In August 2005, I was balancing a full-time gig at the Athens Magazine with a full load of master's classes at Grady College. After an evening split-level newspaper design class, I journeyed home to Jefferson and crawled onto my couch to watch a few minutes of CNN (for what had become my Tuesday and Thursday night routine). I had heard bits of a story about Hurricane Katrina making landfall during my Tuesday morning commute. It sounded as if New Orleans had dodged a bullet, but I was curious to see what was going on. As a lay on the couch in exhaustion, CNN delivered quite a different assessment: New Orleans was quickly becoming a city under water. Over the next week, I was glued to the television as clip after clip revealed the disaster that was unfolding in the Gulf.
Each moment that I watched, flashbacks of a whirlwind visit to New Orleans during the 2003 Sugar Bowl flooded my mind. Before the game, my husband and I took in as much of the city's charm as we could. We visited the French Quarter, hopped on the trolley and even sampled a beignet or two. These images stayed with me over the next two weeks as I became increasingly horrified by the government's mismanagement of the disaster. Photographs of children crying before the Armageddon-like backdrop haunted me. New Orleans stayed in my thoughts daily.
But, like so many others, as the days turned into weeks and months, Hurricane Katrina slipped off my radar. My focus turned back to juggling: school and work, work and school. I hate how so many Americans, like myself, have let Katrina survivors become a distant memory only briefly considered during anniversaries of the event.
On Saturday, I will head back to New Orleans for the first time since 2003. When I think back about Katrina, my heart still hurts for the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. While I pack, I'm left wondering: what will I encounter in New Orleans and how can I make a difference?
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2 comments:
You ARE making a difference by visiting and helping the tourist economy. You have good timing because the streetcars just made it back to St. Charles last week (at least to Napoleon Avenue). Have a GREAT time, but be sure to take a little time to witness the destruction in the many neighborhoods. Then go back home and spread the word of your experiences. Americans helping Americans. That is what it is all about.
We saw the devastation today, and it still looms large in this city...and it is everywhere.
Contrasted against the incompetent work of the government was the fine work of non-profit organizations--many of them faith-based in some way.
Expecting the government to deliver charity is something I am now very skeptical of.
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