Help keep the American Dream alive, Remember that hundreds of thousands of people are still displaced due to Hurricane Katrina. Please keep your prayers on those ppl of the Gulf Coast area on this anniversary of the largest catastrophe known in U.S history.

 

My thoughts and prayers will continue to reach out to those affected by Hurricane Katrina. May they continue to work on rebuilding their lives and homes and restore their lives to some semblance of normalcy, which is what they truly deserve.

I worked in an apartment complex for the elderly and disabled when this happened. One of my elderly residents had family in the affected areas and I searched for them in my off hours, as he had not heard from them. About a week or so passed and I had still been unable to locate them, and they had not contacted him. He was sitting out on the bench in front of the building talking to other residents about them and had a heart attack. He was rushed to the hospital and eventually slipped into a coma, from which he never came out of.

I was eventually able to get in contact with his family via the internet and explained what was happening. Due to the circumstances they were facing, they were unable to come to Denver to be with him. They advised the hospital that a friend of his who he had known for 35+ years and I had permission to make medical decisions on his behalf, with their permission. I had many conversations with them, updating them on his frail condition.

When the time came, that all his organs began to fail, his long time friend and I made the painful decision of having him removed from life support. In the many years before, he had told us if anything ever happened to him, to please make sure he didn't suffer. He did not want to be hooked to life support, if he had no chance of leading a normal productive life. Together her and I made the decision to have everything removed on October 15, 2005 and sat with him until he was gone.

During the time before he passed away, we let him know that all his family members were safe and accounted for even though he was in a coma. This had to be one of the most difficult situations I have ever dealt with, except the loss of both my parents and my boyfriends parents in a 2 year period.

John...you are in my thoughts and prayers at the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. I believe that if not for this horrible tragedy, you might still be with us today. Your friends and family miss you very much.

 

Here, here. Having lived just north of New Orleans (on the North Shore of the lake) and my parents and a brother & his family still there. Everytime I here or see a story on Katrina I still get choked up. I have many friends that lost everything they worked for. Houses, cars, jobs, and anything else that had to stay behind. Some have returned and are making repairs to thier world that ended on Aug. 29th last year.

I have wanted to go back down and see it but it is still to painful even seeing places I used to go in the city. I moved to Colorado the first part of July last year about 6 weeks before Katrina. Maybe by Thanksgiving I will be able to go down and see my family & friends. All this brings back memorys of looking all over the web trying to find information for people. Is the house gone, flooded, with a tree in the middle of it? So many questions with no answers for a long time. It was almost 3 weeks before my parents could even get to thier house. Luck was with them and they only had minor damage. (even with 23 trees in the back yard) My brother & his family was not as lucky. They had 6 feet of water in thier house for 3 days, my sister in laws mother had 18 feet of water in thier neighborhood.

Things are better now, my brothers family has moved back into thier house (mid July) and my parents say that life is slowly getting back to normal, but it will not be even close to what it once was. Sorry to be so long winded as I don't post much, but this is and will be a part of my life for ever.

Daniel

 

Not trying to turn this into a political thing... but I'm pretty upset that after a year there are still parts of NOLA and Mississippi that look the same way they did Aug. 30, 2005...

 

Have to agree with you there El Guapo. While I understand things can't all be done, I really thought there would be much more progress than we have seen.

 

Everything takes time. It took years to overcome the devastation caused by hurricane Andrew in Homestead and other parts just south of Miami. Even after 10 years, somethings still look as bad.