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I was not a resident, but I was an aircrewman in a Coast Guard H-60 helicopter. I still have issues with what happened there, thankfully the VA has finally pulled their thumbs out of their collective as in my area and I am able to get some treatment for that and other things Ive had to do.
I have quite a few emotions about Katrina and most are not good. When it is your duty to save people and in situations there where you could not, it weighs heavily. Flying over rooftops and not being able to stop to pick up the elderly grandmother or a mother with newborn children because your cabin is so full of people..you mentally make note and promise yourself that you will get them. I am so proud of all of my fellow Coasties, working till you were dead tired, and still going out there. Zigzagging through an unfamiliar scope of operations. We normally are out at sea with nothing but us and the ocean for miles. Trying to call out telephone poles wires, other aircraft and quite a few times rooftops. All while concentrating on on the people you are now hoisting up. I saw so many families huddled together, crying, relieved, terrified, huddled together, sometimes with a pet, all at once. It a lot of emotions that I cant even begin to convey. I remember dropping off sandbags on the levee that was breached. We managed to save over 33,000 people, sadly not all were savable.
Im retired now, I would love to go back there. This time as a tourist. I remember every face that came into my cabin. I would love to see them walking down the streets hopefully with their families enjoying themselves. I doubt they would recognize me now. I move a lot slower, and Ive put on a few pounds. 
I did pick up one guy who owned a bar and he told me that if he still had his bar I could come back any time and drinks would be on the house. It is definitely on my bucket list.
Here is a video PBS did, its called Paratus 14:50. Its about the job we did during Katrina. The first couple of minutes are about the CG in general. Its a great video. http://video.aptv.org/video/2365552604/
Aerows, sorry for hijacking your thread, I ended up rambling on. Im still not sure what I learned from Katrina.
I hear you.
I watched it all, in horror, to see what the people who stayed, or couldn't get out, went through.
Two years later, Aug 28th, 2007, my house burned down. I escaped at 4:30 in the morning in my pajamas while somehow
managing to grab my handbag; my husband ran out of the house in his underwear and t-shirt without
even stopping to put on his glasses; our youngest son--who had just started his senior year in high school--
routinely slept in his clothes, so except for shoes he had clothes on when he ran out with our dog.
A fireman gave my husband a pair of extra sneakers off the truck and a neighbor gave him a pair of long
work out pants. Somebody--I can't remember who--gave our son a pair of sandals and he actually went
to school that morning. The Red Cross arrived with a debit card that had several hundred bucks on it
for us to use, although since I somehow thought to grab my handbag, I had car keys, my wallet, credit
cards and ID. My husband had NONE of those things--or glasses--so our first stop when we could
get my car out of the detached garage (which didn't burn) was to go get him glasses and then buy some clothes.
We had neighbors (she gave me underwear and clothes to put on) who took us in for a couple of days; then other neighbors near by whom we'd never met offered us the use of their house for two weeks while they were going out of state to visit relatives to buy us time to find a rental, which was no small task in a university town where everything had already been rented for the academic year.
Even though we lost almost everything, we had community to help. That's why it's so important that the larger community
has to be ready to step in when a disaster the size of Katrina occurs. It's why so many of us not affected by the
storm could not understand how the Bush administration could fail to act and be so damned incompetent. It had
to be the result of a deliberate choice and how they could be so heartless is impossible to comprehend. Yet, there it
was--the apathy and lack of empathy--being played out day after day after day.
Finding a way to heal the scars is the hard part. I can't stand the smell of fire anymore and I used to love sitting by a cozy fire
in the fireplace on a cold evening. The first time--only days after the fire--we
went out to dinner with both our sons and I had a panic attack from the smell of smoke in the Japanese Benihana type restaurant. I still have nightmares of waking up to the sight, sound, and smell of fire. I jump when I hear sounds I can't identify. If a smoke alarm beeps, my heart rate accelerates.
So, Aerows, I wish you peace in finding a way to heal the scars that Katrina gave you.
Rec
