No Gris Gris could stop Katrina this time
My dad is a Navy man, former ship Navigator and Lieutenant. Now retired he sits and navigates in front of the Weather channel, a station, I swear, that was made just for him. When I was little he would tract a hurricane or tropical storm's path on grid paper, now the Weather channel does it for him. So, of course, he watched Katrina grow from a baby storm to a monster. Just a week before she destroyed parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama he told me: "Katrina is taking the same track as Betsy, and Andrew. They all clipped Florida and headed toward New Orleans".
"Geez Dad," I said. "You are going to worry that hurricane into a Category 5. It'll be OK."
"She's big and the waters are hot. All the conditions are there for a strong one, and she's headed this way."
I rolled my eyes at him. I've always been a brat.
Of course my dad was right. By Friday on TV Katrina looked like the Milky Way had landed on the Gulf of Mexico. She already had the power of a moon struck off kilter; she made the Gulf waters swell and rise, she made the winds gust and pound like Herculian fists, and she would eventually kill thousands. I couldn't fathom the magnitude of her strength yet, but the shear immensity of the swath of white covering a third of the Gulf made my spine shiver like no other hurricane had before. I started to take my dad very seriously.
I still hoped we were far enough inland to be safe but my Dad said to leave while the "going was good" or I'd be stuck in Louisiana in 98 degree heat for week or more without electricity and with no way to get back to Berkeley. My flight was scheduled to leave August 29th, landfall day. Saturday, August 27th, I wandered through a telephonic maze would eventually lead me to an out-sourced operator in India who would time after time again change my domestic United flight as each one was cancelled. Houston, a good four to five hours away, was the only airport flying out. So Sunday, August 28th, in a car that was fortuitously rented days before, I headed towards Texas under a sky that was dotted with radiantly white clouds in a clear dome of pale blue; if I hadn't seen it on TV I would never believe a hurricane was coming.
The interstates were flooded with evacuees already that morning. I kept thinking, once I'm pass the Mississippi River bridge, once I'm past Lafayette, then once I was passed Lake Charles, etc... I would have clear roads; but by the time I reached Houston my flight had already left. Stuck in Houston I felt an odd emptiness inside, a hopeless kind of feeling like that of a small child who has gotten lost in a State Fair. I rarely made it to Houston even when I lived in Louisiana. I preferred the confined vistas of the forests and swamps to more impressive flat paranoramas of Texas. I like being hemmed in rather than exposed. I like the vegetation close to me, bushes and branches scrapping my sides smothering me with the color green or the California mountains and bay waters bordering and defining my location. Texas just seemed to big and wide for a small person like me.
The hotel I found was filled to the brim with Louisianians. I didn't see a Texas license plate in the parking lot. The escapees brought with them table of pets that resembled a veritable petting zoo: gerbils, rabbits, dogs and cats. Everywhere in Houston there were the familiar and distinct sounds of New Orleans accents. It is an accent hard to describe unless you hear it: a city-toughed tongue mixed with a southern drawl. I smiled everytime I heard that occasional all American "DUDE!" accompany the drawl. And in spite knowing the tragedy that would soon unfold in their hometown, everyone seemed in good spirits. Most did not know yet that they might as well had pulled out a grenade, yanked the pin and dropped it on the floor of their house before exiting. Katrina would zip through it and leave the city a 3rd World country. Yet I and everybody else there , for that one day in Houston, were all from the same optimistic family. I felt nothing in common with any of these people, I usually felt a stranger and foreigner in Texas, and yet I for the time being I was one of them, just me and yamamma'n'dem. And that family provided me with an unending parade of human vignettes as I lunched, waited for the next day and wandered.
The TVs everywhere revealed a storm gone simply mad. Crowded together in restaurants and airport terminals we watched the phenomenon dumbly, unable to understand why the waters had whipped loose from the gulf and where furiously beating the land in massive perfect arcs. Around me tears glittered, noses were blown, faces looked stunned. Yet by the end of the day we foolishly believed New Orleans was spared the worst.
It took me 3 days of travel and delayed flights to get myself back to California. The journey had left me beyond mere exhaustion. When I felt the airplane circle and start its descent into Oakland I looked down at the San Francisco Bay sparking blue in the sun. It looked to me, for that one moment, like the land of Shangri-La.
But once home and as the after effects of Katrina rippled through the New Orleans I floated on a cloud of adrenal vapor, bleary-eyed and in shock to what was happening. New Orleans was being destroyed and there was nothing I could do in the face of that but watch. Or refuse to watch.
But my town is gone. New Orleans was destroyed by FLOODING, not winds, rain or tidal surge. Gone is the great city, it was not a sparking clean beautiful city but more beguiling than any other I've ever visited. Yes, parts of her aren't pretty at all, but her ebulliance greeted you and before long you were divulging your wickednesses to her. Interesting events would cling to you in NOLA, all the while prying the outrageousness out of you. New Orleans was the place I ran away to from the repressiveness of my small town. She protected me from that small town doing harm to one of the strangest of their members, and allowed all her eccentrics to grow resilience. Years later in a blur I remember the table tops danced on, some multi-colored alcoholic beverage swallowed, and each mussels and crawfish I ate. I remember going through the Timesaver drive thru at 6am with a beer in hand. I remember those stony streets and wrought iron balconies in the Quarter, the fresh water and salt mingling in the tides of Lake Pontchartrain, and those sounds murmuring and blowing from the big brown Missup.
I wish I could have preserved that atmosphere for those that never experienced her. I wish I could have captured a bit of NOLA for you, ladled it into mason jars and brought her home to you aglow. Because I know even if they rebuild my birthplace, it won't quite be the same.
"Geez Dad," I said. "You are going to worry that hurricane into a Category 5. It'll be OK."
"She's big and the waters are hot. All the conditions are there for a strong one, and she's headed this way."
I rolled my eyes at him. I've always been a brat.
Of course my dad was right. By Friday on TV Katrina looked like the Milky Way had landed on the Gulf of Mexico. She already had the power of a moon struck off kilter; she made the Gulf waters swell and rise, she made the winds gust and pound like Herculian fists, and she would eventually kill thousands. I couldn't fathom the magnitude of her strength yet, but the shear immensity of the swath of white covering a third of the Gulf made my spine shiver like no other hurricane had before. I started to take my dad very seriously.
I still hoped we were far enough inland to be safe but my Dad said to leave while the "going was good" or I'd be stuck in Louisiana in 98 degree heat for week or more without electricity and with no way to get back to Berkeley. My flight was scheduled to leave August 29th, landfall day. Saturday, August 27th, I wandered through a telephonic maze would eventually lead me to an out-sourced operator in India who would time after time again change my domestic United flight as each one was cancelled. Houston, a good four to five hours away, was the only airport flying out. So Sunday, August 28th, in a car that was fortuitously rented days before, I headed towards Texas under a sky that was dotted with radiantly white clouds in a clear dome of pale blue; if I hadn't seen it on TV I would never believe a hurricane was coming.
The interstates were flooded with evacuees already that morning. I kept thinking, once I'm pass the Mississippi River bridge, once I'm past Lafayette, then once I was passed Lake Charles, etc... I would have clear roads; but by the time I reached Houston my flight had already left. Stuck in Houston I felt an odd emptiness inside, a hopeless kind of feeling like that of a small child who has gotten lost in a State Fair. I rarely made it to Houston even when I lived in Louisiana. I preferred the confined vistas of the forests and swamps to more impressive flat paranoramas of Texas. I like being hemmed in rather than exposed. I like the vegetation close to me, bushes and branches scrapping my sides smothering me with the color green or the California mountains and bay waters bordering and defining my location. Texas just seemed to big and wide for a small person like me.
The hotel I found was filled to the brim with Louisianians. I didn't see a Texas license plate in the parking lot. The escapees brought with them table of pets that resembled a veritable petting zoo: gerbils, rabbits, dogs and cats. Everywhere in Houston there were the familiar and distinct sounds of New Orleans accents. It is an accent hard to describe unless you hear it: a city-toughed tongue mixed with a southern drawl. I smiled everytime I heard that occasional all American "DUDE!" accompany the drawl. And in spite knowing the tragedy that would soon unfold in their hometown, everyone seemed in good spirits. Most did not know yet that they might as well had pulled out a grenade, yanked the pin and dropped it on the floor of their house before exiting. Katrina would zip through it and leave the city a 3rd World country. Yet I and everybody else there , for that one day in Houston, were all from the same optimistic family. I felt nothing in common with any of these people, I usually felt a stranger and foreigner in Texas, and yet I for the time being I was one of them, just me and yamamma'n'dem. And that family provided me with an unending parade of human vignettes as I lunched, waited for the next day and wandered.
The TVs everywhere revealed a storm gone simply mad. Crowded together in restaurants and airport terminals we watched the phenomenon dumbly, unable to understand why the waters had whipped loose from the gulf and where furiously beating the land in massive perfect arcs. Around me tears glittered, noses were blown, faces looked stunned. Yet by the end of the day we foolishly believed New Orleans was spared the worst.
It took me 3 days of travel and delayed flights to get myself back to California. The journey had left me beyond mere exhaustion. When I felt the airplane circle and start its descent into Oakland I looked down at the San Francisco Bay sparking blue in the sun. It looked to me, for that one moment, like the land of Shangri-La.
But once home and as the after effects of Katrina rippled through the New Orleans I floated on a cloud of adrenal vapor, bleary-eyed and in shock to what was happening. New Orleans was being destroyed and there was nothing I could do in the face of that but watch. Or refuse to watch.
But my town is gone. New Orleans was destroyed by FLOODING, not winds, rain or tidal surge. Gone is the great city, it was not a sparking clean beautiful city but more beguiling than any other I've ever visited. Yes, parts of her aren't pretty at all, but her ebulliance greeted you and before long you were divulging your wickednesses to her. Interesting events would cling to you in NOLA, all the while prying the outrageousness out of you. New Orleans was the place I ran away to from the repressiveness of my small town. She protected me from that small town doing harm to one of the strangest of their members, and allowed all her eccentrics to grow resilience. Years later in a blur I remember the table tops danced on, some multi-colored alcoholic beverage swallowed, and each mussels and crawfish I ate. I remember going through the Timesaver drive thru at 6am with a beer in hand. I remember those stony streets and wrought iron balconies in the Quarter, the fresh water and salt mingling in the tides of Lake Pontchartrain, and those sounds murmuring and blowing from the big brown Missup.
I wish I could have preserved that atmosphere for those that never experienced her. I wish I could have captured a bit of NOLA for you, ladled it into mason jars and brought her home to you aglow. Because I know even if they rebuild my birthplace, it won't quite be the same.
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