The Anniversay of.......

So, I am a New Orleanian. I'll just get that over with right now. Lots of people don't like to reveal their location, but as this thread is about Hurricane Katrina, I might as well dispatch with my location immediately....though, I've never hidden that on this forum in many instances.

Having said that, this is the anniversary of said hurricane. You could have been in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabamba and/or Florida.......or Floribama.....what's defined as the border between those two states, a unique place all it's own.

There is not one of those states that were not affected by that massive storm. Not one. Not only that, when I-10 east and west shut down from LA to Florida, and most of Louisiana flooded, especially after another hurricane only two weeks later, that decimated the rest of the state that had not already been affected, and help was long in coming, the refineries here, shut down. Gas prices soared in this country. You see, we not only have a major number of refineries here, we also have the distinction in this state of having the oil storage emergency reserves......something somewhat related these days to that sinkhole in Assumption Parish you may have read about lately..... It's related, but who knows how directly,as the map of the reserve is not exactly floating around for anyone to see.

I only bring all that into it, for much of this nation relies upon this state, in terms of hydrocarbon storage, and refinement, much less drilling….as we have many wells right off our coast. And I bring that up because it seemed to many of us that help didn't really arrive till people started to realize what they would do without if it weren't for what was happening here.

Now, I'm getting off my topic here, in a way. Because what I really want to get to in this thread, is the people in this state and the other Gulf states I mentioned, chiming in about where their lives are now, since this penultimate moment, at least for the people of this city, who still leave water lines intact in some places, just as a reminder, of what it is we all went through....

Maybe you are asking yourself, why would you even want to remember such a thing, so long after, etc.....
I'll tell you why. In this city, it's kind of a litmus test, if you will, there is before that event, and after....
In other words, "this is what I did and where I was before Katrina, but then that happened, and this is what I do now......

I used to live on the coast In Mississippi. Everything there was judged by Hurricane Camille, 1969. Everything. It was their litmus, such as Katrina is New Orleans'. Hell and High Water were the headlines of our local paper here for several days, themselves, evacuated to Baton Rpuge, trying to put out a paper that described what was happening to this city......

For my personal part, I have never seen anything so close to an apocalyptic event, and I have lived through a direct hit hurricane on the beach, Category 3, In MS long before this. But it was no comparison to Katrina. None, whatsoever. And I know it wasn't in MS, either.......as I've been back, went through there eight days after the storm, after enough cell towers were operational again, so that I knew my daughter was still alive. I sent her there with her father, when I saw on Sunday night as the storm came in, that it was making a direct bead on New Orleans, even though it was some 300 miles across, which meant it would hit New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, as well, only separted by some 90 miles, if that. But still, he could take her north there, where I could not here. But that's how long it took me to reach them, to know she was even still alive......

And that's just my story. And that's not even half of it. As I'm sure many could figure out. When I heard from her finally, it was midnight, and I got in a car and drove I-12, to backroads as I-10 in that whole southern corridor was closed, just trying to get there to make sure she was okay. I've never seen anything like it in my life, and probably never will. 2 AM and there was traffic like you wouldn't believe, people driving, just driving, somewhere, anywhere, displaced, totally; trees bent over touching the ground all in the same direction, the way the wind bent them. People on the road, out of gas, no money, not knowing what to do, where to go........

This thread is not intended to be a tragic reminder, but a thereapeutic, only gathering of folks who were affected, whose lives were changed forever, for good and for bad.......and some of us, I think, at first, for extreme bad, but perhaps there is some good now.

So I offer it in that spirit: for it was damn hard for many of us, and many did not even survive.....Many of us thought this city would not survive. Many said it shouldn't. And many of us stayed the course, through choice or through not having anywhere else to go, or trying to salvage what was left of our lives. I think this is a commendable struggle to remember, and therapeutic, as all those states I mention had victims, devestation, and what time other than now, to gather together and remember, reflect, and be grateful for our survival and recognize what we came through?

Tetra50