It's like it's gone.

I’m gonna put this out there once, and then I’m going to leave it alone.

I didn’t think that this week would bother me. It has come up every year for the last 10. But, it’s been okay. You think about it a little and then move on to whatever else is happening in life. In 2008, we had the first real threat of a storm since Katrina. When I got home from work on the day the alerts went out, Shawn had already packed. His words, “If we’re going to go through this again, we’re gonna do it in the happiest damn place on earth”. We picked the boys up from school and drove to Disney World. And it was great. On the way home, we found out that we had no damage, but no power either, so we stopped in Pensacola and I spent my 30^th birthday on the beach. We’ve done it a couple of times since then and even rode out a category 1 at home. Home, at that time, was on the ridge in Old Metairie. I can do wind and trees and no power, but I cannot do water.

I’m realizing now that my shoulders are tense as I’m typing this and I have to remind myself to breathe. So, let’s get in to it.

The summer of 2005 was a whirlwind for our little family. Shawn had finished college the year before and we were really missing living in New Orleans. We’d been on the Northshore for three years while Shawn was in school and the move back was long overdue. We put the house on the market and it sold in two days. We moved out of the little house in Madisonville and into our place in Lakeview in June 2005. It was a cute little 1950s ranch-cottage thing at the corner of Spencer and Fleur de Lis. I started a new job as the store director at Ann Taylor and Shawn registered for grad school. Maddux started 1^st grade at Hynes. Thorin was almost 3. There were entirely too many things happening for us and anxieties were running high.

We watched the storm with the same level of interest as most- part morbid fascination, part concern for the hassle that these things always caused. Evacuating is a pain in the ass. Staying is, too. If you’re not stuck on an interstate with nowhere to even pee, then you’re stuck at home where nothing is open, the power is likely out, and it’s hot as Hades. City officials are usually pretty good about exercising caution with their information about hurricanes. They want people to be safe, but, around here, if you pull the evacuation trigger, and the storm turns or dissipates, you catch absolute hell. People get so pissed about inconveniences, that it’s impossible to convince them that anything about it was in their best interest. But this time, they didn’t mince words. This one, they thought, could be the one we’d all been warned about for decades.

Anyone who has worked in retail knows, when there is an emergency, the mall dictates the closures, and their decisions are usually dependent on what their anchor stores choose to do. As a small retailer, somewhere in the halls of shallow commerce, you can do little but wait for word from The Man. On Saturday, August 27^th, as I got ready to go into work, Jefferson Parish was already under a voluntary evacuation order. New Orleans was still waiting to give the order but had advised people to go if they could. Shawn was packing and was irritated that I would even consider going in. But the mall hadn’t closed, so my company wasn’t closing the store yet and I knew that my employees would wait for word from me. So I went in. After a couple of hours, my company, thankfully, made the call without the mall’s consent. And that was it- the last time it made sense to do something by the book.

We had two vehicles at the time- an SUV and a Honda Civic. The decision to take the SUV was a no-brainer: it would be much more comfortable and these evacuation trips could take for-frickin-ever. Photos and documents were put into huge plastic containers and those were put on top of the washing machine, in case any water got in the house. We packed three days of comfy clothes, a blanket, and a few toys for the boys. The back of the truck was barely half full. At 3pm, we hit the road to Baton Rouge to stay with Shawn’s aunt and uncle. By “hit the road”, I mean pulled onto the parking lot that was I-10 and sat there. It took an hour to get from Lakeview to Veterans Blvd so we pulled off the interstate to get snacks. We realized, at the gas station, that contraflow- all roads leading outbound only- was about to be put into effect. So, instead of getting back on the interstate, we pulled around the overpass and drove up the exit ramp. There were about six cars with us on that ramp and the state police were waving us off and telling us to turn around in no uncertain terms. Shawn simply said no and didn’t budge. Within five minutes, helicopters were flying overhead and sirens went off all over and the exit ramp was cleared to let us through. We were the third car in the contraflow and we made it to Baton Rouge in under an hour.

Thrilled with our traveling success, we settled in at MaryLou and Lucien’s house and thought we’d spend a few days visiting and then head back home. After the summer we’d had, it was a nice break. But the storm was ever-present on the television as the backdrop to our conversation. And it wasn’t turning. We had dinner and went to bed wondering if this could really be a big deal for us, for all of us. Shawn woke up before me and when I came out of the room, clearing my eyes, I could see that he, as well as MaryLou and Lucien, had a concerned look. The television was on again- Katrina was now a Cat 5 and was heading straight for the mouth of the Mississippi. For the first time, I wondered if Baton Rouge was even safe.

Sunday night the winds picked up. The news had reported that people were being sheltered at the Superdome and the thoughts-of-inconvenience went to how much damage could be caused to the dome with that many people staying in there for a couple of days. There was absolutely no indication as to how dire the situation would become. Our own thoughts turned to Shawn’s sister and grandparents. His sister and her husband were living in New Orleans, as well, and we hadn’t heard from them yet. His grandparents had elected to stay at their home in Gibson, outside of Houma. The house had a bayou on one side and a swamp on the other and was way out in Terrebonne Parish so we were somewhat concerned. But, they had some experience- they’d been in South Louisiana for hurricanes Betsy, Camille, and Andrew- a hefty bunch- and they were staying put.

We lost power on Monday. We had an ice chest, a battery-powered radio and a small black and white antenna tv- the kind you might have out at a camp, and I’m sure that’s why Lucien had it. But there was very little news coming out of New Orleans. The thing that I remember most about that day was not knowing anything. It was maddening. There were satellite images and the storm had turned running just to the east of New Orleans and that seemed like good news. But there was no power in the city and local satellites were down so finding out about New Orleans from inside the city itself was difficult. And there was no other communication either. If the popularity of texting could be traced to specific events, Katrina would be the southern epicenter. Every time you tried to place a call, landline or cell phone, the lines were full. It just would not go through. You’d spend an hour hitting redial just hoping that it would eventually ring.

When I finally made contact with a friend in Lafayette, it took me a long time to make sense of what she was saying- “They’re saying there’s a breach in the 17^th Street Canal”. I remember asking what canal that was, certain that she didn’t mean the one two blocks from my house. When she clarified that it was the one near my house, I asked which side it had broken on. After a pause, she said, “They’re reporting flooding in Lakeview”. I told Shawn what she said but I think we were in a state of confusion. I mean, this is worst case scenario and everybody knows those protocols are just set up to scare people into being safe. We heard from Shawn’s grandmother that she was seeing the same thing on the news. Ironically, though we were concerned for them staying home, his grandparents had power and cable and were comfortable, while we had no power and very little information.

On Tuesday morning, we loaded the truck and went to Shawn’s grandparents. The drive south took us past loads of downed trees and torn roofs. It was scary- it was the stuff that belonged in photographs from hurricanes we’d never personally endured. The drive was kind of slow, but we eventually made it to Gibson. When we walked into the house, I walked into the front to put some things down and then back out to the sun porch (all-season room, whatever you want to call it) and CNN was on the television. There were men in a boat in a neighborhood and, oh god, it was so bad and these were the first images that we’d seen from inside the city. Those poor people…but after a moment, they rounded a corner and I saw the sign for the Robert Grocery that was down the street from us and all you could see was the sign and the top of the strip center that it was in and I realized, for the first time, that I was looking at Lakeview. My breath caught in my throat as they rounded another corner and I saw the house on the other corner from mine. It was an odd house- the second floor looked like it should’ve been the first floor. So, in the water, it looked like a one-story home that was resting on the water with maybe a foot of water inside. I don’t remember much except the realization hitting me that this was the top floor and that our one story place was beneath the waves. And I remember Shawn’s grandmother catching me when my legs went out from under me.

So that was it- we’d lost it all. For three weeks, water sat in Lakeview while they tried to close the breach. In my mind, I worked out little situations where it wasn’t so bad. Maybe the house was water-tight. Maybe some of the stuff- the plastic photo boxes- floated and were safe. We were numb. We had no clothes, no available bank accounts, one car, no school. After a few weeks, my company asked me to come up to Birmingham and work in a store there. They’d never stopped paying me. So, we went. We stayed at the Wynfrey and I worked at the connected mall. We bought new clothes and thought about what we’d do. When the water receded, we were sent some pictures of our house. The water line was about three feet below the peek of the roof. The car was still in the carport. Both the car and the house had the now-iconic Katrina X on them, indicating that they’d been searched for survivors/pets/bodies.

We moved into Jefferson Parish when it reopened. Found an apartment by bringing over a hefty cash deposit and put Maddux in school- we were allowed to just choose which one we wanted to bring him to because there would be no bus and district lines didn’t matter anymore. We slept on the floor of that apartment until ordered furniture was received and started buying what we needed. I remember the weirdness of being married with two kids and having to buy salt and pepper shakers and utensils. In our case, FEMA came through. We were able to navigate the mountain of paperwork and had some funds pretty quickly. You just sort of had to keep your head down, read everything, and figure it out, because there was no help to be had. We’re pretty resilient people, but the emotional strain is a monster. What followed were many hard years. We were changed. And, for me especially, it would take a long time to really bounce back. I didn’t even connect the Katrina dots to my emotional health until several years later.

 

And we were the lucky ones. We didn’t lose anybody.

Shawn’s sister rode out the storm in her apartment uptown with her husband and the cats. When the storm passed and things didn’t seem right in the neighborhood, they loaded up the car and drove over the bridge and right on out of the city. All of our friends had some amount of damage, but no one died. Driving back through our old neighborhood when we were allowed, I cried and quietly shook my head at all of the holes in the rooftops where people had to break out of their homes. I cried for those who hadn’t gotten out.

I remember Shawn asking his aunt, who lives in Charlotte, what the rest of the country saw. What was the feeling in other parts of the US? And I remember that she said that it’s like they lost an entire US city.

 

"It’s like it’s gone."

Two years ago, we bought another home in Lakeview. This one is raised and has a second floor. Earlier this month we bought a Honda for the first time since the sad little Civic. Thorin just started 8^th grade at Hynes, which was torn down and rebuilt into a beautiful facility after the storm. Maddux is a junior at the once-devastated Benjamin Franklin High School. Shawn works and I am in school. Everywhere we look and everywhere we go- in our neighborhood and in Mid-City at our favorite pub- everywhere in general, there are reminders of Katrina. Every place has a story. But we don’t see the story anymore. Maybe the most resilient part of us, as a community, is that Katrina doesn’t define us. In our day-to-day, we aren’t haunted.

In the last few days, I’ve felt the need to stay busy, but I’ve gotten little done. It feels like it’s coming- deep inside. So, while I think it’s important to remember, and to try and get it right if we’re ever faced with these decisions again, please understand if I don’t participate in the celebration of how far we’ve come. For me, it’s more important to think of it as where I am, without tracing my successes back to rock-bottom. I will celebrate today for the present and for tomorrow, but I cannot go back to the songs and sounds of that month or those years and I don’t think I’m alone in wishing we could just skip ahead to next week.

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