Bring Back My City
Picking Up the Pieces After Hurricane Katrina

By CeCe, 12, Girl Scout
As told to Anna Katherine Montgomery

Only now am I starting to cry.

It's been a year since Katrina, and yet it has just dawned on me: I have lost my city. So I am going to tell you a story about my city.

A Community That Cares
My father always loved New Orleans, so he moved there following my parents' divorce. I was 7, and that's when I began spending whole summers there.

I miss my house in New Orleans a lot. I miss our shelves full of New Orleans Mardi Gras beads and trinkets. When you walked in the door, you saw shelves that my brother and I painted with kiddie art when we were little. They were memory shelves, really, lining the walls that were each painted a different color—yellow, red, blue, dark purple. I loved my house.

I also miss the people in New Orleans, always so relaxed, calm and loving. We'd say "Where y'at?" to greet each other, like "How are you doing?" You could stop in the street and just say that to strike up a conversation. All the local people had this basic connection. I always felt I had a community that cared for me in New Orleans. You could just be yourself and everyone understood.

The Soul of New Orleans
Every Sunday morning, my father did his traditional jazz radio show on WWOZ called "The Sunday Morning Jazz Set." My father would play 15-30 minute increments of music. Sometimes I'd even help him. He always started the show by playing "My Favorite Things" by John Coltrane. This summer I was in a restaurant and they played that song. It made me real sad. It's hard to hear that song now.

Bob French, a jazz musician and fellow DJ at WWOZ, is a friend of mine. He was so nice to me. He has a band called "Bob French's Original Tuxedo Jazz Band." They played jazz every Monday night at a restaurant called Tipitina's. We still keep in touch today. He lives in New Orleans and still has his radio show on Tuesdays and Sundays. I really miss going to see him play at Tipitina's and dancing to the songs with my dad.

You know what New Orleanians do when someone dies? Instead of mourning and crying, they celebrate the life of that person. They have something called a "Second Line" where all the person's friends join together into a parade and march through the streets with a band playing music. People don't mind the Second Line parades. They either go another way or join in. That's the New Orleans spirit!

The Hurricane
When the hurricane hit, my father left the city to get to Houston. In the car he had my step mom, my little brother Devin, and Miss Lee, Devin's nanny. My family decided to move in with my step mother's parents in Tennessee for awhile. They had an extra room, and welcomed the family gladly. My father has now permanently moved with my step family to Killeen, Texas.

Flooded Homes
I went back to New Orleans last December for Christmas vacation. It was heartbreaking. You could see how the water had crashed through like some sort of massive tidal wave. There were cars on top of groups of houses, smashing them through, trees just completely blown away, and some houses barely standing. Inspectors would mark what they found when they went through the houses, so I saw signs on houses like "3 D.O.A." (Dead on Arrival).

My house was flooded and no longer suitable for living. When I went back with my dad to see it, I saw all the memory shelves covered in mold. It was especially hard standing in my stepsister Caitlin's room, because that's where I spent the most time. I felt so sad knowing that Devin would never be able to see that house the way I did.

Take Action
Like a little broken vase, New Orleans is in pieces, and I want to put it back together. I want to be able to go back and do what I love again. Katrina took more than my home. Katrina took my friends. Katrina took my ability to walk down the street and strike up a conversation with a stranger. It took my Sunday morning radio shows, and it took away my summers. So many girls there have lost, and are still losing, so much more than material possessions. They are losing their childhood and their freedom to be themselves. I want to be like my dad and help people in need. I think Girl Scouts can help make a difference in rebuilding New Orleans. Find out what your local Girl Scout council is doing. Talk about what you can do together to help put some of the pieces back together and bring back the soul of New Orleans.