Twenty years ago, shortly after Hurricane Katrina, I went home to visit my family.
At this time, I had already been a Maderan for 10 years, but my immediate family still lived in my hometown of Ponchatoula, Louisiana. After my trip, I wrote a series of stories for The Madera Tribune on what I saw, and how it had impacted myself and, really, all of us.
On that day, I was on the phone most of the Monday morning as Katrina made landfall. I could see the weather and was updating my family on what I saw on the news.