Fleeing Katrina
We didn't need an excuse to come home to Maine, but a hurricane provided one anyway.
By Kurtis C. Clements
I'd left Maine nearly ten years ago with no immediate plans of returning full time, but then Hurricane Katrina struck and New Orleans flooded and I returned to my home state. My family -- a wife of eighteen years, three small kids, and I -- evacuated our beloved adopted city before Katrina made land, taking, as we had each of the six previous times we had evacuated, three days' worth of clothes and some coloring books and toys for the kids. Leaving the city for fear of what might happen had become a ritual for us, a chance to get away for a few days and then return to our lives -- such had been our experience up until Katrina.
