Hurricane Katrina

A natural disaster such as a hurricane can be one of the most devastating events in someone’s life. I have watched many hurricanes on television such as Katerina and it never crossed my mind that I would ever experience one until it happened on a cold, fall day in October. Now you can’t compare hurricane Katerina to Sandy, however it still caused great damage to homes, businesses, and neighborhoods. It was a horrifying experience and drastically affected peoples lives as well as my own. Warnings of a possible hurricane in the New York area worried many house and business owners alike. For a fifteen-year-old sophomore in high school, I was really excited. This meant I would be off from school and wouldn’t have to take that dreadful English
We were all in my living room watching the news on updates of the storm. No one was worried until we watched the storm hit Broad Channel. The news showed the streets flooding with ocean water, businesses destroyed, and houses either collapsing or floating away. I could see the tears coming down from Andrew and Ellen’s eyes but they tried to control their emotions as best as possible. Then minutes later all lights and our television shut off completely and the rain was coming down hard. We were prepared for this with extra lights and candles. Since there was nothing to do, we decided to look out the windows for the time being. The street lights were all out and all we could see were the cars coming down the street and with that came the water. The more vehicles that came down the block, the more water that would come with it and flood the streets. Not only that, but the winds were picking up and pieces of the roof tops of houses were falling off and being thrown on cars and other
I couldn’t believe how severe and damaging this had become. The next day the hurricane had past, but it left causing trees to fall, houses flooded, and business destroyed. School was obviously canceled but I wasn’t thinking about it. When I walked around, my neighborhood looked like a war zone. There were trees on houses and streets, sidewalks cracked, vehicles were scattered, houses lost parts of their roofs as well as windows, and some blocks were still flooded. On our way to Broad Channel, that area was hit harder. Not only were cars scattered everywhere, but houses were too. Some came off their foundation and either went into the ocean or in the middle of a block. We arrived to Andrew’s, Ellen’s, Drew’s, and Jillian’s house to gladly see their house still on the foundation, however the basement and the first floor were completely flooded and destroyed. My mother and I began to help them clean out their house which was really depressing. I was lucky that my home was on a hill and we were the only house on the block that was not affected, but this family as well as many others lost