CNN iReport

Aug 2005. Katrina wreck havoc upon our lives but could not completely destroy our lives and instead brought about changes, good changes. It reminded us that everything that we can ever work for could easily be wiped out, lost just like that. Humanity is no match for Mother Nature. No matter how much damage we are doing to our Earth, it will prevail. It is ourselves that we are hurting. Katrina showed us how almost unimportant we are. I remember during this time, my family was with me in Texas, helplessly watching and listening to whatever media was available. I was in my office, behind the 12ft doors all window blinds pulled up because I needed the glass for extra place to stick post-it notes, 3 televisions on & competing with each other for my attention, 2 computers running & 4 cell phones violently vibrating (had to turn the ringer off - at work)... trying to get word out about our little community in far east New Orleans with 300+ people stranded, forgotten even... i was working like a hub both to coordinate rescue efforts & to not fall behind with work, to keep my job... then finally, confirming that helped truly arrived & that they were safely transported out (of course, after many many delayed days but all the thanks to the news media for getting the word out)... Katrina destroyed everything, my family home, business & everything within but it was a shock to see my parents so carefree for the first time. They accepted the fact that there's nothing they can do about it except to just give in and start over again. It's like when they left Vietnam in 1975 with nothing but the clothes on their backs; Katrina wasn't as bad... My brother, Don, was a contractor so he was allowed back within weeks and sent a raw version of this video to us. The tears were intercepted with lots of comforting humor while we watched. By Oct-Nov we were back gutting the house alongside our neighbors. There were 12 of us in 2 wonderous 5-star FEMA trailers in the Kenner area. When sunlight came, we would drive into east N.O., armed with tools for working & other tools for security measures and labored until the sun got tired. The median of our street was filled with piles of neatly stacked "trash." There were no water, no electricity, no police, no medical response, nothing except for people like us who were already starting the rebuilding process. We doubted political promises for government funding to be efficient or sufficient because that's just too countercultural... Working under the sunlight, for a moment, I couldn't remember when was the last time we, as a family, worked together, so joyous & so diligently. It was a good feeling to know that even thru a disaster we still had each other. From the eerie woods that once was green, now silver sticks waiting to crumble to our comically collapsed roof, from jumping albino cockroaches to lurking monstrous nutrarats, from tears and sweats to sounds of laughter that echoed away with the pounding of hammers, our home was finally rebuilt (I don't think any of our permits ever got approved or even looked at). The only contractor we had to hire was for the roofing, everything else was homemade. For a while, my parents lived in the storage shed behind the house because some FEMA trailer administrator said we couldn't have too many people per trailer but refused to lend or even rent us another. Even though my parents had lots of laughter living life much like cavemen, we had to keep building; waiting for permits to be approved would have been a lifetime. Out of all of us, we had all the necessary skills, licensed, & Home Depot down the road to make things happen so we did.... Reflecting on Katrina from 4 years ago is very therapeutic, ironic to say. It reminds us plenty about the world around us and how we stand in it. We're the most vulnerable. Even the weeds find a way to grow back on their own. We, however, need each other to keep going.