October 6, 2005:

This was how the apartment looked when we came to campus to recover our belongings. The markings above the door signify that no one was found inside the building after the storm. The doors were kicked in, and windows broken open.

This was the first look into the living room. The furniture had floated and landed upside down, with all of the contents spilled out all over the floor. You can see the mold growing from the ceiling and on the furniture.

This is the kid's room. This was so hard for us to see our belongings in such disarray. I am glad the kid's were not allowed to come to campus that day, because seeing this would have devestated them. To this day, they still remember things that they had in their room.

This was our bedroom. The mold was especially bad in here. The entire ceiling was black with it. The rising water had turned our bed on it's side and the desk was toppled over. We couldn't even get into any of the drawers because the drawer faces pulled off when we tried to open them.

After the day was done, this was about all that we got out of the apartment. Even some of these things were ruined and had to be thrown out later. After 11 years of marriage, besides our family, this picture shows all that we had left to call our own.