I was in Lafayette, Louisiana when the storm hit. Phone communications were overloaded and it took numerous attempts to contact my home in Slidell. Lucky for me and my wife, we had friends in Lafayette who housed us during the time of confusion. Relief centers opened up in large enclosed areas, from basket ball gyms to the Cajun Dome in Lafayette. We saw pictures on the news time and again about the floods and people shooting at helicopters (some to signal, others to try and shoot down).

After two weeks with the media telling us that my town was flooded, showing a few shots of a flooded stretch of road (which I saw replayed a hundred times) mixed with scenes of New Orleans with the caption below saying it was "Slidell", I just became fed up. So I went home with extra gas and all the batteries I could get my hands on.

As we got closer to home, the devistation became more visable by every passing tree. Also, traffic seemed to become more and more scarce as well.

When we got home, the treeline of the city was ripped apart, houses everywhere took damage. Our house was lucky, because the flooding from the lake stopped right on our lawn, which the other half of the city was flooded. There was no power, and there was a curfew set at 9PM. Water was undrinkable for the next two weeks as well.

TV and Cable were out for a good while and all we had was really AM, most of the FM radio stations had shut down. Salvation Army, Red Cross, Relgious Aid Groups and even foreign aid groups came in to offer us supplies. I lived off of MREs for almost a month from the Army. Some less than honorable people went to the food lines 3-5 times a day, in which one time would be enough to feed a 8 people for the entire day. I later encountered people when I was working for a mail company who sold the MREs over Ebay.

In october we started hearing the horror stories.

Sharks that swam in from the storm where eating bodies and dead animals right after the storm. Groups of criminals in New Orleans teamed up before the storm and went from house to house looting and shooting whoever got in their way. Cops who went bad sought to join with crime. Animals left behind from the storm formed packs, fueled by hunger, they sought to attack people for food. Gators, like the sharks, crawled into the subarbs and started killing people. Fires went out of control because the fire department could not reach them. Criminals from New Orleans who fled the strom brought their crime-like ways into the surrounding parishs, including drugs and murder (it took my parish up until now to finally stomp out the crime problem). Bodies who were recovered from the storm who were found in flood waters could give no identity because the body becomes like jello. Cars along the old highways leading into new orleans were filled with bullet holes, and 7 out of 10 had a body in them.

The list goes on and on.

I'll write more on my next break at work.

To sum up civilization after Hurricane Katrina in the New Orleans area (live 30 minutes east of New Orleans), it was hell.

To make matters worse, you had people left and right scamming taxpayer's dollars because they were claim they lived in the hurricane affected zone but they didn't. Examples were prisoners in Baton Rouge (almost 2 hours north of New Orleans), entire families in one household instead of one per household claiming head of house (hell, I never claimed anything because I worked to get my life straight, paid for my insurance fix unlike those who were too greedy to pay, and thats the way it ought to be), politicians using government helicopters to get back to their home so they can grab there stuff instead of getting in a car car and waiting like everyone else.

It was a royal mess down here.

Now, some of you are wondering where I am going on all of this I imagine. You want to know the juicy stuff, what I believe what went on here.

The government dragged its feet, right? Or did they want to see how a large city with over a million could handle a disaster with little federal support?

Think about it, FEMA was uncoordinated, and so was local governments, even state police. Militias operated first, sometimes bypassing local officials. When federal troops arrived, militias worked with them. You know why? Firepower and Fear. What would you fear more, a police cruise or a humvee with a M-60 strapped to the top of the vehicle with 3 people armed with assault rifles and knowledge of modern combat.

Here's another possibility. What if Katrina was a test to to see what would happen to society in case of a country-sized natual or man made disaster? You think FEMA would be useful then?

You know the most disturbing thing about Katrina was? The body count. It was told the public that 1836 people died. The number is wrong; they did not include those who have been missing since the storm, the bodies that the officials never found.

If a large scale disaster ever hits America, I know for certain that we would fall apart easily. The best advice I can give you if this ever happens is to hide and wait. Store food and water, protect yourself, and remind yourself that you are not a superhero. Sooner or later the criminals will kill themselves, making it easier for you to snuff them out.

You have given a good example of what is wrong with our society. At least you had presence of mind to do the right things and survive. I do hope everything turns out fine with you and you have learned from this.

I am so tired of seeing people "wanting" everything handed to them after anything. Most of New Orleans residents had no flood insurance. All of them knew where they live and the potential result of a large hurricane. I have no pity nor feel sorry for anyone who stayed in the area. IMHO, I have no financial obligation to pay them anything out of my taxes for living below sea level and I have told my Congressmen and Representatives this very fact.

If this was my decision, I'd let New Orleans be made into a wetland and let the river recover the property as part of the delta. Forget the historical part of an old city, this just plays on emotions. Put up a historical brass marker and move on. How many times do we have to spend tens of billions of dollars to hold water back and for what real economical gain, nationwide is given back. But then, no official has asked me my opinion.

There was ample warnings for this storm. Hurricanes do not just appear like a tornado. Forget the theories about the government doing anything about making the storm stronger or what the response would be from the government in regards to handling one race of people differently from another race. This is just crap that feeds conspiracies while completely covering up the fact that people do extraordinary stupid things and then look for someone else to blame for their poor decisions.

FEMA (used to be Civil Defense) and the Red Cross have told people for years to be prepared for any emergency that lasts a minimum of 3 days. Some governmental sites even tell you to have 2 weeks of food and water stored at any given moment. This is old news that has been discovered by younger people. People should take this to heart and stop waiting for handouts.

In the UK hurricane Katrina was on the news for a short while only. I wonder, where are all the people now? How is the rebuild going?

I did read on the internet that a lot of folk were put into some sort of camps but were told if they left the camps for any reason they were then on their own and couldn't come back. I've also read that a lot of folk were jailed for minor offences and are still there because there's not enough law people to represent them, and a lot of records were destroyed in the floods.

I was in Bay St Louis, MS for Katrina. I ended up in an attic with my family. Do I regret not leaving? Yes. You live and learn. We live our lives in a Hurricane area. I guess I got amune to the "hurricane is comming". We've opened a restaurant since the storm & are doing well, now. To respond to a previous comment: Many folks couldn't afford to leave, or had reliable transportation. How does a "check to check" family store two weeks of extra food? For all the bad stuff that went down there was alot of good too. When the gov't was slow to respond (atleast in my area) the locals got the job done. Criminals will be criminals not matter where they come from. I think the gov't used the storm as a way to test a few ideas they had about disasters.

Kotus,

Im glad that you survived such an ordeal, Im sure it was a terrible situation to find yourself in. I remember watching the news day in and day out, slowly watching the entire city deconstruct. Im sure mayhem wouldn't even begin to describe what it was like. Bodies floating, waist deep stagnant sewage filled water, nothing clean to drink. Watching all of those desperate, anguished people sitting on roof tops waiting to be saved. Then the whole episode of the SuperDome and all of the deaths and reported rapes, the people trying to pile on to any bus or car headed out of town. Meanwhile old people sat in the 100 degree heat and died in their wheelchairs. It is hard for me to say what I would have done, I guess you cant really say until you have to actually respond in a setting like that.

But you could be right, maybe Katrina was a test run for what is to come later. The whole thing made me realize something quickly, I needed to get out of the major cities. Imagine something similar to Katrina popping off in a place like NYC or Los Angeles, a heavily populated urban area like that would be hell on earth. I salute you for coming out in one peice