SEE ALSO: Are you prepared for a disaster?
Pre-Katrina New Orleans photo gallery

By Caroline Golum, 17, Fairfax HS (Los Angeles)


This fortune teller told me that I will come into money and that I will get an increase in responsibility next March (which is when I turn 18, but she didn't know that). She said she had second sight, just like her mother.
Photo by Caroline Golum, 17, Fairfax HS (Los Angeles)

When I visited New Orleans with my family from Aug. 23 to 27, it never occurred to me that my vacation photos would be some of the last taken of the city intact. Back home, a friend asked me how I felt. I felt lucky, but it was a bittersweet luck. It is a wonderful city, full of unusual characters. I hope the people in these photos are OK. It’s heartbreaking to think that such a lively community was shut down so easily and that, not matter how well the reconstruction goes, there will aways be a cloud hanging over them.