Katrina destruction

Want to see what me and my family have been doing lately? Well, thanks to my cousin Chad, I can show you. Although these are pictures of my cousin's grandparent's house, the destruction looks much the same as my grandmother's house. I spent the last two weekends trying to salvage anything from her house, which was very little.

Want to know what it is like? The thought that kept coming to me is that it was like going through a ship wreck. There was water everywhere. Sitting in bowls in the cabinet, sitting in jewelery boxes, sitting in drawers. Anything that can hold water. And, if you weren't careful, that water would come raining down on you whenever you opened something. Oh, and the fun part, was that it wasn't clean water. It was moldy, smelly, dirty, disgusting water. (Want to know what it smelled like? Have you ever been inside of a dirty port-a-potty? Imagine it 10 times worse)

Did you know that when wood sits in toxic water for weeks that it turns to mush. My grandmother had many solid wood pieces of furniture. Heavy, solid wood pieces of furniture. I emphasize had. Now when we touch it, it literally falls apart. It was sad and gross.

Oh, but we did see some very interesting mold. Did you know that mold can spin webs just like a spider? Did you know that mold grows in spirals? Did you know mold can be bright yellow, pink and teal blue. My aunt, who lives with my grandmother, won the prize for the most colorful mold in her room.

On Tuesday, my cousin Amy (Chad' sister) is coming with me to go see my mom's house. I haven't been out there yet. I haven't wanted to go with the kids. I didn't want them to see their grandparent's house like that - talk about more nightmares. But now they will be in school, so Amy and I can satisfy our curiosity. I will take pictures and post those.