I evacuated from New Orleans around 10 p.m. on August 27, 2005. On Monday, while the storm was making landfall along Pearl River, I stood watching the waves from Wolf Bay crash against the pine trees in my parent’s backyard. I was almost two hundred miles from the epicenter of the storm and there were still hurricane force winds and storm surge.

I had only taken supplies for three days and I fully expected to be back in the city that care forgot by the end of the week. One month later, I got my first view of my home. The only hurricane damage was from my neighbor’s tree falling on my roof. It took out a chimney and tore through some shingles. With a blue tarp, I would have been back in my home in no time. The broken levees, on the other hand, did a number on my town and my house. The water rose and it sat there until what was wood collapsed, what was metal rusted, and what was left was covered in mold.

It’s been two years since landfall. There are entire areas of the city that are still empty and many people still have not been able to return. I was lucky and I was well insured. That means I was able to move back into my home in October of 2006. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find work in the city since the storm. I had to put my house up for rent in June of this year. Currently, I’m living and working in San Francisco.

Out here on the left coast, many people want to know if I’ll ever go back. They wonder about the lure of a city that has proven to be vulnerable to the ravages of nature (odd given that they live in a city that very near to a fault line). They question me about health and safety and the future.

I don’t have the answers. I just know that something in the city calls to me. There is quote that goes “Love me when I least deserve it because that is when I really need it.”

Those of us who know her, know what it means to miss New Orleans.