KENNER, La. — The town of Kenner was 12 miles closer to Hurricane Ida's eye wall than the city of New Orleans.
Those 12 miles made a big difference. The winds were strong enough to snap a metal light pole right to the ground.
People told KHOU 11 News they didn't ride out the storm, they prayed it out.
“You can hear like a train in your house,” one woman told us. “It sounded so scary."
The sounds of Ida are still ringing in ears across the city, but the sounds were only the beginning for residents like McGee.
"I don’t know if I was shaking it or not but I was shaking," Grace McGee said.
Power poles and lines were snapped like twigs, including one that missed McGee landing feet from where she sleeps. She's one of the lucky ones in Kenner.
Two blocks over, trees mangled with lines strewn across porches and rooftops.
"You could hear the wind blowing and whipping that stuff and saw people's roofs coming off the house," she said.
Roof after roof will need repair. An aerial view reveals the long road ahead for too many to count.
"Sad we work hard to keep everything that we have,” Cesia Zelaya, another Kenner resident, said. “Then in a second we have nothing."
Zelaya showed us what's left and it's not much. Ida caved in her roof soaking a lifetime of memories.
"No food, no clothes, nothing," she said.
Now in Kenner the focus turns to clean-up, rebuilding and starting over. It's only Day 2 of many long days ahead.
"The whole city is bad, no water, no energy but thank God we are alive."
Here in Kenner, people have been asked to prepare to be without power for up to three weeks.
Folks told KHOU 11 they are praying the lights will be back on much sooner than that.