Hurricane Katrina: The Aftermath
She called it a “modern-day Trail of Tears.” Sitting in the backyard of the house we were building for Linda, her daughter and three grandchildren, in the St. Bernard Parish of Louisiana, I watched tears trickle down her cheek as she shared with us her account of Hurricane Katrina and all that followed it. It has been over two years and it still hurts these people to their very core, many can hardly discuss it without weeping, and there is so much to be done. But the thing to remember is that, beyond the tears, a smile is still cracked and life still carries on. She said we were her “angels.” She brought us food and laughed with us while we worked. She hugged every one of us and gave us her love. She let me play with her dog that survived the storm with her.
I gained so much more in this week spent outside New Orleans than I ever could have expected. From day one I was shocked at how devastated the area still looked. Some places where better than others, but there were still streets upon streets of abandoned houses, some not even gutted yet. X’s on the outside walls marked different things, some houses had things like “one dead dog” written on them. If you peaked inside some of the houses, you could see the remnants of their entire lives, torn apart and molded over, untouched since the storm. In the parish (a.k.a. county) where we worked, there was between about ten to 28 feet of water there after the levies broke. It soaked for almost three weeks. It was mostly areas outside of New Orleans that were hit the hardest, and that still need the most recovery help. Just down the street from where we stayed was the nursing home where 35 people were trapped and killed by the flooding. A local described to us his friend whose wife was killed there, who took his own life shortly after the news. He said this to us with a sigh as he went back to making the gumbo and continued to chat with us about ghosts and old legends that he still keeps alive in the aftermath.
We stayed at “Camp Hope,” a volunteer camp where many groups come to stay while they work with habitat for humanity of other projects. It is an abandoned middle school, and the deal Habitat has with the government is that it will fix of the school and get it running again (only 4 of 16 middle schools in the area are working). Along with being a functioning home for many volunteers, some of whom live and work there year-round, it is a place for some of the locals with nothing else to do, many of whom still live in their FEMA trailers, to hang out and work. Some of them volunteer their time cooking and helping out as well. They are all overwhelmingly friendly and do not hesitate to talk and share with us their stories, their heartbreaks. It is some form of therapy they tell me. I think people just want to know that they are heard, that they aren’t forgotten yet.
The thing I didn’t realize about all that went on that fall of 2005 was not just the detrimental effects of the broken levies but how poorly people were handled in the aftermath. Linda waited with her daughter(who was at the time four months pregnant) in her attic for a few days before “rescue”, and was taken from place to place sleeping in dirty clothes with little food and no comfort at all. The children had left for the weekend and they’d had no form of contact with them. They’d wade through water and sleep on bags of sugar and the like. She described waiting for pick-up in this one place outside the city for four days, each day being assured food and rescue was coming, but never seeing it. When they were on busses, one diabetic man died because he could not get his insulin. Not long after another elderly woman passed away. This was the trail of tears she described. This tedious journey of survival, with day in and day out of squalor, or diminishing hopes. But they made it through. And despite the troubles she faced, Linda managed to bring along her bird, Matilda, and dog, Romeo.
The media had portrayed the victims of the hurricane to be these untrustworthy people, like there were looters and rapists, like vermin. They were hardly like that at all, they were mostly just displaced families looking desperately for hope and escape, but they were not treated accordingly. The military called them “contaminated.” A deputy threatened her with a gun, she said. But all they wanted to were answers, warmth, and most importantly to find their children. I understand that in the urgency of thousands of people shouting from rooftops in dire need of help and no where to go things were bound to get out of hand, but it doesn’t seem to give much excuse. It was like there was no better way, but it seems as if there couldn’t have been a worse way either.
It took Linda and Kelly three weeks to be reunited with their two children. After that they lived in North Carolina for nine months before finally returning to Louisiana. They currently stay in a trailer up the street from a house Kelly purchased. The house that we are putting together for them. It is an arduous process, putting up insulation and drywall. But with every day I felt an amazing fulfillment. I was helping hang the walls of a home for five people that need will appreciate this warmth more than any people I could imagine.
When I get depressed thinking about the carnage and destruction that lies there, I try to keep in mind that there are still areas that have moved back on their feet. Business are moving. In a row of cold, empty houses you can sometimes find a warm household that has rebuilt itself. Some streets are filled with people, all working towards a similar goal. It is a meticulous process, and can be very heart-breaking for many. In fact, statistics showed an increase in the suicide rate of people moving back in to their houses after the storm. It seems like once they got back on their feet they didn’t know where to go from there. It is scary for many, and depressing to move in to a house on a street of abandoned and broken houses, but slowly people have dared to do it. They have put life back in to a city that almost drowned two years ago. There is a long, long, road ahead, and help is still needed immensely, but things are moving forward.
I am certainly intending on going back there. Maybe even for a summer. It is worried that the nation has somewhat forgotten, but help now is needed just as much as it was two years ago. Look up going if you have any interest, it is cheap and reasonably easy, and so worth the time. You know I go on and on about how one day I am going to save the world, but what I often forget to realize is that so many people are doing that every day. I am joining a crowd of world-savers in my efforts, and I hardly fill the part. But we do are best, don’t we.
Love Always, Sarah
Song of today: “Blackbird”
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