Revisiting the Big Easy – One Year Later (Part 1)

[Part one of a short series with my two-cents about my beloved New Orleans. My take before the media frenzy on the anniversary of Katrina which will, once again, do us no favors. Parts that follow this posting will address my opinions and/or knowledge on some of the issues that the media has chosen to sensationalize or ignore as they do so well – the crime, the politics, the racism, and the why rebuild? – but for now…]

MY RETURN

To the best of my ability, I avoid pain, destruction, sadness, misery, grief and the like. That doesn’t sound very profound does it? I mean who doesn’t? The fact is…many don’t. I do admit to rubbernecking at car accidents, but it’s away from the tragedy, not toward it. Morbid curiosity has never appealed to me. I don’t think I look at the world through rose-colored glasses, but I see no purpose in gawking at its underbelly through binoculars either. Suffering comes to us all sooner or later and usually many times in our lives. I’ll not seek it out; it will find me.

Because of that, it took nine months post-Katrina before I was ready to go back to New Orleans. I knew of few others in this area who had not been earlier – including my wife and mother-in-law who drove the ninety miles south to my daughter’s place in the city for a “tour” of the destruction. I had already had two former hometowns completely destroyed by major hurricanes, Camille in Biloxi, MS and Andrew in Homestead, FL. I knew what it was like.

But in May my daughter invited the family to a crawfish boil at her place in Mid-City New Orleans and I figured it was time (and I dooooo love boiled crawfish). Getting to her place was through a major route to the city and the only real signs of Katrina I saw were the FEMA trailers in the suburbs leading to downtown, visible from the Interstate. The only other major difference I noted was the complete lack of grass. None whatsoever. Where grass had once been in many places along the route, it had been replaced by weeds – large weeds – overgrown weeds. Nonetheless they were bright green, so not so terribly unappealing…considering. My daughter’s neighborhood was clearly on the mend and in most areas there were only the waterline stains on first floor structures that gave any sign of flooding. There were piles of debris along the streets, but an appropriate amount I thought for the clean-up effort over the nine months. We had a nice afternoon and I left encouraged that the city was truly on the road to recovery. Noticeable too, however, was how little traffic there was and how quiet it was on her street. Both observations were rare phenomena for any other time I had ever been in New Orleans. The reduced population was very evident.

About three weeks passed and my daughter once again invited us down for an annual Greek festival – one of her favorites. There is never a week that passes in the city when there is not a festival of some sort, many of them in celebration of some ethnicity, but not necessarily. Any excuse to have a good time will do. We met at my daughter’s place and she drove us to the festival. After about a mile, I wished I had not gone. We were driving through the Lakefront area – a large portion of the city that was made up of middle-class homes to upper middle-class to wealthy, depending upon where exactly along the lake the neighborhood was. The lake being Lake Pontchatrain. The lake that overflowed its banks/levies very early on. It was from this area that some of the first Katrina news footage was captured. It was here that the early footage of the flooded marina on fire was taken. I tried to avert my eyes as is my way, but I could not. The devastation was everywhere. As I said, I have seen post-hurricane results before and I saw much of what I would have expected…falling or felled structures, uprooted trees, abandoned vehicles and appliances, etc. But there was something I did not expect and had never seen. There was such an unworldly color to everything. I suppose it is the result of all such flood (rather than wind) damage, but I had never seen anything like it before. Everything within eyesight was an ashen gray. It was as if we were truly on another planet or we had driven through Pompeii as I envision it would have looked after the eruption. Very eerie. Very depressing too, driving these streets I traveled so very often and passing homes I passed every day en route to work when I lived down there. And it was the evergreens that seemed to capture the wickedness of it all. Perfectly formed plants and shrubbery that looked like they should have been alive and their usual vibrant green. They appeared untouched – appeared to be the only survivors of all that surrounded them. But they were completely and thoroughly ashen gray. All dead.

In typical New Orleans fashion, the festival was a blast. Superb Greek food, drink, and music – an oasis of activity and celebration amidst ruin. But I really wish I had not gone. I was not ready. I’ve not been back since then either – the end of May. I will go back, but I want it fixed. I want it the way it was. I miss it that way so much.