Customer Spotlight: Michael Gremillion

Michael Gremillion has been a part of the Life Balance customer community since 2004. He recently got in touch with us because he needed his license for Life Balance on Windows resent to him. Nothing too unusual about that from our point of view, except that Michael also let us know that he was caught up in Hurricane Katrina. Michael is one of the first of our customers in the Gulf Coast region to get in touch with us again. We were so happy to hear that Michael was okay, and he agreed to share his story in this interview conducted via email with Catherine White, president of Llamagraphics.

Catherine: Michael, where were you living when Katrina hit the Gulf Coast?

Michael: I have lived on the north shore of Lake Ponchartrain for my entire life (35 years now) and have never evacuated for any storm. My son had already evacuated to north Louisiana with his mother, so some friends and I decided we would ride it out (mostly so we didn’t get caught up afterwards with any trouble getting back to our properties). Slidell is located about 20 miles east of downtown New Orleans. Slidell experienced an estimated 25 foot storm surge. The house I was living in was first crushed by a large tree and then flooded with six feet of lake water. I lost nearly everything and am temporarily resettled in Mandeville, another suburb on the north shore.

Catherine: Do you have a sense for how long you will be in Mandeville?

Michael: I was one of the very lucky ones in the area. I was able to move into a new place almost right away as a roommate of my brother’s was transferred out of state following the storm. Some of the best people I know are still sleeping on air mattresses in a relative’s home. Trailers are arriving, but slowly and permanent housing is extremely hard to find. It will likely be some time before the housing market stabilizes here.

Catherine: Tell us a little about your life before the storm, so that we can put into context some of what has happened since. What did you enjoy most about living in Slidell? What was your place like?

Michael: What I enjoyed (and still enjoy) most was what did the most damage: the water. We are literally surrounded by water here; the Gulf, the lake, miles and miles of scenic bayous, and several river systems. It is THE major attraction of the area (for residents anyway) and water sports of every kind abound. Water people are water people and feel the risk is worth it.

Catherine: You let us know in your first email message to us that you lost nearly everything in the storm, but that one of the few things that you have with you is your Treo 650. Tell us what happened and how you kept yourself and that Treo safe?

Michael: About nine the morning of the storm, a large oak tree came through the roof over my office (I run a computer networking company, 4Site Technologies) but the water hadn’t started rising yet. That’s when my “buddies” decided to get to higher ground. Alone now, I spent the next hour relocating files and equipment to dry parts of the house.

About that time the water began to rise. As soon as I had made a pass through the house and lifted the important things up a little higher, I would have to start again as the water continued to rise. Each time having to decide what was important enough to be saved, maddening and ultimately impossible. It dawned on me, as I looked out the window of my back door where the water was already 2 feet higher outside than the waste deep water in my kitchen that I needed to get higher. The one moment of possible panic I can describe occurred a few minutes later as I caught myself in my bedroom, desperately reaching into drawers that were already underwater, trying to find some dry clothes to bring into the attic with me. The water rose from my ankles to my eyebrows in about 40 minutes. I made it into the attic with very little in the way of supplies (and very wet).

I spent the next 7 hours or so staring out either one of two very disturbing holes: one newly made in the roof from the oak tree where I could check on the storm; the other, the door to the attic stairs through which I could catalog which particular household and personal items actually float (you’d be amazed).

Around 4 or so in the afternoon, the storm had let up enough to go out on the roof: water, water, and more water. I could see a man across the street who had jumped in his boat (which had been parked in the driveway and it was still on the trailer) and was now holding onto the eve of his house. Though we were only a few houses apart, we couldn’t talk over the wind. The water stopped rising just before it touched the tops of the doorjambs.

My plan was to just wait for the water to go down and start cleaning up. By six that evening though, the water had dropped a mere 6 inches and it became clear that I was going to have to stay in the attic overnight. Well, I had already seen small things swimming and crawling about and an overnighter in the attic with very little in the way of supplies seemed pretty miserable, so I resolved to get to higher ground before dark.

I swam down in my house, found some tennis shoes (they float), my car keys (they don’t), and some Ziploc bags (which might float if not trapped in a kitchen drawer). I put my wallet, my keys, my Treo 650, and a pack of smokes in two Ziploc bags, waved at the guy in the boat across the street and jumped off my roof into the flood.

The water was probably 13 feet deep in the street (the houses are built up on slopes because of previous flood concerns). When I rounded the corner and could see down the long street in my neighborhood, the water stretched on and on, out of sight. Not one house in that neighborhood escaped. I stuck to the streets as the water was hiding sharp stuff from view.

Occasionally I would feel a car under the water parked in the street where I could rest standing on its roof. I swam up to the main street, Ponchartrain, about four blocks. The main road was still holding about 4 feet of water in the center lane, but at least I wasn’t swimming anymore.

It was here that I saw some of the very few people I saw over the next 18 hours. They were parking a 30 foot shrimp boat at the top of my neighborhood and walking in from there. I’m not sure if it was their boat as they didn’t appear to be shrimpers. We said hello and they bummed a smoke (they had absolutely nothing that wasn’t wet – even their pets were soaked). They headed off up the street and I waded to the bank where I had parked my car on the highest ground around.

Turns out the high ground wasn’t high enough, my car was completely destroyed also. I ran into my two buddies here who had managed to keep their two trucks dry by pulling the front tires up onto some large landscaping mounds near the bank. They were trapped there though, the water would have to go down more before even the large 4X4 we had could get on the road.

It was getting dark now but surely emergency vehicles would be out and about soon so we decided to wait out the water in the bank’s parking lot. We didn’t see another living person until around 8 AM the next day when the water had gone down enough to drive through. I eventually ran into my family (who had come looking for me) as we got closer to the dry line.

Catherine: I'm sure that our customers will relate, tell us why taking the Treo was a priority for you?

Michael: At that point, the Treo represented my next best bet to getting out of danger. As it turned out, even though the Treo didn’t get wet; it couldn’t save me. No cell phones were working within a 100 miles of me. Not the Treo’s fault; the battery did great actually. I tried to call out often and took pictures for a long time. Once I was evacuated to Houston it worked flawlessly and kept my business alive.

Catherine: What do you do for a living? How has the storm affected your work?

Michael: I am the president of a computer consulting and support operation called 4Site Technologies, Inc. We specialize in the support of the kinds of small businesses affected most by Katrina. We have lost some clients as a result of the storm but we have gained some new ones. We are extremely confident in the recovery of region.

Catherine: Do you have friends and family with you or nearby who are able to help?

Michael: Friends and family are what kept this place (and I mean the whole affected area) on the map.

Catherine: When I hit a crisis, I sometimes make an extra Top Level Item just for "handling the new situation" and use it as a bin for catching whatever I need to do in the short term and for eventually moving through it. That Top Level Item doesn't need to be a permanent fixture, just a tool for getting through the immediate problem. Did you do anything like that, or have any other techniques that worked well for you in handling the details of the aftermath of the storm? I could imagine that you might be tempted to just start over from scratch.

Michael: While it was tempting to start over, I ultimately did not. I did add some new TLI’s though: one is called simply “FEMA”; another is “Things to replace”. I imagine they will both be there for a good while.

Catherine: The Life Balance customer community are some of the most productive and organized people on earth. Is there something specific that our community of users might be able to coordinate or do that would help you out personally? or that would help out your community in general?

Michael: Yes, come to the affected areas and spend money! Eat, shop, and sleep at the mom and pop places that are the lifeblood of our precious community. Visit and bear witness.

Catherine: Thanks so much Michael, and please know that Stuart, Jean and I (the llamas) wish you and everyone who was in the path of Katrina all the best. I'm sure that the community of Life Balance customers will appreciate that you took the time to share your incredible story. Thanks again!

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You could be our next Customer Spotlight! Our awesomely creative customers have always inspired our work. You have given us plenty of reasons over the years to do our now famous llama dance! Send us a brief summary through the support center telling us about your favorite Life Balance moments, what you are proud to have done, and those amazing projects that command your daily care and attention! We would love to share more of your adventures, successes, and accomplishments with the whole community.