Meagan Green moved from Lake Charles to New Orleans July 18 after accepting a job as a middle school art lab instructor at Homer A. Plessy Community School. Just over a month later, she would evacuate to Lake Charles, two days ahead of Hurricane Ida’s landfall Sunday.

A Category 4 storm upon landfall, Ida had knocked out power throughout New Orleans, making communication a challenge. Green and her two dogs, Porters and June, are staying at a friend’s house.

The condition of Green’s rental home, located in New Orleans’ St. Roch neighborhood, is unknown.

“My major concern is a tree falling on my building,” she said. “A lot of people are saying there are a lot of trees down. I probably won’t know anything about my place for a couple of days, at least.”

Green also found out on Monday that Homer A. Plessy Community School is closed indefinitely until power is restored and damage can be assessed.

This feeling of uncertainty is eerily familiar to what Green felt just over a year ago. Days before the Aug, 27, 2020, landfall of Hurricane Laura, she evacuated to Austin, Texas.

Like Ida, Hurricane Laura was a powerful Category 4 storm at landfall, Laura’s 150 mile-per-hour winds battered Southwest Louisiana. Green’s home in Lake Charles’ downtown district suffered extensive damage, with the front roof being peeled back, allowing water to make its way inside. Friends who were in town tried to salvage what they could from the home, but the damage was already done, she said.

“My immediate response was to cry, then feeling like, ‘OK, this is going to be really hard,’ ” Green said. “Then, it was trying to figure out how to start recovery.”

A lack of livable housing in Lake Charles post-Laura forced Green to remain in Austin for a couple of months. She eventually relocated to Sulphur and briefly taught remotely at Lake Charles College Prep before the campus on Power Center Parkway reopened after Christmas. Before moving to New Orleans, Green spent four years there teaching art and theater.

“They were super accommodating,” Green said. “We had only been back doing in-person classes for a few days before Laura. The school was damaged, but it was not as catastrophic as other campuses.”

Green finished out the 2020-2021 school year at Lake Charles College Prep and had no plans to move. However, she randomly applied for the job at Homer A. Plessy Community School and was hired. Upon moving to New Orleans in July, she said she spent the next few weeks getting settled and falling in love with all the city has to offer.

The mood from locals ahead of Ida’s landfall was calmer than Green expected.

“It was weird,” she said. “People weren’t as crazy about the storm. Of course, there is still a lot of past trauma from Hurricane Katrina. I work with people who lived through it. The school is super sensitive to our emotional needs, making sure we’re OK.”

Green said the number of school employees who rode out the storm and those who stayed was mixed. Leaving New Orleans was easier than expected, with it only taking four hours to get to Lake Charles, she said. Porter and June have become pros at packing up and leaving on the fly, Green added.

“I was worried I was going to get stuck on the Atchafalaya (Basin Bridge),” she said.

Despite the uncertainty that awaits her, Green said her stress levels pale in comparison with Hurricane Laura’s immediate aftermath.

“The amount of loss I had last year topples anything I can go through now,” she said. “I think people here were concerned for me, just because of what happened. At this point, whatever happens will be taken care of eventually.”

Despite enduring two major hurricanes within a year of each other, Green said she plans to return to New Orleans as soon as it’s safe to do so.

“I definitely feel at home here,” she said. “If you want to stay somewhere, you just deal with the elements. I love New Orleans, and I feel like it’s where I’m supposed to be.”