A Sea of Blue

And so we drove all night, switching drivers before the sun came up. We ate poptarts and little donuts from a bag. We knew without any road sign annoucement that we were getting close. We began to see trees stripped of their folage and not in a gentle Fall kind of way but in an angry harsh manner. Then stripped trees gave way to broken trees, violent, snapped in the middle trees. We could see bright blue roofs in the distance, like neighborhoods had gotten together and voted to all get bright blue shingles.

Everyone was now awake and there were comments of "oooh, look at this" and "did you see that?" as we passed by damaged billboards and semi-trucks over turned and businesses ripped to shreds. It seemed like it might have happened the weekend before, not some three months ago.

I began to think about how angry I'd be if three months after my roof was damaged by a storm I was still sleeping in a house covered with a piece of blue plastic. But it was a sea of blue plastic covered roofs we drove by as we closed in on New Orleans.

We arrived around 11 am and found their house quickly as it was not far from the interstate. Everyone was excited when we pulled up and began to take pictures of the neighborhood. "A" pointed down the street and jumped up and down. "That's my high school, down the road, the red building." I couldn't see much with all the huge piles of debris infront of every house but knew we'd have time to atleast drive by so she could see it again...possibly for the last time.