Omar Marquez
Military (Ventura, California) Evacuated What has been the hardest part for you living through and after Ida? “The hardest thing was the aftermath. It was hard to find supplies.” What do you think is the biggest loss from Ida? “My biggest loss honestly wasn’t much, but some of the other people at my unit were evicted from their apartments. The people evicted only had a few days to move out.” Listen
Shaina Curry
Thibodaux, Louisiana Evacuated to Austin, Texas What has been the hardest part for you living through and after Ida? “The hardest thing was how scared we were and how much my family were impacted by it.” What do you think is the biggest loss from Ida? “Our biggest loss was the amount of money that we spent because we never really got it back. Our fence fell also and we lost some of the siding.” Listen
Paige Naquin
Thibodaux, Louisiana Evacuated What has been the hardest part for you living through and after Ida? “The hardest thing was being away from family and friends.” What do you think is the biggest loss from Ida? “I had no biggest loss luckily”. Listen
Kirsten Hornback
Galliano, Louisiana Stayed What has been the hardest part for you living through and after Ida? “The hardest thing was that there was no calm. There was constantly stuff flying around and it was constantly raining.” What do you think is the biggest loss from Ida? “Our biggest loss was that both of my parents lost their car.” Listen
James Arceneaux
Houma, Louisiana Evacuated to Lafayette, Louisiana What has been the hardest part for you living through and after Ida? “The hardest part for me was reading news reports and not knowing if our home was fine.” What do you think is the biggest loss from Ida? “Me and my family actually came out of the storm very fortunate unlike most people we knew. Me and my parents had minor damages. Even my grandparents who took the most amount of damage out of all of us lost only their awning. My grandparents also had some water make it into their home.” Listen
Aquindis Keyes
Labadieville, Louisiana Evacuated to Houston, Texas What has been the hardest part for you living through and after Ida? “Evacuating wasn’t so bad, but the hardest part during Ida was my grandparents staying behind. I didn’t know if they were okay.” What do you think is the biggest loss from Ida? “My family and I didn’t really have too much damage so the biggest loss was a fence being knocked down.” Listen
Amber Peltier
Thibodaux, Louisiana Evacuated What has been the hardest part for you living through and after Ida? “The hardest thing was not knowing what would happen to my place and the people around me.” What do you think is the biggest loss from Ida? “We ended up losing our entire apartment and we had to live with people in our church for about a month.” Listen
Kristil Cloud
Houma, Louisiana Evacuated to Monroe, Louisiana What has been the hardest part for you living through and after Ida? The hardest part is actually the guilt, or wishing I could fix things for everyone. Obviously I can’t and now that I’m 1000 miles away, I don’t even know what the situation is like down there, but the guilt of us being okay and being able to move away knowing everyone doesn’t have that luxury. What do you think is the biggest loss from Ida? I think it’s hard to say what the biggest loss is. Everyone lost something. I saw a quote that said something along the lines of we’re not all in the same boat, we’re all in the same storm. Some of us have yachts, some of us have canoes, some of us are swimming, and some are drowning. If I had to give a concrete answer, I’d say the loss of peace. Those who lost their homes didn’t just lose their homes, they lost the place they created memories, their safe space, their privacy, the walls that hold their life inside of it. Those who didn’t lose their homes still lost their sense of peace. Residents of the bayou regions are kind to their neighbors and knowing that your community is hurting is really unsettling. Listen
Jared Bourg
Bourg, Louisiana Stayed What has been the hardest part for you living through and after Ida? The lack of utilities was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be, but I think that coming to terms with the fact that my childhood home where I grew up for the past 20 years is no longer livable has been the biggest change. If I had to say there was the biggest change, that was it. What do you think is the biggest loss from Ida? I would probably say the house. Listen
Divine Martin
Houma, Louisiana Evacuated to Monroe, Louisiana What has been the hardest part for you living through and after Ida? The hardest part is seeing your community devastated past recognition and wondering how long it will be until everything is “normal” again. What do you think is the biggest loss from Ida? The biggest loss, I would have to say, is since my family and I were forced to vacate the premises of our home and move out of state due to damages caused by Ida, we can’t be around family and friends like how we would like to during these trying times. Listen