Katrina's wrath

I woke up this morning and the historic neighborhood that I live in of downtown Tuscaloosa looks like a fallen forest among the city's oldest buildings. Huge, giant oak trees are down everywhere, fallen on at least two antebellum mansions within just a few blocks of each other. At my old duplex where I lived for almost three years, an enormous hardwood fell withing feet of the house, just grazing my old bedroom window. Seems kind of ironic, because last year, when hurricane Ivan came through Tuscaloosa, my old roommate Britt and I took the mattress downstairs to the living room because I was afraid that tree would fall on my room while I was asleep. Little did I know that eight months after I moved out, an even stronger hurricane would come through and bring that old tree down. Strange, but I loved that tree.

You know, when I decided to become a journalist, I never imagined that putting my life at risk would be in the job description. I was the night reporter at the newspaper last night as Hurricane Katrina blew through Tuscaloosa. In the late afternoon as we started to experience the first band of torrential rains and winds, I had to go out to get the police reports and jail log. But I couldn't see the road and barely made it back to the newspaper building. Back at work, people were buzzing around the office.. a kind of adrenaline in the air. Around 4 people started to get out of there early, to get home to their families. For those of us that had to stay, they had stocked up on sodas, chips and cookies. It was like as if to say, hey, sorry you can't be at home with your loved ones, hope your house doesn't get blown away... here, have a cookie. Strange thing was, I felt safer in that $30 million- all glass and steel building than I did at home. I got to leave work early last night.. around 8:30 p.m., and as I was driving home on 21st Ave. a tree collapsed onto the road about 25 feet in front of me, and I had to swirve around it. I knew that staying at home probably wasn't safe. But, I had no idea what I would be faced with in the morning. I was one of the lucky ones.