Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
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Samantha Hayes reporting
A Utah woman witnessed history in New Orleans. She was there before and after the hurricane. She's glad to be home now.
It took Samira Porter, her family and friend Ryan Starks, four days to find a flight out of Louisiana. She was supposed to be on vacation, but her pictures document a disaster.
If there ever was a calm before the storm, Samira Porter experienced it.
Samira Porter, Survived Hurricane Katrina: “Having a nice day with our cousins. going around to shops in the French Quarter..hanging out..having dinner."
That was Saturday, Katrina was 48 hours away, but you'd never know from the pictures.
The French Quarter, A famous cemetery, A sunny blue-sky day near Lake Pontchatrain They are all now underwater.
Samira Porter, Survived Hurricane Katrina: “Just before the storm hit..over and over again, people were talking about that we may have seen New Orleans for the last time..the last days it existed."
It started to seem real when the city was ordered to evacuate.
Samira Porter, Survived Hurricane Katrina: "People abandoned their cars on the side of the roads..there was no gas."
Porter and her family headed north to Jackson Mississippi, but did not stay there long. Her cousin was in Covington, 20 miles north of New Orleans
They fought their way back in the storm.
Samira Porter, Survived Hurricane Katrina: "We almost got blown off the road a couple of times."
They cut their way through downed trees and waited behind emergency vehicles
Samira Porter, Survived Hurricane Katrina: "That's the only reason we jumped in the car and drove back was to find family."
When they found them, they also found trees uprooted, trees on homes and through homes. A strip mall stripped of its front.
Samira Porter, Survived Hurricane Katrina: "All I thought was "Wow" I've still got a home to go back to."
Porter says power lines were broken everywhere, .the cables like limp noodles across the roads. But in the middle of all the grey and gloom, she captured something else: The red, white, and blue.
Samira Porter, Survived Hurricane Katrina: "We turned the corner and saw that flag there and we had to stop in reverse and go back and take a picture of it."
Samira says they were thankful for family to stay with during the storm. If it hadn’t been for that, they would have been in the superdome. She says in middle of disaster, .people everywhere were offering their homes to those in need.
