Christien Louviere

Coming back to Baton Rouge after 5 hours of work was relieving and miserable at the same time.  I had that feeling I get when I go out of town and I feel as if I forgot to pack something.  The difference is that I had no idea when I’d be able to return home again.  With marital law, curfews and admittance restrictions, who knows?  I spent the drive home listening to 870 AM.  They have been the absolute best at covering this around the clock and being the communication between New Orleanians, officials and families.  Some of the people calling in are simply gut-wrenching.  So many people are just one person short of being with their full family.  I was two short (mom and dad) of being with my full family, but I knew they were safe.  I didn’t know when I’d see them again.  They were in AL and most roads through MS were blocked.  We pulled our three cars over about 20 miles from Baton Rouge to get gas.  All the stations in BR were completely blocked and had lines.  We paid about $2.60/gallon with no wait.  I-10 headed west to BR was relatively spacious.  Everyone and their brother was headed down to New Orleans to get in line for the Monday’s 6am entrance into Jefferson Parish.  When we passed the line on the way out, it was over 3 miles long according to my odometer.  I figured that translated into about a 4 hour wait.  It took us 45 minutes in a 1/2 mile line.

We stopped at a BBQ place 5 minutes from the office building that has become our new home.  I could feel the salt from the dried sweat all over my face.  My red Braves shirt had sweat rings on it.  My waist line on my khaki short was drenched.  I felt tired, gross and hungry.  It was about 4pm and we’d been up since 545 that morning.  We spent about 4 hours total on the road and 5 hours looting ourselves.  Lunch was decent and the 4 of us threw some laughs at one another.  I felt as thought the hardest part of our job had been completed.  We ate and headed to the building to unpack and make camp at our new residence.

Eva and Claudia (our maid that’s like family and her daughter) were there waiting to help us.  We moved everything out of the car in less than twenty minutes.  The faster we worked, then the faster we could sit/lie down.  After unpacking, I learned from Chenae that my parents were less than 10 minutes away from us.  I paced a little bit.  I tried to sit down but twitched my leg.  I began talking to Claudia about some things.  About two minutes later, I hear a horn down the vacant street.  I looked up and saw the green streak from my dad’s LS430 go by.  I kept talking to Claudia as I suddenly felt my urgency reduced.  Chenae, Chris and Caitlyn immediately went outside.  I was behind by about thirty seconds.  When I opened the door to the humidity, I saw Caitlyn wrapped in my dad’s arms.  My mom was hugging Chenae after just leaving Chris’ arms.  I headed towards my mom since her arms were open.  Before I got two feet, my dad threw his arms around my neck and pulled me in next to Caitlyn.

"God.  I’m so happy to see you.  I missed you so much.  It’s so good to see you.  You guys are everything to us," he said crying harder than I’d ever seen him cry.
I could feel our three bodies pushed tightly together.  I heard a father and his daughter sobbing.   I was screaming inside to just cry, but nothing came.  I have no idea why.  I never had trouble showing emotion before so I don’t know what happened. 
"Sorry I’m squeezing so hard," he sobbed and I caught a glimpse of his eyes under his disheveled sunglasses.
"I don’t care," I said.
"It’s alright," Caitlyn cried.
After leaving his grasps, I headed for my mom.  Not much was said because the hug said everything.  I’m pretty sure we exchanged ‘I love yous,’ but I’m not sure.  All I could think was, ‘please don’t let go.’
She tried to break away from me twice and each time I hugged harder.
"Thank you so much for taking care of them," my dad said to Chris as he gave him a 1/2 shake 1/2 hug.
"No problem," Chris said as he broke away seemingly unsure of how to react.

The relief was again indescribable.

We headed inside.  I was standing at the far side of the room when I turned and saw Eva’s 5′2 body collapse into my dad’s 6′3 frame.

"Mr. Ben…(she said a lot of Spanish that I didn’t understand)," Eva cried in his arms.
My dad said nothing and just cried and rubbed her back furiously.  He said absolutely nothing.  He knows very little Spanish and felt helpless for not being able to express his emotions verbally.  His physical emotion said everything.  I lost it.

My mom followed with deep embraces for each of them.  I have no idea what was said though due to the crying.  It’s a mute point because the physical said it all.

It was jam-packed emotions and I was happy just to be in the vicinity of them.

The rest of the night consisted of being with one another, visiting my brother, aunt/uncle/cousins and setting up living areas for everyone. 

My dad, friend Paul and me spent about 3 hours moving around the city and eating dinner.  I felt absolutely gross and almost completely exhausted.  I had 8 days of growth on my face on top of being dirty.  I just wanted a shower and a shave.  I told my family I would sleep at Paul’s to create more room for everyone. 

Paul and I headed for CVS, which took a while due to the increased traffic of BR.  CVS near LSU was the only store open at 1045 that night.  It took my twenty-five minutes to buy shampoo, conditioner, body wash, razor and shaving cream.  The line was pretty long.  Moreover, two freshman sorority girls had to buy two pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and other junk food.  They were freaking clueless.  They took their time, scrambled for cash and laughed about their idiocy.  I looked back down the line.  Everyone was well over 21 and looked to be exhausted and pissed.  They probably only wasted about two minutes of everyones’ time, but it felt so much longer at that point.

Around 1130, I got out of the shower and shaved.  My body was relaxed but ached.  I crashed around 1230 and woke up 12 hours later.  It was my first decent sleep in 10 days.

Survival Story
In case you ever get caught in an extended situation w/o electricity, here’s a survival tip.

Claudia (bilingual) and Eva decided not to evacuate.  My mom told them to stay at our house.  They did fine.  They filled the tubs with water prior to the storm and we had enough food in the pantry  They boiled water and used our backyard for the restroom. 

We hadn’t talked to them for about 4 days and were getting worried.  My family had no idea about the situation in our area because the news only covered downtown New Orleans.  There was absolutely no way to get in touch with them.  The landlines were down and we knew Claudia had no way to charge her phone or so we thought…

My dad received a call from Claudia on her cell.  She had stripped the wire from her wall charger and connected the wires to a 6V battery…simple but impressive.  She grabbed her mom  and took the Suburban with a full tank and the emergency money my dad kept in the house.  They headed for the office building in Baton Rouge with no problems.