Remembering Katrina

in better times - only one place this happens: the child and associates

 

That last phone call was not going well.  From 2500 miles away we were doing our best to convince (read: beg) our girl to leave the city ahead of the storm.  In the past decade since she'd made New Orleans her home, she'd stayed behind for every other hurricane, but to us this was different.  She was always an exceptionally stubborn child and this moment was no different.  She had yet to reach a conclusion about the impending Katrina.  But before we could talk again the circuits were overloaded and we only had the ability to communicate by texting - and even those were spotty.  

The moment we got a message that she was in a car heading west, with one of her paintings, two dogs, a cat (or two?) some small critters - I can't remember - various other treasures along with more people than there were seats, and  on her way to someone's grandmother's house in Texas, we breathed that first sigh of relief.  The hurricane hit New Orleans the next day.

But only a few days later she turned around, got on a bus and met up with another friend and drove back into the devastated city when most people were still holed up far away glued to their televisions watching Anderson Cooper.   When George Bush was telling Brownie that he was doing a heck of a job, my child was making her way back home.
They drove in through a back way with a carload of supplies including as much dog and cat food as she could find.  The Red Cross wasn't even fully set up and in fact, left town not much later when Hurricane Rita was looming.  The only support system aside from the National Guard that remained was the Salvation Army.

She would send me texts that the Salvation Army were the ones roaming the streets looking for residents and giving them MREs (meals ready to eat) and bottles of water, no questions asked.  It was the Salvation Army who stayed through Hurricane Rita and never abandoned the people who stayed behind.  For that alone, I never pass a ringing bell anymore without dropping something in that bucket just in gratitude for their silent willingness to go where no other organization would in those early days of Katrina.  And for providing my kid with water and yummy meals in a bag.

She found her apartment building still standing but the roof in perilous shape with gaping holes.  Her latest canvas, stored high on a closet shelf was the only thing dry.   Her camera was still on the table exactly where she'd forgotten it, untouched, but the remainder of the space was soaked and battered by the hurricane.  The building next door where an elderly man lived and did not vacate was also devastated.  She wrote that one wall was entirely gone, but the shelf across the room, full of papers and other stuff was not touched - it looked like a macabre diorama ready for viewing.  Yet he remained in his home.

She was able to charge her phone through the generosity of the firehouse next door and the various generators they were using.  They even gave the elderly man a little power so he could have a television in his newly ventilated apartment.
She roamed the neighborhood daily feeding cats and dogs.  Some she managed to free from the tie-ups that were used pre-storm in what was once a backyard.  She was there well before animal rescue could get into the neighborhood.  The animals were terrified and hungry.  It would be weeks and sometimes never before people were reunited with their animals.  She never stopped feeding those that were still left behind. 

When George Bush came to Jackson Square, some residents (including the kid) tried to get there to talk to him.  She said the National Guard was ordered to keep residents away.   Those residents included those who never left and those, like my daughter who managed to come back home to lend a hand.  But the President wasn't there to see them - he was there for a photo opportunity that fell flat.

Through all this time our only means of communication was short texting.  The cell towers that were destroyed in the both hurricanes crippled communication along with the overload.  
It would be a long time before we talked again.  But each day she faithfully sent a text just so we would know she was safe.  She didn't evacuate for Rita.  She just taped up tarps and hoped for the best which was what happened. 

It would be months before mail service was restored.  It would be weeks before those dangerous and smelly refrigerators were removed.  There all kinds of circles of hell within Katrina, but one of them - the fact that animals couldn't be transported with the half-assed public evacuation was inhumane, heartless and needless.  Thankfully it will never happen again to the extent it did with Katrina.  

I can only say that on this anniversary, a half decade already - that the face of the city is changed forever because of the devastation from Katrina's battering, but New Orleans, like my kid, is never one to give up and call it a day.  To that, I raise a glass and say Salud, and please pass me a beignet.

And the artist's collection is here.