Into the breach...

Well, we have returned. Actually, we returned the day we left, but y'all know how lazy I can be sometimes; Why, just the other day I instant messaged Stacey, (who was in the kitchen) to tell her to bring me some cookies in the next room. Yup... pure unadulterated laziness.

I know it seems like I'm being a little glib in the face of disaster, but like Pops Kahunah always said, "sometimes you just have to step back and laugh."

Slidell was quite the mess. The eye of Katrina passed right over the town, destroying a lot of stuff. Fortunately, we encountered no looters or anything. Getting to Drew's childhood home was not as challenging as we had feared... until we tried to pull into his driveway. A huge pine tree (like a hundred year old pine tree) had been snapped in half, and stretched across the front of the yard, limiting our access. We hiked around through a neighbors yard and approached the house.

Many of the trees surrounding the house were like the one out front... snapped in half by the storm. there seemed to be no water damage though. We entered the house and walked cautiously around, checking each room for any sign of intruders or damage.

Drew's 70 year old Mom kept trying to get ahead of us, not seeming to understand that there could still be danger here. She's quite the fiesty old bird. As I entered the "great room" (so named because its...uh... great) I completely missed that there was a huge six-foot tree limb poking through the ceiling. In my defense, I was looking down for water on the carpet and such, and missed it until Drew said "Uh.. Rob?" and pointed it out. Fortunately, that seemed to be the only damage to the house, and it caused some minor water damage in that one part of the house. Drew breathed a sigh of relief, feeling very lucky indeed. Little did we know how lucky.

The next thing I did, was leave Drew and his mom to bicker, and walk with Jose (Drew's mom's neighbor, who was with us) to check his house. We climbed over, under, and around downed trees to get over to his property, and the sight that greeted us there was one I will not soon forget...

There were two massive trees that had fallen across the roof of his house, smashing his front porch, one of which was a huge old tree that has simply snapped. When Jose opened the front door, the smell was awful... the entire house had been standing in at least two feet of water for an unknown length of time. The water had destroyed everything below waist level in his beautiful home. (think of your home now... what would be left?) The stench from two refrigerators worth of spoiled food permiated the house. I have never before smelled anything that actually made me puke, but when I foolishly opened one of the fridges, that did it. We went out to the garage, and could tell by the water line that there had been at least four feet of water in there, completely flooding the car that jose had lest behind. I came back inside to find Jose cleaning the dishes... "a little like re-arranging the deck chairs on the titanic..." I thought to myself.

We spent the rest of the afternoon patching holes, salvaging valuables, and thanking God that none of us had chosen to ride out the hurricane. We headed back to Jackson emotionally and physically exhausted. I could tell how stressed Drew was, because to follow his blowing a hole in the roof incident, he at one point tried to catch a falling chainsaw. (it wasn't turned on, but still!) I swear that boy should have just joined the circus as a daredevil.

Ladies and Gents... I have said it before, and I'll say it again... A category five hurricane is nothing you ever want to f**k with.