(Also published in Madison’s Isthmus Weekly)
This is Maitri V-R, Wisconsin graduate and, until a few days ago, a resident of New Orleans. I lived in Madison between 1998 and 2003 in the capacity of a graduate student in geology and computational sciences. In fact, I am the current president of the New Orleans chapter of the Wisconsin Alumni Association and I was just beginning work on the fall alumni-football-watching schedule. With me is DE, born and raised in Door County and a former employee of the UW Division of Information Technology.
Right after Mayor Nagin called for a mandatory evacuation, D and I boarded up the windows of our 130-year-old Lower Garden District home, packed some valuables into our car and drove to sanctuary in the home of Houston friends. A 5-hour drive took us almost 16 hours due to the sheer volume of traffic and the simple fact that we couldn’t drive west on a gridlocked I-10W. Instead, our route took us north through Mississippi, back into Louisiana and south through Texas. We made it to Houston right before Katrina’s landfall; I slept fitfully that night to wake up to the hurricane destroying a portion of the city through which we had just evacuated.
New Orleans would be mostly fine right now, considering the Category-4 winds, but it was not to be. Owing to the failure of a part of our famous pump system that processes 29 billion gallons of water each day and the breach of key levees, much of New Orleans is now underwater. The longer the sewage- and chemical-laden waste resides in the city, the worse and more prolonged the cleanup. We found out through friends and reports that our home is fine but entry to the city will take a long while. The uncertainty is maddening. As someone who already lost one home in Kuwait to the Iraqi invasion of 1990, this is beyond heartbreaking.
Most frightening is that one of my friends is still in New Orleans. Mac Lee, a Tulane University law student, former resident of Milwaukee and sister of Tim Lee, former UW graduate student, is in the high, dry and safe Lower Garden District, staying with a friend’s family. When I finally got through to her on the phone this morning, she sounded calm and collected, but stresses the need for concentrated and widespread troops on the ground to curb the criminal element that has sprung up in the absence of law and order. Gangs have not invaded our neighborhood yet, but the longer the troops are delayed, the higher the potential for gang activity in previously unaffected neighborhoods. Mac and her friends attempted to leave yesterday, but reports of carjacking led to their staying at home and keeping a low profile. If you want to help us, please contact your congresspeople and urge them to help us with a strong and coordinated military presence before any progress can be made.
What of our friends? What of their homes across the city? What has become of our jobs? Where will our jobs go if relocated? Do we really have to stay away for two months or more? More immediately, when can we go back home to help clean up and rebuild? These are questions that run around in circles in the heads of frustrated evacuees who are sick of hearing increased sensationalization of the news out of New Orleans on the major networks. Also, the sheer impotence of being an evacuee is mind-numbing. For these two reasons, I’ve turned my blog into a Katrina resource full of neighborhood information, updates from the ground and opinion. If nothing, as someone who knows New Orleans well, I can help disseminate much-needed information, minus the disaster focus, to those who are dying for it.
New Orleans will grow back like the wild flower it is. Until then, please, please, please hope for us.
Sincerely,
Maitri
