beginning.

Recap: The storm was winding down. Garland was broadcasting in the hallway, bringing the news and a comforting voice to the people of New Orleans during a very scary time, despite the fact that the building was seemingly about to collapse on us.

I woke up from my nap to see that so much chaos had broken out. I was able to text people until about 1 p.m. I last spoke to my mother around 10 a.m. as the windows were shattering, the two of us crying like babies. I was sure I was never going to see them again. I honestly thought that we would die in that building. Sobbing hysterically, my mother told me goodbye, saying, "I will hold you again, my baby. I will." I lost it. I was far from consolation. Then my parents set off in tropical storm force winds from Pensacola. Yes, the storm was that large. I had no idea where they were headed. Neither did they. I knew they would have a long, hard road ahead of them.

That was the last phone call I was able to make on my phone. Landlines went out sometime around then. Texting was the only form of communication. Until 1. Suddenly, I was cut off from the world. With one exception: the Internet. I posted like a madwoman to MySpace. I sent out e-mail after e-mail. A lot of people posted that they were glad New Orleans had seemingly done so well. All of them were ready to come home. I shot off e-mails telling them what we were going through, and how the surroundings, mainly the now-naked Superdome, looked. Everyone was shocked. No one else was in the city, all were posting from Texas and other places. I kept telling the truth and trying to keep them from thinking they would be home that evening. Until 4 p.m.

One of the last e-mails I recieved was from my brother-in-law, telling me that my parents had made it to Auburn, Ala., and had gotten the last available room in the Microtel. He gave the phone and room numbers. I tried my cell one last time, and got nothing. But I didn't write down the room number. Remember this.

The last e-mail I sent was to male Blake (female Blake comes to play later), warning him not to try to make it back to St. Charles Parish. I had just seen the story about the lower 9th Ward, how 200,000 people were on their rooftops, surrounded by floodwaters. They waited to be rescued. People away from New Orleans weren't getting that. National media made it seem as though we'd made it out okay.

Coincidentally, we lost the Internet around the time the storm subsided. We couldn't believe our eyes as we looked at the carnage that was the studios. We couldn't believe the naked Dome. We just couldn't believe it. But we seemed to be okay. People were out walking around Monday afternoon, looking at the downed trees, the broken windows. Mark and I strolled carefully through the New Orleans Center. We tried to get in the garage to check on his car, but the doors were locked. I brought the camera and took pictures of the topless Dome, the splintered atrium windows in the N.O.C., the water stains on the ceiling, the flooded Café du Monde, the shattered trees. We wondered how our house looked, but figured we'd be home in a day or so. Our plan was to ride around to Geoff's house, my parents' house, my dad's BP station....and to call people and let them know the status. We were the only ones who had stayed and were even remotely close to the city. Everyone else was in Dallas, Houston, Baton Rouge, Arkansas, Florida...we figured we'd do a courtesy while I had the next day off of school and work.

The sun was coming out. People were walking pets around the Dome. We learned that the Dome had two holes in the roof, and sky was visible. It was being used as a shelter for medical needs, followed by low-income families and people without means to escape in a timely manner. Thousands of people were crammed in there. That evening, some of the FM people and news reporters walked over to the Dome for coverage. They came back, reporting that relief and boredom were settling in, and so everyone was singing Gospel music. Remember this, too.

At midnight, Mark went back on air. Spud McConnell was hosting. Spud is a local actor who was on "Roseanne" in the '80s, who gets a lot of roles in local films and commercials, and is THE definitive portrayer of Ignatius J. Reilly and Huey Long. He's also a graduate of Nicholls State University and a former member of the Nicholls Players. Mark and I are both of those. So, through these commonalities, and work, a shared acquaintance of a former mass communication teacher named Chuck, and Spud's all-around niceness, he and Mark struck up a good working relationship. I sat in the booth with Mark while he worked. The shift started out pretty predictably.

It was weird. Only WWL was broadcasting, out of all of the stations in the city. We lost TV the night before, cell phones that morning, texting that afternoon, and then Internet. Past sundown, reporters couldn't do much, because the city was without power. The National Guard had been stationed around the Dome since either Saturday or Sunday. So we were safe, especially with the storm over. They were predicting us spending a few more days at the station, so that WWL could bring news and comfort to the people. However, we had no way of getting information. The land lines were down, so calling out was not an option. But for some reason, people could usually call in to the WWL studios. Go figure. WWL actually began to rely, basically, on hearsay. If someone called in with a neighborhood report, we had to take him at his word. Callers called in with these reports, with questions about restoration of power and when they would be able to return. Then it got weird.

We heard about the 9th Ward earlier. Then, we learned that a canal had breached in St. Bernard Parish, and that "Da Parish" was under. We felt awful upon hearing this news. My teaching partner, Melissa, is from Violet in St. Bernard. I felt for her. I hoped she'd made it out alright.

Then, we heard a rumor that the Southern Yacht Club, where our wedding reception was held just under 3 1/2 years ago, was on fire.

Next, North Kenner, including the Esplanade Mall, was supposedly under water. That didn't sound good at all, since my parents live in North Metairie towards the Kenner line.

After that, we started getting a lot of calls from Mid-City. Frantic calls. All saying something like this: "I'm in Mid-City, and we didn't have any water from the storm until a few mintues ago. Now it's coming into my house. I'm on my second floor, but I may have to go to my attic, and maybe even my roof." The calls got more and more desperate. Mid-City residents were getting hysterical. "I'm on my roof. My house is on this street near this landmark. I'm on my roof. Water is rising. Help me!" "I'm watching the water from my roof. There's an old lady/single mother across the street. I hear them yelling. Someone come help! We live on this street near this street." On a lot of these calls, you could hear crickets and frogs, with cries for help in the background.

The mood in the Entercom suites changed. It went from mild relief about the storm to confusion. Why was the water rising now, between midnight and 4 a.m. Tuesday, when the storm was over for almost 12 hours? Theories were posed: Broken water lines. Clogged drains. It wasn't raining, so it couldn't be that. But what was it? Confusion led to fear.

A man called in, telling us that he'd seen a Tulane Hospital doctor on a national news channel who said that the 17th Street Canal had breached. The Canal stretches from the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain and divides Metairie from New Orleans. We were a little worried at first, because there's only one street between the canal and our cross street. But since the water was coming up in Mid-City, which was the only place we'd recieved panicky phone calls, we figured the breach had to be somewhere up that way. We worried that our neighborhood might have flooded. We live in Lakeview, and it has been around forever, through Betsy, Camille, and countless other hurricanes, with no trouble. Our house was over 50 years old. It sits off the street a good ways. We'd probably be okay.

Other people called in, confirming what the man reported. But no one knew where the breach was or how big it was. We were a little nervous. But it had to be up by Mid-City. We had Veterans Blvd. in the way of that area. We'd be fine.

They announced that Jefferson Parish, where my parents live, was not allowed home until Labor Day at 6 a.m. That didn't sound too good for my parents. Or my brother, who'd moved to Old Metairie earlier in the year.

Tierza Simmons, an FM personality on B97, had a Cingular phone. If you stood near the blown-out windows of the Conference Room, you could get reception. She offered to let us use her phone to call our families and let them know we were okay. Mark got through to his parents. I called Microtel next.

I got through on my first try. I asked the desk guy for my parents' room number, because I had it in my e-mail, which I could no longer access. I thought they were in room 109. But I wasn't positive, and at 4:15 a.m., I didn't think it would be polite to call the wrong room. The guy told me there was no one by that name. I spelled it, since it's a good ole Louisiana surname, and this Alabaman probably couldn't spell it. Nothing. "Well, there were some people who were supposed to check in at 3 and never made it. Could they be one of those?" Oh GOD. Don't say those words to me. Then it dawned on me. I said that they hadn't made reservations, that they'd evacuated from New Orleans, and checked in that afternoon sometime before 4 p.m. Central time. Maybe they were listed somewhere else. The guy said no. There was one list. I said they checked in, that they had to be there. He insisted that they weren't. I grew frantic.

I tried the desperation card. I told him about the helicopters swarming around me that made me keep asking him to repaat everything. I told him how I was in New Orleans still and just wanted to let my parents know that I was okay. I told him about the military and Wildlife and Fisheries trucks bringing the airlifted 9th Ward residents from their rooftops to the Dome. I told him about the horrible storm and our busted windows. I told him how my parents were kicked out of a hotel in Pensacola in TS winds and found refuge in his hotel. I said all this on the verge of tears. His response?

"That's nice."

WHAT!?!?! EXCUSE YOU!?!?!?!? Then he informed me that they were not on the current guest list, a former guest list, a future guest list, or the all-time guest list. I stopped being desperate and started being pissed. I told him that I thought they were in room 109, but didn't want to dial it in case I was wrong, could he see who was in room 109 please?

"There's no one even in that room."

I got angrier and angrier I spelled and respelled my father's name, but the guy bsically kept insisting that I was an idiot. I asked him if they were, in fact, the Microtel in Auburn, Alabama. He said yes. I said, "I got this number from an e-mail my in-laws sent me before we lost the Internet. I could NOT have obtained this number, or the name of your hotel, which I've NEVER even HEARD of, and so I KNOW for a FACT that they are there. Check that list again!"

He asked if it could be under a different name. I said the only three people in the room have the same last name. It would only be Stanley, Stan, Kathleen, Kathy, Geoffrey, or Geoff. He said, "Could it be Joseph?" That's my father's middle name. I told him that, and said, "Well, what room is that person in?"

"109." ASSSSSSSSSSHOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLE!!!!!!! That was the room I thought they were in in the first place. The room he said was empty. "CONNECT ME!"

My father answered the phone. I told him that he wasn't allowed home, that the news didn't sound good for his neighborhood or my brother's, and that mine was iffy. I asked if they'd heard about the breach, which they had, but nothing definite. I asked about the Yacht Club. It had burned to the ground. I asked about the Esplanade Mall. Under water. Target at Clearview? The front fell off. Things looked bleak all around.

I talked to the three members of my family, and we cried together. My dad told me that they only had their hotel room until Friday, because Auburn had a home game, and the rooms were already rented out. We didn't know what they were going to do. They weren't allowed back in JP. They would be nomads the following weekend.

In the meantime, someone came up to Mark and said we were starting to take on water. Security was letting them loot the Sundries shop again. Again, they were inventorying and purchasing everything we took. He went down 5 flights of stairs to help out. When I got off the phone, around 4:45, someone asked me to help out. I was glad to. For two hours, we carried boxes and bags of food, drinks, and medicinal supplies up to the second level. We had to avoid broken glass and work under the cover of darkness. We didn't want passersby to see what we were doing and join in. We finished just as day was breaking. Tired, hot, sweaty, and sore, we went back up the five flights of stairs to our production room. I got Shazzy to use the litter box the night before, and Lily went right before we had our sanctioned looting experience. We were about to get some long-overdue sleep when someone opened the door. "They're having a meeting up front, and everyone, staff or not, is required to attend."

We went to the lobby, and all of the refugees were there. The Entercom bigwigs told us something chilling:

"Water is rising, and it's rising quickly. We do not think we can keep you here. We are running out of generator fuel. We will lose water and electricity soon, and we will not be able to broadcast any more. Everyone must leave. We have two options, and we cannot tell you which one is better. You have to decide what is best for you. You can go to the Dome, or you can try your luck in an SUV. We don't know which is better or which is worse. That is for you to decide. But you have to decide NOW. The water is rising quickly, and you must leave in the next ten minutes."

Stay tuned for Part 4: "Where do we go now, where do we go now, ahhhahhhahhhahhahhhahh..."

Part 2: The storm begins

Quick recap: Sequestered in the DJ Lounge, I tried to stay sane by playing with the cats. But they were shaking with fear (and possibly cold as the room was so frigid. But I decided to keep it that way in case we lost power.) I got a sweater and blanket and made a coccoon in the chair by the computer. Once in a while, someone would walk in, survey the room, get something, and leave. I watched local news websites and the Weather Channel's site. I checked my e-mail and posted to MySpace a kazilion times. I had 6 hours of this, but at 5 p.m., one hour early, Mark walked in. Someone else had shown up and was going to take over the shift. Then we went to the Hyatt, which is where I left off.

Back in the Dominion Tower, sleep was impossible. Midnight came, and I went back to the computer. But I had exhausted all of the possible sites that would entertain me. I just kept wishing the storm would hurry up and hit land. It was dark outside. Dark and windy. And the storm was still a good 5-6 hours away from us. Around 1 a.m., I got out my textbooks and tried to do some studying. But I fell asleep while reading about teaching literacy. Funny. I woke up about an hour later to complete numbness in my arm, as I had fallen asleep on the desk on my arm. My face was ribbed to match my sweater. The wind was worse, and there was rain beating the windows. I tried to get the cats to eat or use the litter box, but they would have none of that. I put them back in their carriers, and I walked down the hall to the room where Mark was working. I stayed in there for the next two hours. By the time his shift was over, 4 a.m., the storm was still a good bit away, but conditions outside had worsened. Katrina was raging. The wind and the rain whipping against the building were so intense. But things would have to get worse, much worse, before they could get better. And that worried me.

Fears of the unboarded windows in the DJ Lounge prompted us to move our belongings and kittens into the sales area of the Entercom Suites. We chose an empty cubicle near the door, rolled out the sleeping bag, and tried to sleep. This was around 4:45.

By 6 a.m., the full force of Katrina was thrust upon us. I woke up to the sounds of someone yelling, "These windows are going to blow!!! Watch out!! Look at the water!!! We're flooding!!!" Tucked in a cubicle, I just stayed where I was. No water or windows were near us. At 6:15, the whole building swayed noticeably. It was like what I imagine an earthquake would be like. Holding back tears, I moved closer to Mark, who was snoring lightly. Fear coursed through my body. My mind was racing. The sounds of the creaking, swaying building were overpowering. I didn't know what to do. We couldn't go outside; it was far too dangerous. We were only on the 5th floor...if the building would be to collapse, we would probably be killed. I wanted my parents, who had finally found a hotel room (the last available one) at a HOJO in Pensacola around midnight. I wanted them there with me more than I had ever imagined possible. I wanted everything to be okay, but was positive it wouldn't be. While I was laying there, the power went out. With no humming electronics, the storm was more frightening. But the generators kicked in, and I let out a small sigh of relief over the fact that we were keeping electricity. But that sigh was squashed a second later as a crash came from not far away. The first window blew. Water went every where, driven in by 145+ mph winds. The carpets were saturated. People ran everywhere, yelling. At this point, the windows in the sales department systematically blew out. Someone ran over and told us to grab our stuff and move to the center of the suites.

We found an unused production room in the middle of the building. We dropped off the cats first, then went back for the rest. Although the room was soundproof, and it drowned out the sounds of the running, screaming people, the storm was still loud and clear. We saw a flurry of activity outside the window, and learned that the first studio windows of the FM stations were starting to give out.

The windows are double-paned, strong, and soundproof. We watched in horror and awe as the outer windows would get sucked in and out, in and out, in and out. Then, a crack would start spreading across the panes. Then, the sections of the cracking windows would start sucking in and out, in and out, in and out. One by one, or sometimes as a unit, the sections would fly away, never to be seen again. But the windows weren't done. The second window would start doing the same thing as the first. Once the inner window flew into oblivion, the winds raced around the studios, whipping the blinds, the papers, and the furniture around. Some things were sucked out. The doors to the studios would start banging around. Afraid we would lose the doors and have hurricane-force winds throughout the suite, someone found a bunch of bungee cords and rigged up a system connecting the doors and holding them shut. We were afraid that the windows looking into the hallways would go next, but they stayed in tact.

As day broke, we watched out the windows and saw things fly past. We watched the roofing paper billow and try to fly away. water gushed all around, out of holes on the roof, and up pipes on the roof. We still were not halfway through. Almost, but not quite.

Mark decided to forgo sleep in favor of helping out. I curled up with a blanket and a textbook, only to fall asleep again. I woke up about 9 a.m. to the sounds of the storm still raging outside. Mark peeked in on me at one point while I was sleeping and dropped off a Good Humor ice cream treat. I apparently acknowledged it but fell back to sleep and had no memory of it. I woke up excited that the ice cream fairy had visited, even though it was melted. I ate it anyway. By this point, people had been grazing in the kitchen all night, and now, Monday morning, we were running dangerously low on food and water. So the building security agreed to let some Entercom employees into the Sundries shop downstairs to get provisions. They only took the ice cream and dairy items, because those would be spoiled and unsellable after the storm. They inventoried what they took so the company could purchase the food from the lady who owned the shop. They figured she would appreciate some income.

During my short nap, Garland Robinette was on air. The ceiling started pulsating, as the glass conference room windows had blown out and the glass doors to the conference room were trying to do the same. They propped open the doors to the conference room to alleviate that problem, and the WWL Studio, the only one they had boarded up, was about to lose the boards. Garland ran through the building, still broadcasting, and set up in a hallway. WWL was there for the people.

Stay tuned for Part 3: The ending of the storm was really only the beginning.

Part 1 of my own Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius...

Yeah, I'm ripping off the title of a great book. Blatantly. But what are you going to do about it.

As I said in the first Katrina post, we had no idea that the storm was headed our way until the mall was closed. We went home, watched the Weather Channel, and freaked out. We ran around, doing laundry and packing and cleaning. On Saturday night, Mark had to work from 6 until midnight at WWL. Once I was alone, I started panicking. I put in Better Than Ezra and Dane Cook to help take my mind off of things. A Category 4 was headed our way. It could be the big one that wipes us out. I called my parents to see what they were doing for dinner, and my dad picked me up after he boarded up his station. We went to Ground Pat'i, because it was the only non-fast-food restaurant open. Geoff and Calie came, too. I wish Mark had been able to join us. Calie, my mom and I all baked a peach cobbler together that night. While we were waiting to eat it, Calie's mom called to say they were evacuating to St. Francisville, that she needed to come home immediately. Her dad is a Jefferson Parish Police officer, and he had to stay. But at the last minute, her mom decided to go. At this point, my dad wasn't sure if he wanted to stay or not. I think my mom wanted to go, as did Geoff, but good old Stan the Man (STM) didn't want to leave. He said he'd decide in the morning.

I got home and got to work. Come to think of it, I think we left a load in the dryer when we left. Ew. We loaded our photo albums, our yearbooks, my bound copies of the college newspaper, and Mark's tapes from the college radio station into the trunk of Mark's car. We were leaving my car pulled all the way up in the carport, because we weren't sure of the parking situation at the New Orleans Center. At 4:30 a.m., we forced ourselves to go to bed.

At 9 a.m., the phone rang. It was my dad. He said the storm had grown to a Category 5, and that they were leaving. Thank God. They were bringing my wedding photos, my wedding dress, and the two cats. I never would have thought about the wedding dress.

We got up, finished packing and loading the car, and we brought the cats with us. We decided that if they turned us away with the cats, we were just not going to work. When we got there, there was a regular menagerie going on. So it was okay. When we got to the New Orleans Center to park, we couldn't find a spot until the 5th floor. Which may end up being just fine. We took two loads each, leaving the albums and things in the trunk, along with my computer tower, my childhood favorite stuffed animals, and some other things we deemed unnecessary to drag all the way to the Dominion Tower. Mark set me up in the DJ Lounge with the cats, which is where I had Internet access all night long. He worked from noon until 5 p.m. At this point, we grabbed (unkosher!!! GROSS!!!) hot dogs and chips, ate quickly, and went to take our shift in the hotel rooms. Mark took a shower, and I talked on the phone to Carol and Ilyse. I got in the shower, and right as I finished washing the shampoo out of my hair, an air raid siren went off. I jumped out of the tub, making a huge mess and frantically tried to get dry. We were on the 24th floor. I didn't know what was about to happen. It was just the hotel management explaining that they would indeed use the hotel inner evacuation plan, where all guests would be allowed to bring one pillow, one blanket, and medications to a large ballroom. The evacuations would start floor by floor, starting from the top. But they didn't say when it would happen. It took about 2 seconds of conferring to decide we didn't want to take the chance. It was nice to have a real bed for a couple more hours of rest, but if the evacuation started, we may not make it back to Entercom in time for Mark to work from midnight to 4 a.m.

I dressed and we went back to Entercom. We rolled out the sleeping bag and tried to nap on the floor of the DJ Lounge. But we were too keyed up, and we stayed awake, talking. We discussed the possibility that there may be nothing left of our home, and if that was the case, would we want to rebuild in New Orleans, or rebuild elsewhere? We would have a fresh start, so the choice would be ours. But that wasn't necessarily a possibility, so we would discuss it more later if necessary.

Stay tuned for Part 2: Katrina Begins.

Yeesh.

We have to stay in town for Hurrican Katrina because Mark has to work. That's what happens when you work for "THE News, Talk, and Sports Leader!" of radio.

They're putting us up at the Hyatt, which is next to the building where he works....but we have to rotate the room. They get half as many rooms as there will be people. So for like 12 hours, it'll be ours, while the other people are working. Ugh. We can bring blankets and pillows for if he's working overnight or something.

This looks like it will be the big one. The one that could wash us away. We have to leave the kitties here. We're closing them up in the computer room, because there's stuff they can climb on to escape any flood waters. It's breaking my heart, but that would be the safest room for them, should anything fly through our windows. We can't bring them with us. And my parents have two cats, so they can't take them. They're waiting until morning to decide whether or not they are evacuating. To me, that's too late. But Mayor Nagin is making the final call for mandatory evacuations at daybreak tomorrow.

The thing about this storm is that it snuck up on us. With my work and school schedule, I haven't had time for the newspaper or for TV. So I was vaguely aware of Katrina, just by listening to the radio to and from work and school. But they were expecting her to hit Florida and travel the coast of Florida. Until today, apparently. I mean, Mark works for, as I said, "THE News, Talk, and Sports Leader" of N.O., and when he got off work at 5 yesterday, there was no reason to worry. The principal of my school came around again after work to tell us all to have a nice weekend, asked if we had anything planned. Didn't say anything about paying attention to the local news media to see if we would have school. But today, they announced that the Archdiocesan schools are closed Monday. UNO's website says that they are closed through Tuesday. We went out to dinner with friends last night, then hung out with more people afterwards. No one said anything like, "Hey, are you evacuating?"

We slept in today, and went to the mall around 1:30 to get lunch and kill time. I noticed some buildings were boarding up, and that's nothing unusual. A bar we passed had this sign, "Due to Hurricane Katrina, we will be OPEN on Tuesday!" (Down here, people have hurricane parties...you evacuate from a lower-lying area of town to your friends' or relatives' house in a higher area, and you get food and candles and batteries and booze, and you party because there's nothing else to do. But when the threat is so bad, like it is now, that kinda dies down.) Anyway, we pull up, and there's a bunch of cars, but not many. We pull in the parking garage at Penney's, because that's the only garage and it's so flippin' hot, and walk to the store. An employee was sitting outside on a smoke break, we thought. She stopped us and said, "Store and mall are closed. Sorry." So I guess the cars there were all employees, and I'm guessing the mall had been open.

So now, we're feeling really dumb and very twilight-zoney. We stopped at Burger King and got lunch (yuck), then came home. Mark noticed two voice mails come through, both from his boss. Boss tells him that if he isn't evacuating, they need him to work. He doesn't have to, but that the main bosslady said something to him about, "This is where we separate the men from the boys, especially where pending promotions are concerned." So in other words, if Mark wants this promotion/raise he's been trying to get, he has to work.

So we're stuck here to ride it out. I'm bringing my textbooks with me, along with some stuff for school. But this monster is headed straight for us. She's a Category 3 right now, but they expect her to go to 4 before landfall. That's because she's moving too slowly, and she's building speed and strength.

I'm not religious by any means, but there's a theory that Our Lady of Prompt Succor (quick help in Latin) once saved the city of N.O. when the Ursuline nuns prayed to stop a raging fire that destroyed much of the city. The fire stopped before it reached their convent. OLPH is considered our protector. So when hurricanes come through, the city starts praying to her. The first words out of my mom's mouth were that she was already praying. The craziest part about it is that I'm almost inclined to believe it. The last few big ones headed towards us turned at the last minute. One, I think Lilli, slowed down speeds when it hit the friction of the coast, and we were spared. I'm not a praying person, but I'm hoping that if this is a real thing, that it pulls through. And, I figure my mom is praying enough for me, and maybe about 1,000 other people.

I'll let you know how we fare.

The cirrrrcle of liiiiiiife....

Last week, I learned about an end of a life and the beginning of a life on the same day. After celebrating Geoff's birthday with my parents, we headed home about 1 a.m. Mark's phone rang, and it was his boss, calling to say he had to come in immediately, because Buddy D, local talk legend, died earlier that evening.

Now, I've always hated him. My most vivid memories growing up involve my father, the Saints, and Buddy D. A strong college memory: Not having my own car, I would go home every other weekend via my parents. We wouldn't go back to school until after the Saints game was over. Which meant that I would then be subjected to being trapped in the Durango, forced to listen to his aftershow with no escape. But, it's sad. It's like the end of an era.

Earlier that day, I discovered that Emi had her baby!! And they're both healthy, even though he was a month early. Yayyyyyyyyyyy.......he's cute, too.

Less than one week until I start classes. At that point, I will find out what my internship entails, and I will reevaluate my job availability status, after which I will pound the pavement. Can't wait. Eff the dub.