“Katrina V”, a copyrighted post, was written for my WordPress blog called Always Growing by Jan in Covington, Louisiana
Five years. It has been five years since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. You have seen the pictures of the devastation the occurred in New Orleans and on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I thought I would show you some pictures of what Katrina did to our property. We are located about thirty miles north of New Orleans and were not affected by water. It was the wind damage that knocked down trees and left debris all over. It took weeks to clear our yard. This is what we saw when we returned a week after Katrina hit with winds near 100 mph.
Our Front Yard
Our Driveway
Uprooted Tulip Poplar
Our Backyard
Backyard - Another view
Back Yard View from Second Story
This is what our street looked like by the end of September. Everyone piled the debris along the street for pickup.
Debris Piles Along Street
Finally, at the end of September the first trucks started showing up to pick up the debris. It wasn’t until the end of October that all the yard debris from Katrina was picked up. We were so glad to see it go.
First Pick Up Day
We were so fortunate that we did not have any damage to our home. After seeing the damage that the 125 to 150 foot pine trees did to some of our neighbors, we couldn’t complain about being without electricity for three weeks, telephone for five weeks, cable TV for six weeks, and the internet for almost eight weeks.
This house was just two doors from us. It took six big pine trees right down the middle.
Neighbor's House
Another neighbor’s house where a tree hit.
It has been almost five years since I have looked at these pictures, and they bring up so many emotions. While our neighborhood has been restored, so many of our neighbors had to move away because of transfers to other cities or elderly people who moved to be closer to family or destroyed homes forced others to move to other areas.
I hope we never have to go through something like this again. I hope no one ever has to go through this.
Always Growing 
Jan (Thanks For Today) said,
August 30, 2010 at 7:26 pm
Wow, Jan…it must have been overwhelming for you at the time. I can understand why you didn’t post the photos right away & didn’t want to look at them for a while. Considering the severity of the problem for those with water damage, you may have felt like you shouldn’t talk about yours…to any great extent. But most certainly you did go through a lot–and it was a huge shock! I’m glad you are all recovered and the neighborhood is back to normal. I hope you never will have to experience anything like that again, too:-)
Jan said,
August 31, 2010 at 4:29 am
Jan, it is strange, but in many ways it seems more overwhelming looking back, than it did while we were living through it. I guess when you are in the midst of something like this, you don’t have time to think about things as you do when it is over. What is so overwhelming I guess, is how widespread the damage was and what it took for so many people to deal with that damage considering the circumstance that no one was untouched by Katrina, basic services took so long to come back, including business to buy supplies to repair homes, etc. Thank goodness for the wonderful volunteers that came from all over to help.
Frances Ellsworth said,
August 31, 2010 at 4:30 pm
My two sons and husband went over to assist with the clean up. The youngest son was really observant, so when Rita was headed our way, he prepared to not have the challenges he saw there.
In a previous post in 2008 you said you kept seeds of the following plant: blue butterfly (clerodendrum ugandense). I have been trying to find the seeds to no avail do you have any? The Hummer
Jan said,
August 31, 2010 at 4:55 pm
One of my good memories is the wonderful people who came to help us after Katrina. I remember seeing a NYC police car near our home as well as disaster vans from just about every state. I’ll never forget talking to a young Oklahoma National Guardsman. He was so wonderful; Oklahoma has a right to be proud of young men like him.
My blue butterfly bush just started blooming, and if I get seeds from it this year, I will contact you to send you some. I can’t promise there will be any this year, but I will keep an eye out for any that develop.