Katrina

As the 5 year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina has just passed and every news outlet has been reporting about what went wrong and what, if anything, we've learned from Katrina, I can't help thinking about how I was affected by this tragedy.

Thinking back to 2005, I couldn't even comprehend what had happened (I guess growing up in a desert will do that to you). I didn't understand why people didn't leave and how there could still be flooding days after the hurricane. It just didn't make sense to me. Months after, it seemed like nothing had really improved - the city was still a disaster. One of my friends had been doing some research on relief work and found that a lot of organizations were looking for college students to help clean up over spring break. So we decided to go.

I think we were all nervous to go. The majority of the city still did not have power and there was not a lot of clean water. The organization we went with housed volunteers in an elementary school where people had waited on the upper floors to be rescued. It was surreal to be walking around and see what we had seen on tv and realize that it still looked that way after seven months.

We gutted houses and it was seriously the hardest thing I have ever physically done. Even though it was March, it was in the 70s with 100% humidity, which I think equals 1000 degrees. We worked from sun up to sun down with one meal, usually pasta-like, brought to us around lunch time that was delivered in plastic storage bins (we did eat breakfast and dinner too. Just before and after the gutting). The people who owned the houses were so nice and thankful for what we were doing. It was fascinating to hear their stories and the hope that they still had for their city.

I think the best thing I took away from this was empathy. I didn't, and don't think I ever will, experience anything like what the people of New Orleans had to go through, but I now have some sense of what they have had to do to get back to their homes and lives.

At the Salt Lake Airport.

Mardi Gras floats, as seen from the freeway.

The headquarters for the relief organization we volunteered with.

The cute little grandson of the woman who's house we were gutting. He wanted to help.

Me and Heather.

Lookin' good.

Heather, me, Kendra, and Erin

FEMA trailors being shipped in by rail.

Red Cross truck. It would go around once a day and have meals and water for residents.

The rest of these pictures are of the lower 9th ward. It was so badly destroyed that there pretty much wasn't anything left.