More than a week but not quite two went by and we were still without power in Baton Rouge where we were staying. We'd located most of our family and friends but we still weren't allowed to go home. . .to see how much we lost. The BR looked like a war zone. Trees were down everywhere, roads were blocked and low lying areas were flooded. When we were allowed to, we stood in lines to get food, to get water, to get ice, to get necessities, to get answers. We got the first four eventually but answers were few and far between.
We finally got word that our parish was reopening. There was still no electricity but we could go home. We much preferred being there with no lights rather than crowding my cousin's house with the rest of the fam and no lights. So we packed up our belongings, our animals & my mom and headed home.
Debris littered the streets and highways but getting home took much less time than getting out. As we turned down our street we were greeted with some neighbors who had managed to make it back. We saw our house, it was fine. *whew*. No water and limited wind damage. A few downed trees and our fence was completely gone, but none hit the house...how, I have no idea but we considered ourselves extremely lucky! You could see the water line in the front lawn. Clearly the water had risen significantly if it got that high by us. Our neighborhood had NEVER flooded in a storm, not even Andrew (1995) which flooded other parts of our town (as told by the older neighbors).
Clean up and settling back in was unpleasant but at least we had a home still. Plus the electricity didn't stay off for long after we got back. It was another week or so (I think) before my mom was allowed back into her parish (not Orleans). They wouldn't let anyone in UNLESS they had an address in the parish. Thankfully I hadn't changed mine on my license yet so I was allowed to accompany her and my boyfriend worked for the state so his badge got him in as well.
Her house was still there, yay! No flooding, yay! Giant tree resting on the roof, boo! The drive to her house looked even sketchier than the drive to ours. Trees were down...all lying in the SAME direction. Clearly straight line winds, immensely strong winds, did this. We are talking about 100 year oaks and other MASSIVE trees, completely UPROOTED. I monkey-ied my way up the fallen tree and onto her roof to get a better look. It was absolutely sobering. As far as you could see in any direction there was complete destruction. We took lots of pictures and opened the windows to air things out. She had quite a bit of water inside because of the holes punched in the roof thanks to the tree. We deemed her house unlivable for now, so we got a few more necessities for her, locked it down and headed back to our house.
It took weeks to get her insurance crap 1/2 way straight so she stayed with us. Before they could even think about scheduling her house to be fixed we had ANOTHER hurricane. Rita came barreling in. She hit much more west of us (we did NOT evacuate) but she was a b**ch as well. More trees came down by us (clearly weakened by the 1st storm) and the temporary levees breached again. Once again the city was inundated with water.
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