August 30, 2006 – Hurry to Smith Magazine and check out their feature on the Top 10 New Orleans blogs! B, Jon, Scout Prime, Metroblogging NO (!!), Richard, ThinkNOLA, Mark Folse, and Oyster are in there (links provided). Also, thanks to oodles for the lovely Katrinaversary shout-out. Those who are worth it were thinking of New Orleans and understand that the failed levees almost destroyed this city, not Katrina.
The air-conditioning went out in my house last night. Those of you who currently live in New Orleans, Chennai, Singapore, or similar know exactly what this entails, and I don’t have to explain the stifling frustration. Even I, who doesn’t break a sweat walking in the noonday sun of New Orleans, cannot sleep a wink in the oppressive 95° of an uncooled interior. On fiddling with the mechanical unit and realizing that the vent works just fine, the discovery came that the fan is broken.
No fear – the AC man will be here today and I am hopeful that it’s a mere blown fuse or small moving part. “Yeah, a small $700 moving part known as the fan,” a voice in the back of my head retorts.
So, imagine the night of last August 29th and the plight of those who didn’t leave the city and sought refuge in their sweltering attics or, even worse, on their hot tin, asphalt or slate roofs. Truthfully, it was a lot cooler outside, but the thought of sleeping on the gallery (and 9000 mosquitos and a cockroach or two getting fresh with me) wasn’t appealing.
There is no good time for a hurricane to strike, neglected levees to break, a city to flood, and power to go out. But, the end of August has got to be the worst.
Update: The culprit was not one, but two, blown fuses. Woohoo for cheap fixes and cold air!
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Pictures of last afternoon’s CBD secondline to the Superdome (thank goodness, no W)
Surprised the Saints didn’t tackle him (but then, Brooks now asserts he isn’t a New Orleanian)
Yesterday’s Sepia Mutiny guest post: Has It Been A Year Already?, which highlights the struggles of the Quarter’s t-shirt and souvenir merchants.
One year ago today, after Nagin called for a mandatory evacuation and I studied the animations and predictions, I wrote my last pre-Katrina blog post.
Then, we boarded up the front windows of the house, pulled the plants and rocks inside, packed the car full of our most valued belongings, and began what turned into a 16-hour journey to txyankee‘s home in Texas. Never did we realize what would happen to this city and how long each of us would have to stay away from home. As I said in an earlier post, writing is my catharsis. D drove, I scribbled in my notebook to stay centered. These are some of the thoughts unshared with anyone until now:
“The anxiety rushes and recedes. My mind goes blank as it detaches from the forms of body and mood.
“Wait, where am I? Sitting in a car heading up Highway 589 to Jackson, MS and, by doing so, avoiding a Category 5 hurricane that possesses the strength to level my city in less than a day. Suddenly, the solar plexus tenses, the breathing wavers, the walls begin to close in, and the tears pour from my soul.
“What was that quote I smartly invoked once? Something about the existence of civilization at geological consent. Yes, we have borrowed enough time and land from a place many call home, but meteorological permissions aside, there exists a beauty in the hubris.
“Nestled amongst the flood walls and earthen levees, there grows such an unabashed tenderness, nourished to the point where citing our crime statistics is an utterance of love and walking through tourists and roaches an offering of dignity. You love it or you don’t, you get it or you don’t, and those who stay do.
“For when you journey past its failings, New Orleans holds an allure for a million natives and transplants with one thing in common – we are incurable romantics about the concept of home. Why else do we brave traffic on the corner of Rampart and Canal on a Saturday while on bicycles? Why do we single-handedly pick up trash, fill in potholes on their streets, and direct traffic when the city has failed us? Why do we dance and parade with wild abandon with death right around the corner? This is a life less ordinary.
“I want to see my friends again. Talk and laugh with them as I gently pull a green bean out of the Mary fixed by Katie, share a stupid joke with Louise, eat crawfish with the gang, watch them strum their guitars and loudly sing in smoky courtyards and bars. I want to walk home, smell the magnolias, climb up my wrought-iron spiral staircase, and pad on my ancient hardwood floors to a bed that overlooks a street older than the United States, the every-fifteen-minute RTA bus be damned.
“What I don’t want – to wade through homes and wreckage to reclaim valuables soaked through with the silt of several thousands of years. To worry about not seeing my friends again and in the manner of our mutual choosing. To drive through Collins, MS en route to Texas wondering about the life scattered behind you. The unsure nature of this journey kills – will it or will it not disrupt most, if not all, aspects of a life lived and planned? Katrina’s mercilessness lies in her inability to inform and in that she is what she is.
“This hits too close to the reality of August 1990. I couldn’t be there when trouble hit and my father was in trouble. What would I have done then? What can I do now? The plan of shaking my tiny fists at the approaching storm sounds inspiring, but would I not have instead said, “Oh, to be any place but here with the lack of power and AC!” The water is bluer on the other side.
“This is a storm within a storm – a plan within a plan. Where to now? What next? Until the winds pass and the waters recede, my home will have to be this makeshift raft of uncertainty. All I know is I miss you, New Orleans and your strange people. Please don’t let this storm wash us away.”
A good night’s sleep goes a long way. Well on the way to this Tuesday’s work deadline, I’ve mostly recovered from the last two days of preparing for and executing the Rising Tide Conference with the best team of bloggers and neighborhood activists ever. A panorama of my fellow Rising Tide organizers and their work shows that we lived up to “a real-life demonstration of internet activism.”
Douglas Brinkley is on C-Span2 and suggests that our rebuilding is a function of money and willpower. “We’re short on both … but we can make New Orleans the best city in America.” Well there was no shortage of willpower and charity at this weekend’s conference, and the endeavor continues as Ray, Mark, and out-of-town attendees help the Arabi Wrecking Krewe gut a house untouched since Katrina. Ray, I apologize for not being out there, but I’m worn out, man. Toast, zonked, wasted, done – stick a fork in me – and I have my day job to contend with.
Thank you to all of the organizers, panelists, attendees, exhibitors and the New Orleans Yacht Club.
I promised Scout Prime and NOLASlate my closing speech. The statistics are part of a Legal Student Hurricane Network request to watch Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke, but form a succinct description of the state of New Orleans and the surrounding area one year after Katrina. Here it is:
One year ago, Hurricane Katrina hit the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coast and our levees failed to drown more than a thousand New Orleanians in what we call the Federal Flood. As the natural and human-made disasters engulfed the region, the nation turned its attention to the storm’s immediate aftermath. However, a year later, the crisis continues.
Today, less than half of pre-Katrina New Orleans residents have been able to return home; over 70,000 of them are living in 240-square foot FEMA trailers (which are particularly vulnerable during the hurricane season) and many people are still waiting for trailers to be delivered; the state’s charity hospital system is in shambles and psychiatric care is non-existent; most of the Lower 9th Ward is still without potable water; 6,000 criminal defendants await trial, many of whom do not have attorneys; 60 percent of the businesses within the city limits have probably not reopened; federal officials have given out only about 40 percent of the $110 billion promised to the Gulf Coast; not a single dollar of federal funds to rebuild houses has made it to Louisiana homeowners; and renters have been virtually left to fend for themselves.
But the numbers do not tell the whole story. The pain, the frustration, the anger, the desperation, and the anguish are still as real today as they were in the days after the disaster first unfolded. The residents of the Gulf Coast have not forgotten they are still living the tragedy. And we cannot forget, either.
I request all of you to keep writing and spreading the word about our city. Continue to talk with everyone. Engage those in discussion who are of an opposing mindset and let them know that We Are Not Ok. Thank you.
Other epilogues:
Also, huge shout-outs to NOLASlate for the post-conference boost, Dr. Daisy for not letting me be the only blogger there in 4-inch heels, and Karen and Dr. A for their kind and calming words.
Back to work.
