We returned last night from the strange ghost town that is New Orleans. It's hard to understand what I mean unless you've seen it. The streetlights are dark. Abandoned cars are parked everywhere. We saw a total of two other people after we entered the city, and one was a National Guardsman leaning on a van with an assault rifle. Yet there were all kinds of spooky noises in my neighborhood... unsecured windows creaked, doors slammed by themselves, and several times we thought we heard approaching cars only to realize it was just the wind.
We left Friday at 6:30 AM from Boston, flew to Newark, then to Memphis, only to find out our flight to New Orleans had been cancelled due to Hurricane Rita. 
We were offered a flight the next day that took off at 9:30 dependent upon the weather... but that would have left us sitting in Memphis for nearly 24 hours. There were tropical storm conditions by then, and I was worrying about my stuff being exposed to the rain. We decided to say "screw it" and rented a car. I don't know, I guess we have both just been exhausted by the last few weeks, and at some point it feels so good to finally have a choice-- to be able to take matters into your own hands. After we made the choice, even driving into New Orleans in the middle of Hurricane Rita seemed simple.
The next morning we got in the car, determined to bust through into Orleans Parish somehow. We had been told it was difficult to get through the checkpoints even with a medical ID, due to the shutdown of the city for Rita. The houses we saw driving through Metairie on I-10 had massive wind damage. 
The National Guardsman at the River Road checkpoint listened to Mike tell our story for about five minutes, then said no one was allowed in except the police, the army, and the FBI. So we turned around to figure out what to do. I said, "Make a right. I don't care if I have to hike. We're going into the city." We drove down Claiborne up to the checkpoint, pulled out our IDs, started to tell our story, and the guy interrupted us-- "Have a nice day," he said.
To sum up Operation Salvage:
Almost all of my books were still dry! Honestly, I started to cry when I saw them. I knew they were important to me, but I hadn't realized how much. The windows were all blown out in my room and the water puddle on the floor stopped within 6 inches of my photo albums. Everything in my closet was smelly, moldy, and soaked. Amazingly, some of my posters and pictures were OK. Only the biggest one that the others were all underneath was totally destroyed, though a lot of glass was broken. 
One of my jackets was so covered in mold I could hardly touch it, and some of my shoes actually had mold growing on the heels. I bagged the clothes, and on Sunday we did laundry from 7:00 AM until midnight at a laundromat in Raceland and several people's houses. I had to throw out some things that were too stained to save, but after several washings, the rest was decontaminated. It was a HUGELY GROSS PROCESS. I don't recommend it to anyone-- but then, I do, because I probably saved thousands of dollars by trying to clean everything I could. Unfortunately, with a lot of my work blouses and nicer clothes, it's like, "Will I be able to wear this again? Yes. Will I be able to wear it to work? No." There were many things with visible stains that I liked too much to throw out.
Some of our electronic stuff was stolen, including a computer, DVD player, VCR (my parents' old one from like 1992-- are looters really that stupid? 
I think if you stole a frying pan from the kitchen it would be worth more than that VCR), IPod, my roommate's passport, camera, and... get this... all our videos and DVDs were still there except the porn! I suppose it could have been worse, but I can't help but feel pissed off about it. People are in a bad enough situation without stupid thugs on the loose.
My car was smashed in several places by slates that flew off the roof. One shattered the back window and landed in the backseat. The windshield and one window were broken as well. Poor car. Someone also tried to steal it 
by breaking the plastic covering off the steering column and pulling out all the wires... little did they know that my car is broken such that I am the only person who knows how to make it start! HAHA! Loot that, fuckers! I got in, and amid the broken glass and hanging wires and 2 inches of water in the bottom, it started right up. I love you, Brad. (Brad is my car.) I hope you know that even if you are so broken I can't afford to fix you, I love you for being a good quirky little car. Sigh... :-(
The house was pretty much a mess. The water damage from the missing roof went down through all three floors. Ceilings in five rooms had fallen down. Many windows were entirely gone, frames and all. There were maggots crawling on the fridge. The smell of damp and mold was everywhere, made even worse by the humidity. I don't think I'll be living there again. But it was worth going. It was hours of hard, sweaty, smelly work, but I managed to save a lot. And that was our trip to New Orleans.
And the Award for Most Appropriately Used Star Wars Quote of the Weekend goes to:
Me (after Mike opened up his sealed refrigerator to clean out the rancid food that had been sitting inside for a month): "I thought they smelled bad... (gasp) on the outside! Ugh!"
