From Julie Couret ...

This is a friend of mine who I met a few years ago while I still worked in Eyes & Ears. She moved to Seattle a couple years ago, then moved back to her hometown of New Orleans. She just landed a dream job! She's a regional recruiter for the Disney College Program. That means she gets to live in new Orleans and still work for the mouse! She recruits at UNO, Xavier, USM, and many Gulf Coast schools. She had a pretty amazing experience with Hurricane Katrina. Here's her message ...

Hello friends,

For those of you currently living, from New Orleans, and the Gulf Coast area....I PRAY you and your family are safe and well.

I have not spoken with some of you in some time, but considering the magnitude of the situation I thought you all would appreciate this.

Quick Recap:...I work for Walt Disney World, but moved to Seattle for 2 years, then back to New Orleans in late May as a Disney College Program Recruiter working from my home office in New Orleans...and just in the nick of time...to get trapped in my apartment building downtown.

I did not evacuate prior to the storm because my grandfather, Captain Frank Winter Trapolin USN ret. was very ill (sadly, but by the grace of God, he passed away Sunday morning and did not have to go through a difficult evacuation) and I was taking care of my grandmother in my apartment, which was very sturdy, safe, and adjacent to a hospital. My Uncle and parents were with my grandfather in the hospital and my brother lives in the building I live in too. After my granfather passed away, my parents and uncle joined me and my brother in our building Sunday morning. We were so overcome with grief and exhaustion we did not leave. We knew we would lose power with some flooding, potential that the windows would blow out, but we had no idea we would be trapped indefinitly.

I am sending a link to my pictures from the last few days. If you do not belong to Snapfish, sign up to view. It is free, no spam, no selling of your name ect... the title of the albums are as follows (if I can remember):

Hurricane Hits -- These are just a few shots taken during the hurricane and hours after...I have some short segment video of the hurricane itself coming through...if you would like me to email you some clips, let me know. We could hear the windows shattering in the buildings around us. As you see from the pictures, there is no water on the street after the hurricane. This would have been our opportunity to leave, but we figured if it there was no flooding by 5pm on Monday, the next day would be fine to leave.

Bad to Worse -- This is album 2. This is when we reailzed that the only way out was an evacuation. At this point we went under the Tulane Hospital umbrella for their evacuation. My building is owned and operated by Tulane University Health Services.
Also, we were given Tulane Police to guard the front entrance and we eqipped with automatic rifles. This also caused some alarm.

Preparing to Evacuate -- These pictures document the evacuation process up to the point where my sister picked us up and brought us to her husband's uncle's home in Sulphur, LA. You will see the parking garage we were staged in for 9 hours, the hospital patients waiting to be rescued, the helicoptor ride, the area where they took our shoes and socks and threw them out bc we could be carrying disease, took a bus to Layfayette hospital, and put our clothes in "infectious disease" bags, and then to the reunion with our sister.

Roof Top Rescue

I am safe in Sulphur, LA with my sisters in-laws. Monday morning I am driving to Metarie, LA (Jefferson Parish) with my cousin to pick up her car at the Lakeside Shopping Center and drive with her to Orlando. I will remain in Orlando and work and travel from there still as the Louisiana and MS Gulf Coast (or what is left of it) region Disney College Program Recruiter.

My family is safe. My parents home in Pass Christian, MS is GONE. If you can satellite image it, the address is 524 Wathall St, Pass Christian, MS. We're the cute concrete slab on the corner.

My parents home in New Orleans on Audubon Street, we HOPE is okay...we do not think there was any substantial flooding as you see on t.v., but there is a good chance some trees could have caused some damage to the house.

My apartment in downtown New Orleans (5 blocks from the Superdome) was surrounded by water (as you will see), as long as my building does not get raided, looted, and burn to the ground, it should be fine (aside from the wretched stench of the canal water that flooded the first floor and the spoiled food in every one elses apartments that will rot for over a month.

Thanks and I hope these pictures help tell my story, Julie Couret

FYI, this was a private evacuation by Tulane Hospital/HCA inc.... NOT by the US Government or the State of Louisiana.