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I debated heavily wheter or not to just stay home and ride huricane Katrina out in my 7th ward homeand take my chances there. I didn;t think it would be that big of a deal and a few of neighbors were doing the same thing. After talking to my neighbor Mr. Kevin however he implored me to leave asking me such things did I have a axe to break out of the attic if nessacry or did I have enough water to last several days and so on and so forth. Admitely I didn't have most of those items. He strongly encouraged me to go the to Hilton where I worked and stay there, "You'll be much safer and at least you will have food and water," he said in his New Orleans accent. I decided to take his advice and those last words that he said to me more than likely saved my life and I never got the chance to thank him because I never did see him again.
I got a backpack packed two pair of underwear two pairs of socks, a thoothbrush, thoothpaste and my concact lens soultion thinking I would come back tommorow. I ledt my cat with a bowl full of water and food and got on my bike and rode the maybe 2 miles to the hotel through my neighbor hood ,the Marignay and the French Qauter at around five o;clock on Sunday August 28th 2005. The streeets were ghostly quiet with many windows and doors boarded up. Most bussinesses were closed but of course there the hard core bars and what not who refused to close and there doing a brisk bussiness thanks to the die hards who like myself refused to leave. The outter rain bands began to come in as I was peddaling my crusier and the wind was begining to pick up. The rain came in waves and very hard at very shorts burst then nothing. The sky was an errie grey with massive cloud cover I ran into a couple of freinds of mine Jay and Dan on the way to the hilton. "We are getting together at a hotel to ride out the storm. We got boiled shrimp beer and lots more." "Why don't you come wtih," Jay asked. I was truly tempted because the last thing I wanted to do was go the the Hilton which would mean long hours with thousands of guests demanding attention. But i was getting an very uneasy feeling about everything and decided to go ahead and go to work.
By the time I had arrived there things were crazy! My manger Kimberly told me just to hit the floor and help which ever way I could. The place was packed with people as well as animals mostly dogs and the atomsphere was one of a party not impendinf doom. The dogs were the only ones who seemed nervous. I remeber serving a group of shoilders and joking with them saying that this was better than Iraq. What a joke that turned out to be, on me. After serving drinks and what not until about midnight I retired to my room on the 23rd floor which I shared with two other co-workers and went to sleep. I was awakened at around five in the morning by a shrill alarm announcing to everyone to procced to the inner hallways. I got up and in a very groggy state looked out the window which overlooked a masjetic Mississippi river and historic old Algiers. On this morning however the scene was very much differnt. Squalls of rain were barrelling in and the wind was raging. I could feel the building sway back and forth with the force of the 125mph pluus winds.