Written Shortly After The Storm

Written shortly after returning home from Katrina evacuation …

So many people forget that the Friday before Aug. 29, 2005 Katrina’s forecast led her to Apalachicola, Fl. Then suddenly, they drew her path a few hundred miles west, right at us.

I finished refinishing the floors to our dining room and living room and we began packing for Katrina. Ever the optimist, I packed light. We departed around 5:30 a.m. the Sunday before the storm and made our way out, East on I-10 dodging all the chaos. No one was going east, not at that hour. We arrived in Pensacola (itself still recovering from the Onslaught of Hurricane Ivan) later that morning and waited. A few hours passed and Katrina became a buzzsaw in the Gulf, doubling in size and with a perfect eye. I felt resigned to the destruction that would follow. I knew thousands wouldn’t leave.

We evacuated for the second time from my parent’s house on Perdido Key (just rebuilt after being destroyed in Ivan) to a point further inland. Once we got there, mom said she needed to drive back to retrieve some papers that documented the house’s contents. I talked her into letting me go back for them instead. This was around 7 p.m. Sunday night.

If I knew what kind of drive it was going to be, I wouldn’t have volunteered. Conditions deteriorated pretty fast in the hour between when we left the house and when I went back. It had also gotten dark. The wind was up to tropical storm force. The closer I got to the coast (where my parents live) the more the rain and wind started to come down. Visibility was poor. The center line was invisible and the large F-150 trucks that most Pensacola men like to drive were whizzing past. I got to Grande Lagoon and got out of the car and was soaked in seconds. The papers were retrieved and I got the hell out of there. In less than a half and hour the conditions worsened more. It was damn scary.

We turned on CNN, had a few drinks (some delicious moonshine) played some Trivial Pursuit (I lost) and waited it out.

The next morning, we woke up early to see the Katrina coverage on TV. Power went out early but thanks to a generator and some rabbit ears, we were able to keep in touch with what was going on. Though it was mostly about Baldwin County Alabama. There was nothing out of New Orleans. The first images that came through were of eaves and signposts surrounded by water, the obligatory “flood” street. The human disaster followed and all the rumors that came with it showcased our country’s horror-fixation.

We didn’t know what was going on with our house. We hoped for the best and expected the worse. Our main concern was that if the Mississippi River levee had been breached, the house would be flooded. We intended to get flood insurance but just hadn’t managed it yet. If the house was flooded, we would not be covered. It’s a peculiar thing to hope that your house is destroyed one way rather than another. It’s akin to betting on a football game with a spread. If the hurricane blows a tree into our house, we are covered but if it creates enough rain that the river tops the levee and floods the neighborhood, we aren’t. Risky business. I made a mental note to get flood insurance.

Reports of flooding New Orleans Ninth Ward were trickling in and nothing was being heard about any of the rest of the city. We went to bed that night still wondering.

The following day, Aug. 30, brought good news. Some intrepid neighbors rode the storm out in Baton Rouge and came back through Katrina’s southern swaths to return hours after the eye passed. They checked all the houses on the street and reported little to no damage. With other reports that many parts of New Orleans were high and dry this was at least a decent consolation after hearing of the massive flooding in the Ninth Ward and the inevitable deaths that probably lurked within.

We made plans to return to the city the next day. Then the proverbial shit hit the fan.

It was Tuesday and we were at Trigger’s off Gulf Beach Highway and my dad told us another levee had broke (17th Street) and that “Canal St. was a Canal.” Marathon CNN watching followed. We realized from what we saw that it would be a while before we would return.

By Wednesday, the Convention Center madness had begun. My mind was somewhere between the truth and urban legends. My selfish consolation was that at least it was mostly confined to the East Bank. Two days after the storm, where was the relief? It was the $64,000 question.

After trips to FEMA and the unemployment office, we resigned ourselves to our position. We were in wait-and-see mode. The horrors unfolding on CNN were dealt with in increments. The reporter’s grandiose apocalyptic visions reasoned by hyperbolic dismissals and unfortunate acceptance that this unique situation could only come to pass in New Orleans. It was to be a huge chapter in the even larger book of the city’s history.

We went to Wal-Mart a lot. I even got myself decked out in some of Sam Walton’s finest apparel. We also stopped by some thrift stores and visited friends and local restaurants.

We mostly just bummed around waiting for Nagin to let us back in. We we worried about our neighbors who stayed and about our house. But one can’t spend a whole day worrying.

We did a lot of CNN watching and I played quite a bit of old school solitaire.

Finally, two weeks after the storm, Algiers opened up and we ventured back to New Orleans to see what really went down.

On our way back down I-10 we began to see evidence of the destruction that went down in Biloxi and New Orleans, there was a motorcade of NYPD cars, ravaged billboards, National Guard humvees, broken bridges and dead trees everywhere.

The twin span between Slidell and New Orleans was destroyed in the storm and the mighty Causeway, though undamaged, was closed. So traffic going west into New Orleans was diverted across Lake Ponchartrain – not exactly a leisurely jaunt. It and the traffic added two and a half hours to our trip.

The plus side was we enjoyed a quaint little foray down Highway 22 and took in the the sights. Not much storm damage and more than a few bayou communities and nice homes.

We made it to I-10 and were stopped outside of Lulling. No one was getting in, local ID or not. So we told them we just need to cross the river and they told us to cross at the Lulling bridge.

The bridge is quite a majestic piece of engineering and it was quite inspiring to drive over. Unfortunately, we had to drive through the hell hole that is Norco to get there. Norco was like some sort of Milton-esque creation. I think I may have gotten cancer just by driving through there.

We finally made it back to a battered neighborhood but, at least it was above water. The front porch light was on, indicating power.

The fridge was the first thing to go. Two weeks of summer temperatures rotted everything inside. It was actually the second storm for that fridge, it survived Ivan and was donated to us by a friend of the family. Poor thing had enough. The only other damage was some missing shingles, a stained ceiling from the leakage and a large tree on the lil yellow shed.

Other than the damage, the other thing that was apparent was the military that was all over. If the city was unsafe during the aftermath of the storm, it was plenty safe now. We had helicopters, a helicopter carrier and humvees everywhere. Dudes with M-16s slung over their shoulder were raking up debris and saying, “howdy ma’am.”

Neighbors started to trickle in over the next few days and Romy and I even adopted a pair of beagles for a few days. We named them Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin. We found their owner a few days later but not before much fun was had saying stuff like, “Governor Blanco peed on the floor” or “Mayor Nagin’s got a boner!”