My Katrina story is a little different than most of the stories collected on this site. I\'m a native of Savannah, Georgia and I was living there during the storm. At the time I was living with my girlfriend and she had an old friend from college coming to visit from New Orleans for the weekend. Needless to say, no one was thinking that the hurricane was such an immediate threat to New Orleans, so we just casually checked the news from time to time for her sake and went about with our weekend. After a few days it became apparent that New Orleans might be in the cross hairs and we started paying more and more attention to the news. I remember that we were relieved when we thought the storm had just missed New Orleans and then our hearts sank as we saw the news reports coming in about the devastating flood that had engulfed the city. As we were watching the television in disbelief, the harsh realities began sinking in for her. Did her family get out? Did her home flood? Did her car get washed away? To make it worse there was no cell phone service, and no possibility of getting back to New Orleans in the immediate future. She was literally stranded in Savannah with only enough clothes for an extended weekend trip. She ended up staying with us for over a month, and after that she bounced around to other friends houses until she could eventually return home. Luckily for her, her family made it out ok, as well as the rest of her belongings, but the damage to the city forced her to relocate to New York.