Have you ever been in a situation you thought couldn’t get any worse? I have.

I was almost finished with my schooling to become a medical assistant when Katrina struck. Shortly before the storm was set to hit, we sent my ten-month-old son with his grandmother to his uncle’s house in Alabama. My daughter and I went to a school converted into a shelter with my parents. I tried to talk my fiancé into coming, but he insisted that the storm would be just like the others and he would stay home and ride it out.

I believe the total number of people in the school was 375. The winds picked up the next morning at about 7 am. Soon after, the rain became heavy and the storm began. When my mother turned on the radio to hear the latest news of the storm, I began to realise the great danger that threatened my fiancé still at home. I began to pray.

Two days later we were told we could go. My fiancé had survived the storm and was physically okay. But our apartment was waterlogged. The place was uninhabitable. The days that came after were the hardest. We had no food, running water, or electricity. The trucks with MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) arrived sometime later. Ice and MREs were thrown from helicopters, and everybody would just run and grab what they could. I felt like I was in a Third World country. Sometimes we would rush to get there at the scheduled time, and the trucks wouldn’t show up. - Beliefnet.com