Troy Louis is a Katrina survivor from the Ninth Ward in New Orleans, Louisiana. He has lived there for 41 years. Troy has been employed as a cook for 25 years. His interview starts with him describing his former community as a close knit community and a very friendly community of people who stayed together. They lived and their children played together. He talked about how he would feed the entire neighborhood.

TL and his wife were on a couples' retreat with their church, Franklin Avenue Baptist Church, when they first heard of the storm. When they returned home, he said that he heard the Mayor urging people to leave. And, instead of staying home to wait out the storm as he usually did, TL took his family out of town on the Sunday before the storm. He talked about how difficult the drive was and with the children being agitated. He said that they were on the road for twenty-two hours before he couldn't go anymore when they stopped in Beaumont.

They stayed in Beaumont in two shelters; first three days at Ford Park, and they when that became crowded, at a church-turned-shelter. He found the second shelter through the Salvation Army, and they remained there for three more days before heading to Houston.

TL listened to the stories about the storm on the first day in Ford Park's shelter. He was impressed by the reporter's surprise at the actions of the hurricane. He recalled that they reporter talked about how the hurricane just stopped over the city for about thirty minutes.

Once in Houston, TL and his family had a series of good things happen to them. He described getting an apartment as a blessing from God. He told how through a man at church he met the developer who would give his extended family apartments as Hurricane Katrina evacuees, with no money down. Once he got settled, it was time to find a job, and that took him two weeks to do.

TL said that unlike New Orleans, opportunities are opening up. He has a bigger home than there and he likes it here.

When he went home, TL saw the devastation that was throughout the city. In his area, he saw such amazing devastation that he was overwhelmed. He saw, refrigerators on houses, cars flipped over, houses devastated and moved to different locations. The garage area of his home was destroyed but their home was thirteen feet above ground and the damage to that was minimal.

He said that he has no intention of returning to live. He won't put his family through that again because it's too hard since he believes that this sort of storm will come again. He doesn't believe that the levees will be ready for another bad hurricane season, since they were substandard for the category three Hurricane Katrina in the first place. He plans to remain in Houston for now.

TL closed with a statement about the Mayor and how it was not his fault that so very many people got stranded. There were many who just didn't listen as they decided to wait out the storm. Once they were warned, TL states that it was incumbent upon the citizens to do whatever they needed to do to get away from the city.