| With less than twenty four hours to go before | | | | know he would not be alive if we had not gone to get |
| hurricane Katrina hit land my wife and I started to pack | | | | him out of his house.We drove through the night. At |
| up the car to leave St Bernard Parish Louisiana. We | | | | first we could not go over fifteen miles an hour across |
| had to have the brakes repaired only an hour before | | | | the twin spans, an eight mile long bridge across the |
| we left. We had to depend on the kindness of a | | | | lake a bridge that today is largely destroyed. The |
| neighbor who was frantically working on the car as | | | | winds came just behind us only hours later and |
| we loaded it with those things the officials said we | | | | washed the spans that weigh thousands of tons into |
| should take with us.We loaded a few changes of | | | | the water like toothpicks in a bathtub. In time we got up |
| clothing our important papers and our dog, Patches. | | | | to about fifty but not once did we ever reach the |
| We went to pick up an older gentlemen whose | | | | speed limit. We arrived at a friends house near |
| daughter could not pick him up because she lived north | | | | Birmingham Alabama where we stayed for two days. |
| of Lake Ponchartrain which was already nearly | | | | We contacted the old gents family and arranged for |
| impassible. He was a member of our church and we | | | | his family to come and pick him up. The power went |
| faithfully picked him up for every service because he | | | | out several times throughout the second night as the |
| could hardly walk on his own. Looking back now we | | | | winds gusted and threatened Old Birmingham. |