Katrina

Wake me up when September ends.  That stupid song needed to stop repeating.  It was on the only radio station that came through--as raspy and garbled as it was--and the only song that seemed to play.  I switched my radio off and paced my room.  Neither the internet or tv had any signal and outside dark clouds contemplated striking

September would never end, it seemed.  Labor day holiday had been stretched past its allotted three days.  Obviously the schools were closed.  They had no power.  And when people did dare leave their houses, they risked having to wait three hours in the never ending lines to get gas.  The YMCA and Walmart were now shelters filled with sleeping bags and homeless people whose journey only seemed to be at an end.  Store shelves were pillaged and only a few loaves of stale bread remained.  We were lucky.  We still had power at the very least and food stocked up in our pantries.  But the power could go out at any time, and we did not know how long this would last.

Despite the clouds, it was hot and sticky.  Classic Mississippi weather of our year-round single season—summer.  Something big was churning up there in the sky, something sinister.  The eye of the hurricane gleamed from above as the calmness lulled us into a false sense of hope.

September would never end.