JERT

POST #100
KATRINA REVISITED

As some of you may know my wife and I evacuated New Orleans 2 years ago today at 4 a.m. with a small trailer full of miscellaneous possessions bound for Austin Texas prior to the landfall of hurricane Katrina. I wrote about it and posted pictures on last years anniversary here. We went back 5 weeks after the storm to collect our belongings, and we haven't been back since. Part of me wants to go back and see my favorite city in the world, but another part of me is afraid it will hurt too much. I've gotten to spend a total of 3 years of my adult life in New Orleans, maybe that's all I get. But I know that no place will ever hold a bigger piece of my heart.

New Orleans in character is not an American city, it is a city colonized by the Americans.

New Orleans is more than drinking, parades and tits. For me it was bootcamp for the soul. I learned about music, culture, diversity, racism, poverty, suffering, beauty, history, strange insect species (stinging caterpillars and flying termites), corrupt politics, inept local government, crooked police, avoiding drunken tourists, street smarts, good food, commercialism, exploitation, humanity, laissez faire, old money, high society, drive thru daquiri stands, counterculture, subversive behavior, spiritual discovery, jazz funerals, hustling and how to drink all night without having a hangover the next morning. You can learn these lessons anywhere I suppose, but not in the concentrated fashion New Orleans can offer.

For those who have never lived there it's hard to understand the culture, the Society, and the geography of the city. It's easy to have an opinion, but it takes more effort to have an educated opinion. Effort that some Americans are not willing to put forth due to the commercially driven media blitz newschannel culture beamed into their brains every night. It's easier to react emotionally than think logically and unfortunately it seems that a lot of us are prone to take the path of least resistance in our lives and our thinking.

I've suffered through a lot of ignorant opinions over the past 2 years when the issue of Katrina comes up.

heres a few of my favorites, (mind these things were said AFTER I told them I was an evacuee)

"they need to just fill that place up with concrete, so it's above sea level"

"It's been over 6 months, theres nothing on the news about it anymore so everything is allright, right?"

"I lived in Florida all my life, hurricanes are part of life, those people need to get over it"

"The Blacks will do anything to play the race card"

"President Bush is just doing his best"

" Why didn't the people stuck on the bridge just walk to high ground"

Of course these are all ludicrous statements and questions but the people that made them didn't think so and that says a lot to me.

The lessons of Katrina are not over. Regardless of your politics or who you want to blame for mismanagement of the relief efforts, the essence of the issue remains:
The people of New Orleans were abandoned for a week and it was televised.
Most of the Louisiana national guard was off fighting an unpopular war in Iraq.
The president was on vacation for the first two days of the tragedy.
The levees didn't work.
The levees won't work if this happens again.
What does this all say about our culture and our society? What does it say about our value system? What does it say about you or I.

My wife and I were very fortunate through all this, we were able to salvage roughly half of our belongings, and we had a supportive network of family and friends that helped us emotionally and financially in our time of need. The red cross proved to be a vital resource to us, as was Fema. We were also blessed by the kindness of strangers over and over again........For this I am extremely grateful, and I will do my best to payback Karma.

there is more I'd like to write but I got some deadlines to meet and i type painfully slow.

I'd love to answer any questions and discuss this in the comment section so please comment away.