A Reflection on Katrina

Especially if you live in Louisiana, it’s been hard to forget that this weekend marks the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The first thing that reminded me was seeing a program on NBC last Sunday called “Katrina: The First Five Days.” (You can watch the episode here.) Setting aside Brian Williams’ tone during the show (which came across to me as a bit holier-than-thou), it was powerful to see the images of the aftermath again after a few years. The second reminder came when my dad sent me a chain email containing some photography of the storm. He and I exchanged a couple emails and I told him that I had considered doing a post for the blog about Katrina, but I was concerned that it would not seem authentic or interesting to my friends and family in Louisiana – after all, we didn’t move to Baton Rouge until a few months after Katrina. However, as we emailed, I realized I did have thoughts and feelings about the storm. So take this for what it's worth – the perspective of someone who did not live here at the time, but moved to Louisiana in the months following the disaster.

As I’ve reflected on Katrina this week, the biggest revelation I’ve had is how much harder the stories and photographs hit now that I’ve lived in South Louisiana for four-plus years. I had only visited New Orleans a handful of times before Katrina, but over the last few years (as I’m trying to chronicle on this blog), I’ve had much more time to learn about the city, its people, and its culture. I used to think I didn’t like New Orleans much, but as I’ve spent time there I’ve grown quite fond of it. Not to say I would prefer to live there, but you realize pretty quickly that New Orleans is like no other place in the U.S., perhaps the world… and it’s a culture that deserves to be respected and preserved.

On that weekend in late August of 2005, my wife and I were still living in Chicago, but we had been talking casually about what life might be like if we lived in Louisiana. Everyone will remember the media coverage of the aftermath of Katrina, but I recall watching the news very carefully in the days preceding the storm – certainly more carefully than my friends in Chicago. The most vivid memory I have of my worrisome feelings is of reading this from the National Weather Service:

000

WWUS74 KLIX 282139

NPWLIX

URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA

413 PM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005

...EXTREMELY DANGEROUS HURRICANE KATRINA CONTINUES TO APPROACH THE

   MISSISSIPPI RIVER DELTA...

...DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED...

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT

LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL

FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY

DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL.

PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD

FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE

BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME

WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A

FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH

AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY

VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE

ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE

WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN

AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING

INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY

THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW

CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE

KILLED.

AN INLAND HURRICANE WIND WATCH IS ISSUED WHEN SUSTAINED WINDS NEAR

HURRICANE FORCE...OR FREQUENT GUSTS AT OR ABOVE HURRICANE FORCE...ARE

POSSIBLE WITHIN THE NEXT 24 TO 36 HOURS.

LAZ038-040-050-056>070-MSZ080>082-290300-

ASSUMPTION-HANCOCK-HARRISON-JACKSON-LIVINGSTON-LOWER JEFFERSON-

LOWER LAFOURCHE-LOWER PLAQUEMINES-LOWER ST. BERNARD-LOWER TERREBONNE-

ORLEANS-ST. CHARLES-ST. JAMES-ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST-ST. TAMMANY-

TANGIPAHOA-UPPER JEFFERSON-UPPER LAFOURCHE-UPPER PLAQUEMINES-

UPPER ST. BERNARD-UPPER TERREBONNE-

413 PM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005

...INLAND HURRICANE WIND WARNING IS IN EFFECT...

HURRICANE KATRINA CONTINUES TO APPROACH THE AREA. TROPICAL STORM

FORCE WINDS ARE CURRENTLY MOVING INTO THE COASTAL MARSHES AND WILL

PERSIST FOR THE NEXT 26 TO 28 HOURS. HURRICANE FORCE WINDS WILL

ONSET AROUND MIDNIGHT NEAR THE COAST AND BY 3 AM CLOSER TO THE NEW

ORLEANS METRO AREA AND PERSIST FOR 9 TO 15 HOURS. MAXIMUM WIND GUSTS

AROUND 175 MPH ARE LIKELY IN THE WARNED AREA BY DAYBREAK MONDAY.

DO NOT VENTURE OUTDOORS ONCE TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS ONSET!

$$

LAZ034>037-039-046>049-MSZ068>071-077-290300-

AMITE-ASCENSION-EAST BATON ROUGE-EAST FELICIANA-IBERVILLE-

PEARL RIVER-PIKE-POINTE COUPEE-ST. HELENA-WALTHALL-WASHINGTON-

WEST BATON ROUGE-WEST FELICIANA-WILKINSON-

413 PM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005

...INLAND HURRICANE WIND WARNING IS IN EFFECT...

HURRICANE KATRINA CONTINUES TO APPROACH THE AREA. TROPICAL STORM

FORCE WINDS ARE CURRENTLY MOVING INTO THE COASTAL MARSHES AND WILL

SREAD NORTHWESTWARD INTO THE GREATER BATON ROUGE AREA AND

SOUTHWEST MISSISSIPPI LATER THIS EVENING. TROPICAL STORM FORCE

WINDS ARE EXPECTED TO ONSET AROUND 9 PM TONIGHT AND PERSIST

FOR 22 TO 26 HOURS. HURRICANE FORCE WINDS WILL ONSET AROUND

DAYBREAK AND PERSIST FOR ABOUT 5 TO 10 HOURS. MAXIMUM WIND

GUSTS OF 80 TO 90 MPH ARE POSSIBLE IN EAST-CENTRAL LOUISIANA

AND SOUTHWEST MISSISSIPPI.

DO NOT VENTURE OUTDOORS ONCE TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS ONSET!

$$

I still get chills reading that. Of particular concern to me at the time were my in-laws living in the Baton Rouge area. My wife will probably recall me asking her whether she should have been encouraging her family to move out of the way of the storm. This was sloughed off, of course, and thankfully it didn’t matter much. My wife had always told me that hurricanes in Louisiana were just another reason to party – fill up the bathtub with ice, and sit around on the porch drinking beer until the power came back on. 

(Not a party.)

Another memory I have from those first few days was sitting in our lunchroom on the 15^th floor of an office building in Chicago on Monday morning, August 29, watching CNN’s coverage of the storm. A few people strolled in and out casually, but I was the only person in the office that seemed genuinely concerned about what was happening. Let me say that I’m not trying to go all Brian Williams here, implying that I realized something that others didn’t. There were obviously plenty of people (including the National Weather Service, obviously) that knew that Katrina was going to be devastating. But what still sticks with me is that feeling I had on Sunday and Monday that people weren’t paying enough attention. I guess those feelings were tragically prescient when you consider the state of New Orleans and its remaining residents as the storm left them behind.

The anniversary of Hurricane Gustav is coming up in a few days as well. I’ve realized that having been through Gustav has also given me some perspective on Katrina. A direct hit by a hurricane is miserable. Gustav was arguably the most devastating hurricane ever to strike Baton Rouge, but it pales in comparison with Katrina. Yet I found the aftermath of Gustav to be nearly unbearable. In the 24-48 hours before Gustav, New Orleans was evacuating, and Baton Rouge was starting to swell in size. The high school in my neighborhood was set up as a temporary shelter for evacuees, and its parking lot was full. Traffic around the house started to get choked, and I noticed stores and restaurants shutting down or cutting back operations. The storm itself knocked down some trees in my neighborhood and did some damage to our fence, but that was about it. The bigger problems were outside our neighborhood. Trees around the capitol region, including hundreds (if not thousands) of majestic live oaks were knocked down, taking the power supply with them. We lost power for a week, and we were relatively lucky. It took much longer for some.

As you may know, it’s pretty hot in August/September in Louisiana. To add to the miserable heat, it quickly became evident that life had changed in Baton Rouge pretty dramatically. There was no place to get food. Driving somewhere to get away from the destruction might have been an option, but there were few places to get gas, and the roads were pretty snarled anyway. The gas issue became problematic quickly – I had planned ahead and had a generator ready… but I only had about 10 gallons of gas. When I left the house a few days later looking for more gas, little did I realize that it would be an all-day affair – waiting in line with hundreds of other people for a crack at a gas pump.

I share some of these memories because I wish to wrap up my perspective on Katrina by making this point. When something like this happens, it makes you realize that modern life is, in so many ways, a delicate a balance. Days before Gustav, I completely took for granted the fact that I could run down the road for gas, groceries, or Happy Meals for the kids. I took for granted that my fridge worked and I was able to stay cool in my own home. Even as the storm hit, I thought to myself, “you have a generator, plenty of canned food, and a couple cases of water, so you’re going to be fine.” But a few days later I realized, while sitting at a gas station with a few hundred new friends and their gas cans, that life can sometimes brutally strip you of pretense.

I normally wouldn’t have ever spent a moment talking to people that live in the trailer park down the road, but on that Wednesday, we were all in it together, fighting for the same basic staple that days earlier we had taken for granted. And that was just gas! The people stuck in the Superdome or Convention Center in the days following Katrina had no food, water or medications. After a few days, they didn’t even have functioning restrooms. Therefore, when I saw the images of the Superdome and Convention Center again this week – the hunger, the grief, the desperation – it hit me much harder than it did five years ago. Whereas I originally looked at the people who rode out the storm in New Orleans as foolish and at least somewhat deserving of their fate, I now look at them with a great deal more sympathy. Perhaps they should have left, yes. But no one deserves to live through that kind of misery. I remember feeling, in the days following Gustav, amazed that I was in the richest country on the face of the earth, with a good job and money in the bank, but yet I was helpless to go get food or gas. It has helped me relate much better to the soundbytes from the Superdome asking, "how can this happen in America?"

Photo: Ted Jackson/New Orleans Times-Picayune

For my readers in Louisiana, as I mentioned at the top, I hope that none of this comes off as lacking authenticity. For my readers elsewhere, I hope that this narrative lends some small bit of perspective to the photos you will see this week. Remember the prediction from that National Weather Service warning: “human suffering incredible by modern standards.” It came true, and all it took was a storm. So I hope that you will think about your own preparedness for a disaster, both physically and emotionally. After some self-reflection about your own survival if your creature comforts were taken away, I’d ask you to reflect again about Katrina – your thoughts then and your thoughts five years later. Re-evaluate your feelings about the faces you’ve seen on TV, and most importantly, remember the over 1,800 people who lost their lives to the storm.