That site is a fantastic resource. There's no substitute for firsthand experience and that guy got a metric ton of it from Katrina. It is also highly valuable because it shows a piece of survival reality from an event that was not TEOTWAWKI.

OK this is as good a place as any to try to introduce myself.
I too am a Katarina suvivor. I lived in Covington LA which is about 40 miles north of New Orleans on the north shore. This was not my home town, the company I work for had transfered me to that area about two years earlier. My family and I along with most of my neighbors decided to stay and ride out the storm. My son and I did all we could to get the house ready. We did go and look at the highway and decided we did not want to get into that.
We were watching satellite pictures on the local news station when I looked at my son and said "you know, I think we are in the wrong place" that was when the electricity went out. That was it, we were in it now.
Well, we did survive and were able to help others. My son worked with the Red Cross to help feed people. One of my neighbors and I had chain saw's so we cut and the others moved the trees out of the roads so people could get out. I used a Sat phone to get in touch with my boss who informed me of my transfer to Arkansas, my office accross from the Superdome was distroyed.
We got away after four days and made our way to Fort Smith, AR hoping along the way that we might see some coverage on Television when we got there. We had one car, my wife and son and a big dog. All we had was what we could get in the car. I went back to work the next day and worked through the weekend getting our network back up and running, the whole time in shock.
I came away from this with more respect for hurricanes and a new level of knowledge of people in a survival situation.
We did get back to Covington to get the rest of our stuff but not untill after looters got the first pick. They took my chain saw and most of my tools, I really liked that saw but, we got everything else we needed. We now live in Arkansas and I think Im going to stay here.
Before Hurricane Katrina we had survived tornados in Alabama, blizards in Vermont and a nasty nor'easter in Maine.
I want to thank all of you for the information, wisdom and humor you have put in this forum. I have read almost everything here and look forward to more, I am trying to be like a sponge and soak everything up.

Thanks again for your insight.
Charles

I've been working for a while on making as much as I can easily mobile. Tools for example, I've found that they can add up to a lot of $$$ easily and insurance companies are not always willing to own up to their 'full replacement cost' riders. I've started using these wrench and tool rolls, soft sided canvas with a bunch of pockets that hold all the tools. You can stuff a lot more in a smaller space and then stuff them in any open space in your vehicle. If I have enough time such as a NOLA evac I can carry a lot more items with me.
Other examples are shrinking the computer equipment, we both operate from 9" netbooks now and I put a 500G drive in mine and keep the old drive for backups, I use all 2.5" drives rather than 3.5" for backup drives, etc. Shrink everyhting as much as possible to its easier and lighter to take with me.

Welcome Cal!

Hi Cal, an interesting story you have there.

I think you were lucky in two respects, you had a sat phone so could keep your communication lines open and your employer could relocate you at a drop of a hat so once you were out life pretty much went on as usual.

Can i ask did your employer help you in other ways? Such as paying you your wages whilst you were still in the city. Did they help with find a new house to live in or contribute to your relocation.

A good employer is someone that looks after you in times of need. It sounds as if your company is a caring employer.

My company had employees in NO when the hurricane hit. Most of them utilize direct deposit theirs was deposited into their accounts as normal, the few that had either paper or accounts with small banks had issues but most were able to get paid. Most banks, even if they are small hometown banks will utilize services of larger banks so there are very few that you can't get online and access your accounts.

I have both of mine registered in several different courthouses around the country...

My DD-214 is so screwed up as to be unimaginable. I tried to get it corrected when I got out, but just gave up.

It says Honorable, so thats all that matters to me.

Welcome to the fire, Cal. Sounds like you had a front-row seat to disaster.

-Blast

Welcom CAL. Can you elaborate on what you learned about people in survival situations? That is hard knowledge to come by.