HURRICANE IDA FROM A ROOKIE’S PERSPECTIVE
I need to preface this with the fact that I didn’t really pay attention in elementary school when we were studying the different storms whenever they excluded a cold place in the middle of the country. For example, you give me a blizzard or tornado and I am good to go. The news reports of a hurricane coming our way was a blur of emotions and fright. I had absolutely no idea what to do to prepare. Unfortunately, the Nuss family had to deal with my silly questions that anyone from Louisiana would know immediately. However, I would like to say my mom and stepdad’s first question topped all of my terrible questions. I facetimed them to say we have a hurricane coming our way its looking rought and we might have to evacuate, to which my mom responded “oh, what’s the name of the hurricane?”. Immediately after she asked, Tracy came into the room and asked the same exact question! Of all worries that I had floating in my head they ask what the name of the hurricane is. I was thinking about all the pictures and news reports of Hurricane Katrina I remembered from when I was younger. Was the house going to flood? Would we lose everything? When could we go back? When can we practice again? Oh my gosh, does the wind and rain blow away all the sand? How in the world are we going to get to our final event in Chicago?
Without a second thought Kristen, Audrey, and George were not worried about any of it. There is a complete detachment from physical items that they did not care about in the storm. They have come to realize that all of “the stuff” could be replaced. It’s the people that they were worried about. It truly is amazing to witness for the first time.
Friday, we were practicing just like a normal day. We were out at Mangos, and everyone was talking about “hunkering down” for the storm. No one was freaking out but me, on the inside but if you know me, I do not hide my emotions on my face very well. Kristen was going to make a plan for the hurricane situation, and I would follow along. I watched more news than I would ever like to see and hear again. More and more bad news each time we would turn the TV on. We arrived back home to New Orleans and Mr. George had already boarded up the house. At 11 pm, the plan was set. We were evacuating to Mobile, AL to stay in a hotel and ride out the storm. The current path of the hurricane was looking good for us, it would only be a day or two and we would go right back home. Boy were we wrong!
Saturday morning came around and we wanted to leave by 10 am with all the traffic that we would hit. I couldn’t sleep at all with my anxiety at an all-time high with all the unknowns. We packed up our clothes or food and hit the road. The typical two-hour drive to Mobile took 6 hours! We played a little Pictionary of which I won. Took some naps and watched some Netflix to pass the time.
Sunday morning came and the hurricane still had not hit land! It was now a category 4, and we were in the lobby with the rest of the population that decided to leave New Orleans. Kristen and I couldn’t sit still and there was a mall nearby so we went. We wanted to go spend some time outside the hotel room before we would be stuck. We had a blast picking out outfits for each other to try on, running through the wind and rain, and people watching. Please see the photo to the right for the best dressed. (Feel free to comment on our Facebook who the best dressed is!!) We returned to the hotel and waited and waited. Nothing in our area was hit too bad but on TV the New Orleans area, our home, was getting hit hard by the hurricane. We had no idea what kind of damage we would come back to. On the news you heard reports of people pleading for assistance. All I could think about was the destruction and people that were stuck and unable to get out.
Monday- we made the brave decision to make our way back home to New Orleans. Audrey was dead set on getting us back to the house to make sure that we could get to Chicago this weekend. We wanted to practice and get back to training as soon as possible. Luckily, we have George, he knew there wouldn’t be gas so before we left, he drove us for hours on end without a single complaint. After driving through some tornado winds, rain, and more rain we made it back to New Orleans. There were massive trees leaning on houses. Poles and electrical lines were snapped in half. I am blown away by the number of small details that I had no idea would happen with a hurricane coming. For example, gas lines are so unbelievably long, all the traffic lights are out, debris cluttered the streets. We even saw a group of kids playing on a giant tree in the middle of the street that toppled in the storm. All the things you see pictures of, but so far detached being 5 states away from touching the ocean, these are issues we don’t even consider in Sioux Falls, SD. All of New Orleans was out of power, so we went home in the dark house and packed up again. However, this time we must pack for Chicago within an hour because it was so hot in the house. We took off for Baton Rouge where there was power.
Tuesday morning, we wake up and our worries of not making it to Chicago became real. 171 canceled flights out of the New Orleans airport and we must scramble and find flights out. We finally found a flight and decided that would be our safest bet. It was at this point that I finally broke, “how is no one else freaking out?” I asked. The Nuss family looked so unphased all while the house was without power and they were saying it would be 6-7 weeks without power. How the heck is all of this happening? We finally got to go out to Mangos for a little debris pickup and practice. Kristen and I were put on trash duty and loved every single second of it. We wanted to help clean up our home! We were back! Lucky to be there. Lucky it wasn’t destroyed. Lucky that we were able to spend that beautiful afternoon on the sand doing what we love.
Wednesday morning, we got one more practice in with our wonderful coach Drew Hamilton and the two Koehl sisters that are just as addicted to beach volleyball as we are! Once again, we packed up our bags and we are off to Houston ready to fly out to Chicago and battle again. This weekend will be different, we are given the opportunity to wear Louisiana on our hats this season. We are going to be playing for all the people that faced so much adversity this past week. This one is for you Louisiana!
By: Taryn Kloth
