I posted my personal story yesterday, but like they say, images say a thousand words. So I made a collection of pictures from Slidell, from during the storm, the immediate aftermath, and 6 months after the storm. The images are not as devestating as many pictures taken in New Orleans, but to those that live here, it breaks hearts.
Warning: very image heavy
When the storm first hit, there was a period of a couple of days before any images came out of Slidell. We heard David Vitter say Slidell was devestated, but we didn't know to what extent. The first image I saw was less than a mile from my home.
The flooding from the storm surge in town came from the other direction, and again, it stopped about a mile away from my house. Otherwise, it was just sections of town where the drainage systems couldn't keep up. We were lucky; my house was saved from the flooding.
Throughout town, boats lay several miles inland, houses were leveled to the ground, and flood waters were still high.
During the days after the storm, people came to church to pray for relief, but when the cleanup finally began, we found ways to make it a little easier.
Four months after the storm, I came back to Slidell for the New Year's holidays. Our house was fixed, but we were the lucky ones. Many places were still not fixed, like my favorite restaurant that I have gone to every single year for my birthday. To this day, Lakeshore Drive a.k.a. Rat's Nest Road, is still not recovered. Eden Isles is still badly damaged.
You'd be amazed at the sheer number of people who came out to rebuild. Contractors and other workers came to sleep in tents alongside roads and in our local Wal-Mart parking lot. My friends and I picked up shovels and hammers and sledgehammers. It doesn't look the same; I highly doubt it ever will. The damage may be repaired and fresh paint on the walls, but I think the memories will always cast a shadow over the area.