by Leigh Bennett

Created on: May 14, 2009

I remembered when Katrina came in 2005. The forecast had predicted several major storms that year, but when they came they did very little damage. So people were unprepared for the hell that Katrina unleashed. I was living in Ascension Parish, Louisiana at the time. About 45 minutes inland from the city of New Orleans. Our power went out within the first few hours of landfall and we would be without power for the next two weeks. We were the lucky ones.

We hooked up a car battery to run a fan off of, along with the TV so that we would have some knowledge of what was happening. For the weeks that followed, I couldn't look at a TV without weeping. Scenes of people stranded on the roofs of homes. Bodies floated in contaminated flood waters that filled the city. Fires raged from the oil refineries. Then, once the waters began to recede, the looting began.

Then, the questions came. Why had this disaster happened? Why didn't the levies hold? Why wasn't help coming sooner? Then the accusations came. Well known religious leaders began speaking out against an already hurting city on national TV, claiming that an angry God was punishing New Orleans for the sin of the city. This was something I always considered odd since the French Quarter, the center of the "sinful" activities that these people spoke of, was virtually undamaged. When government funding finally came, some took advantage while others went completely overlooked.

However, despite these and other atrocities, hope began to float to the surface. Where the government had failed, churches and individual charities began to fill in the spaces. People gave out of their pain to provide for others by donating money, blankets, tarps, and time. They made sandwiches, worked soup kitchens, and even opened up their homes.

While it would take years for complete recovery and some are still bitter, certain individuals displayed their faith and compassion through giving. To those who wonder if God had failed us, I point to these individuals, who became the very hands of God extending kindness and mercy in the midst of turmoil.

Three years later on September 1, 2008 Hurricane Gustav made landfall on the coast of Louisiana. I had watched its approach with trepidation and spent hours on my knees praying that the homes of my friends and family were spared as I sat waiting things out at my grandmother's home in central Mississippi. God answered my prayers. Most of the people I knew suffered very little damage

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