DailyKOS endeavored to capture firsthand accounts of Katrina. This one is intense.
In
the days before the storm, I prepared for the storm, all the usual
preparations and then some. I live on the edge of a bit of swamp
outside of New Orleans - where, I won't specify 'cause I am a bit of a
private person. I didn't plan on evacuating to a shelter - they won't
take my dogs and I will not leave them, I figure that I'm better off on
my own. I am accustomed to
difficult environments.
I have a cushion, my house is a bit above sea level, and the swamp here
is generally intact and can absorb the shock of the storm surge. My
house is about 100 years old, built of cypress by a working class
family who couldn't afford either insurance or to rebuild - it was
built simply and to last. It has lasted. Call me a fool, as you may. My
neighbors stayed as well, and we were all prepared to move quickly to
higher ground or take to boats if the water came up. Folks are a bit
independent out here.
My parents' house is in a town on Lake Ponchartrain, their house is a
block from the water. They always go to a hotel a bit further inland
when hurricanes roll this way, they had reservations to check-in Sunday
with the storm expected Sunday night or Monday morning. On Sunday
morning, I visited them to make sure they were ready to get going - in
their 70's and all, I was just making sure. My father didn't feel well,
didn't look well, he had a stroke a coupla years ago and had heart
problems. I insisted that he go to the hospital. The hospital admitted
him, as tests there revealed that he was on the verge of having a heart
attack. The hospital folks agreed to allow my mother to stay in the
room with my father, what with the storm rolling in and all.
Back at my house, I finished battening down the last details. As night
fell, I brought the dogs in, tucked my cat into a cat carrier, called
my sister in Texas to touch base and let her know were the parents
were, checked the Nat'l Hurricane Center website, biding time. The wind
picked up, the electricity went out around midnight, the phone soon
after. I didn't get much sleep and kept going outside to check on the
conditions. The radio gave bulletins throughout the night, at some
point, the announcer said, "Wherever you are, stay there." Sometime in
the night, there were no more radio stations that I could receive.
The storm picked-up all morning. First the front porch was in the
leeside of the wind, then as the wind shifted and became stronger, the
back porch was in the lee. By 8am or so, trees were bending wildly, by
10am it sounded like jumbo jets were taking off and landing all around
the house. A few 100-foot pine trees popped out in the woods, snapping
and folding 50 feet above the ground. The oaks and sweet gums were
thrashing, still they held. The house was holding fine, the water
wasn't coming up too bad. The swamp was absorbing the shock. I went
outside on the leeside to have cigarettes, it was hot and close in the
house. I took cat-naps, the dogs curled up into me. The wind roared,
the rain was blowing sideways. Around noon, it started to slack off.
One of my neighbors said the the highest winds his anometer registered
were 128 mph.
Around 2pm, I perked-up to a sound. The wind was still blowing at about
30-40 miles per hour, there was a different sound on the wind. It
sounded like a chainsaw. Out of the front porch, I looked down the
road, I saw some of my neighbors working on a big pine that had come
down across the road. With chainsaws. I got my chainsaw and joined them.
As I walked up, one of my neighbors looked up and over the wind he
said, "We gotta get the road clear up to the highway. Water come up,
ain't no one gonna come get us." Truer words were never spoken.
There are six miles of road between us and the highway. There were
people working on downed trees and utility poles the whole way.
Luckily, none of the electrical lines were live. Everyone came out to
clear the road. Whole families were out clearing the road. There were
probably a hundred chainsaws working on that six miles of road. By
4:30pm, I was driving down the highway to check on my parents at the
hospital. The remnants of the hurricane were blowing off. There were a
few cars out on the road.
At the turn-off for the hospital, a sheriff's deputy had his cruiser
parked across the road, blocking traffic. I parked and walked over. The
deputy looked a bit done-in. He said I couldn't pass, too many trees
and powerlines down and they didn't know if any were live. He said no
one could get off the highway at least to the Mississippi state line,
probably further. He said go home and check on your folks tomorrow, the
hospital made out okay.
No radio stations were coming in, I don't have a tv by choice, the
phones were out. I fixed some dinner - I have a propane tank so my
stove was working fine. I got some sleep.
Tuesday morning, I drove in to the hospital. On the radio, they were
trying to figure out whether the levees had breached in New Orleans
proper. I thought..."Refugees. There's gonna be tens of thousands of
refugees...". Refugees are something I have experience with. Only, not
here in the US. In war-torn countries far, far away. When I arrived at
the hospital, there were people camped-out in the lobby. My parents
were okay. On the tv, people was still trying to figure out whether the
levees had breached. The hospital was going to discharge my father
Wednesday or Thursday, they wanted to make sure he has someplace to go
that had ac as he was stable but considered fragile. I decided to drive
to see about my parents house. I don't have ac, by choice, I like the
ceiling fans and open windows and all.
In my parents' town, there were so many trees down that there were 12
foot high walls of trees across roads. People who had not evacuated to
locations far away were filtering back. Virtually every electrical line
was down, poles snapped off at the ground. I parked and walked maybe
two miles to my parents' house. The water had already receded, my
parents' house had a water-line that said they got four feet of water
on the ground floor. Everything on the ground floor was ruined.
Back at the hospital, the phones there were working. My parents
arranged to stay with relatives in north Louisiana. I went home to my
house, the radio announcers were now saying that the levees had
breached. The radio networks started working together, broadcasting the
same show across all working stations, the same show no matter what
station you tuned into, the only source of news that everyone could get
to.
And people with boats, out here away from the city, they started getting their boats ready.
Here is where I must depart from a straight timed narrative. 'Cause
here is where time breaks down. Where everything breaks down. From
Tuesday until Friday morning, the radio, the people, everyone kept saying the same things, over and over. If you went into New Orleans, what you heard was...
"Oh. My. God."
and...
""We gotta get them folks outta there."
and...
"They are not coming."
"They" were the Federal government. Regular ol' civilians brought their
little flat-bottomed aluminum fishing boats into New Orleans because
"We gotta get them folks outta there." Alotta those regular ol'
civilians were named Bubba, alotta them were the folks that some few
people here call "rural Southern fucktards". The Coast Guard went to
work. The Louisiana Dept. of Wildlife and Fisheries went to work. And
the "rural Southern fucktards" went to work, too.
But the Feds...They are not coming.
I don't have to tell you what happened. You saw it on tv if you were not here. They are not coming. Everything broke down. Everything. They are not coming. How could this be happening? They are not coming. Why the fuck? They are not coming. They are not coming. They are not coming. They are not coming. They are not coming.
...and after Forever, on Friday morning, the military was here. They
were so here that they were refueling rescue helicopters in-air over
Lake Ponchartrain. But not until Friday morning.
After Friday...it seemed to still go on forever, even after the cavalry was coming.
How long did it go on? I don't know. I don't know. I was here, still I don't know.
And that's all I have to say about that.
And we heard the news on the radio. And we heard the mayor lose it on
the radio. And we heard the parish president lose it on the radio. And
we said "Yeah you right. Tell it again." And we heard about the
Brownies and we heard about the cruise ships and the hospital ship
offshore and the crony contracts. And we sucked it up because there was
work to be done and they were not coming.
Eventually, I worked on my parents' house, outside of New Orleans. It
took me three days to clear out the first floor. The only people in
town were doing the same sorta thing. I cut-up downed trees in my
parents' yard for something like a week, ten days. People helped each
other. One day, I saw a sleek, smallish corporate-looking jet circling
overhead. I figured it was Heckuvajob Georgie, and started
gesticulating wildly, screaming "FUCKYOUBUSHFUCKYOUFUCKYOU". People who
heard me looked at me like I was crazy, I yelled "BUSH!! BUSH!!" and
pointed at the jet. They joined in, screaming at the jet and yelling
"FUCKYOUFUCKYOU", at the jet. Then the jet peeled off, and everyone
went back to work.
I filled up the gas tank in my Jeep every chance I could, whenever I
saw a gas station open. I drove 40 miles to find a grocery open and
stocked up. It was surreal, a grocery store open. People started coming
back more and more. Businesses started opening on the outside of New
Orleans, power or not. Signs appeared on the roadside...WE'RE
OPEN!!!...we were still here...we were still
here...people drove in from other parts of the country, with trucks
full of generators - and sold them on the roadside at wholesale prices,
no markup. the Times-Picayune, the local NOLA paper, assembled its
staff in Baton Rouge, at an LSU dormitory. Then the publisher insisted
that the staff come back into the city and work in the offices. They
camped-out at each others' houses.
People came from all over to help. There were workers from everywhere.
They were kind. They helped. They were citizens, helping citizens who
were in need. They shook your hand, and they worked. Helping.
The Red Cross started handing out debit cards, no one knew exactly what
the rules were, the rules changed. People lined up to get cards,
everyone was eligible. Alotta people refused to try to get a card, it
didn't seem right. It didn't seem right...
There were utility workers from all over the country, working long hot
days to get powerlines back up. My neighbors and I knew - we knew
that we should've been the last to get power. We were getting power too
quickly, even at two weeks after, too quickly, they should've been in
New Orleans...We're out at the end of the line, New Orleans should've
been first. We knew that the utility companies had written off
the city. Written them off. Still, the utility workers were busting
their asses, living in tent camps, 90 degree days and nights. It was
the decision of the suits. Written off the city.
Phones came back on. I talked with my parents in north Louisiana, they
wanted to come home. NO! No power at your house NO! I couldn't reach my
sister, I talked to one of her friends in Baton Rouge. The friend
started in with "all that shooting and looting, those people..." NO!
UNDERSTAND! You MUST understand! someone fired a weapon somewhere and
it was used as a fucking excuse to not help NO! that's NOT how it was!
NO! UNDERSTAND! They didn't come, they didn't want to come, they
could've come, there was no help...the gunfire wasn't enough to keep
away those who wanted to help ...UNDERSTAND!
One day, a chainsaw day, a 90 degree hot, dirty chainsaw day, a car
pulled into the driveway at my parents' house. A frantic middle-aged
woman got out, babbling a mile a minute. I finally calmed her down and
figured out that she was the niece of my mother's best friend. My
parents were her last hope, her aunt, my mother's best friend lived a
coupla blocks from one of the levee breaches. The authorities had no
news, her aunt was not in a shelter. Her last hope was that her aunt
was with my parents. Her aunt was not
with my parents. I folded my arms around her and told her. She
collapsed, ten days, two weeks, no news, only hope. The next day, her
husband took a boat across the Lake, across what is basically 25 miles
of open water. Beached the boat on the base of the levee. Hiked to the
aunt's house. The flood water was down by then. They were stopped by
the National Guard across the street from the aunt's house - the
National Guard refused them access. The guardmen agreed to go kick down
the door and look for them.
The aunt was elderly, in poor health. She had told my mother a month or
so before the storm that she felt that Armageddon was coming, the end
of the world, the world news was so bad, so bad. She told my mother
that she wanted to go in her own home, with her little dog in her arms,
that she hoped that it all ended quickly.
The guardsmen found her in her easy chair, with her little dog in her
arms. Her house had flooded to the rafters, a coupla blocks from one of
the levee breaches. When I told my mother, my mother cried,
heart-rending cried, "She knew! She knew! She knew!"
People everywhere would tell each other their stories. And the stories
that they had heard. Complete strangers, longtime friends. There was no
one-upsmanship. None. None. All the stories were hard. Hard.
My parents came back to their house when the power was back on in their
town. Three weeks, maybe, after the storm. They didn't look so well,
still they were glad to be back.
Then Hurricane Rita rolled in. The southerly winds pushed the Gulf back
into the whole region. My parents evacuated to a high school overnight,
were back in their house the day after. My father didn't look so well
at all.
Two weeks later, my father had a second stroke. He lingered for a
couple of days in the hospital, the hospital was barely functioning,
only half of the wards were open. The staff was worn out, they were
heroes. Heroes. Worn out heroes. My sister came in from Texas. We held
his hand. He passed away. I closed his eyes with my hand, gently
gently. The worn-out heroes contacted the funeral home.
We met with the funeral director. She was trying to explain that yes,
it was all pre-paid, the arrangements could be made...but no one had
yet been interred in New Orleans, everything was broken down, it might
take a couple of weeks to make the arrangements...I explained that it would happen and happen soon...she balked...and I explained, her looking in my eyes, that it would
happen and soon...there was a very long pause eyes on eyes...and she
said that she would make it happen. My father was cremated and we
interred his ashes where he wanted to rest. The cemetary was desolated,
waterline above our heads, all the grass was dead, all the trees were
dead, in the bright sunshine of an early morning. I spoke the words he
wanted, in a cemetary in a drowned city.
And Thanksgiving came sometime after...and I was thankful that my mother had a mostly intact roof over her head.
And people everywhere would tell each other their stories. And the
stories that they had heard. Complete strangers, longtime friends.
There was no one-upsmanship. None. None. All the stories were hard.
Hard.
And They Are Not Coming. Still They Are Not Coming.
May you have Peace. May we all have Peace.
Update: To everyone who has recommended this diary, thank you's bigger than words. To everyone who has commented below, everyone...the spirit is so...I just don't have the words...
...and everyone who has a Katrina story, find the words, find the words and tell it...please...Tell It...
May we all have Peace.