Hurricane Katrina City of New Orleans, my city of New Orleans has been devastated. The city of spirit and the joy of life has become in need. I don't have much, but anything I have I offer with open arms and an engaged heart to you. I have loved ones still (on Friday, September 2, 2005 at 11:12 EST) trapped in the French Quarter. They are safe and they can commandeered an apartment with a land line so they have been able to call me to get updates on what is happening. Last night at around 5 am my phone rang and it was Tedd. He voice was shaky and fearful and he told me that his group had just been woken up by a "huge fucking explosion" and he didn't know what it was. He asked if I could find out any information. I jumped online and started searching. I found some vague information that it was a fire in a rail car which triggered an explosion around Chartes Street. At that time I read to him some of the news that was coming from NOLA.com and wwltv.com from New Orleans. News that they were unable to retrieve since the city has no power. No power, no news telecasts. No newspaper either. They are posted up in the quarter just trying to be safe. They have heard about the looters with guns jumping people, but they haven't seen them. They have indicated that they have had to break into placed to get food and have done so to get gas for the vehicle that they are planning on using to try and get out of the city sometime today. Please. Stop what you are doing right now and send them some good mojo to help them and keep them safe on their exodus. Make a path for them and have it provided with all the staples they need for their journey. Do that for them, please. If you are the praying type, please pray. If you are the conjuring type, please conjure. If you are a cynical atheist, please contact your political representative and have them send some aid. I'm also putting together a space where some of the news coverage and blog links can be read covering some of the more realistic aspects of the events in New Orleans. The national news has a tendency of sensationalize the news and forgets to connect the dots between "terrible (but great photo-op) incidents" and "humanitarian efforts". The local news is wwltv.com and has a vested interest in the people, places and things that make New Orleans what she is. I've found their post-Katrina reporting clear and evocative. NOLA.com is generally a web site I use to find out what's cooking in NOLA when I visit (and when I don't). I've been able to keep up on my home city from a distance so it never feels too far from my heart. NOLA.com has used it's space to link Times-Picuyane coverage of the city's newspaper, a ton of message boards which post 1) what's going on, 2) who's missing and have you seen them or know where they are, 3) and "I'm Okay" message board to post that you are safe and other things like 4) Katrina housing, where people who are able to open their hearts and houses up to those who need housing after they've been displaced. They also have a ton of photo galleries illustrating some of what New Orleans now looks like. I've heard some really stupid and ignorant comments lately from people up here regarding what has happened. I was in a class at the university on Thursday and the situation was brought up and a 20 year old undergraduate student with her perfect nails and perfect hair said in a very patronizing tone of voice "well I don't know why we would bother sending aid to a bunch of people who live in a soup bowl below sea level who weren't smart enough to leave when a hurricane was coming their way. DUH!" I practiced a bit of Tonglen meditation before I raised my hand to respond. When I did it was something like this; "New Orleans is my home city. Yes, part of it lie below sea level and we know that. We know intimately about the levee systems which hold the waters of Lake Pontrichan to the north, the Mississippi river to the East and the Gulf of Mexico to the South and Southwest. We know that every hurricane season we can expect 2-6 storms of significant proportion that we'll have to endure. Stock up on food and water. We fill the bathtub up and all the sinks in case the water is undrinkable following the storm. If the storm is a big 'un, we gas up the car or hitch a ride with others and spend a few days with friends or at a hotel. Hurricanes are big honking storms, but they move slow and we usually get a few weeks that we can watch and prepare for them. We get out the plywood and We know that the levee system indicated that it can withstand a Category 3 storm. Katrina was a Cat 4 storm. Katrina wasn't even forecast to cause New Orleans any problem until FRIDAY. That gave the residents of New Orleans THREE DAYS to prepare for this monster. New Orleans is a beautiful city. It's also a very poor city. Everyone who had the money to get out, got out. Anyone who had a car and the gas to evacuate, evacuated. Very few people would want to go through a Cat 4 storm. Some people say they would, but they haven't been through one. The last direct hit from a hurricane in New Orleans was in 1965. I believe that was a Category 2 storm. So for the past 40 years we have been going through hurricane season year after year with the storms veering to the east at the last minute, or the storms loosing intensity before they come ashore to our beloved city. This one veered a little east, but it didn't lose intensity. When it hit. NOLA was in the west wall of the storm. That's the place most protected from the fierce winds. I talked to friends just after the storm. They were happy. It wasn't as bad as they thought it would be. Early on Tuesday morning one of the earthen canals gave way. The waters didn't top the levee system which was always the fear from the storm surge of the hurricanes. That worked like a charm. The earthen canal levee became too saturated with water and the weight of the water from the storm pushed out on those dirt and sand walls and something gave way. The levee collapsed and the waters burst through spilling all the water from the Lake Pontrichan into the "below sea level" areas of the city. Most everything got wet. This is when things broke down. Power failed and the grid was destroyed. Cell towers were down or were at isolated locations that could not be reached to repair. The waters continued to rise all of Tuesday, when people who thought they just needed to get through a few hours of the storm before they could go get some food, found themselves without food and supplies and started breaking into the stores for supplies. Supply runs turned into looting in short order, as it was realized by a population of people who have never had anything in the many generations their families have existed in New Orleans, found out that no power means no alarms. No alarms means no police. The police were busy with search and recovery in the area, and to be honest they probably weren't going to be too alarmed at someone taking some cold cuts and milk out of a food cooler before it went bad anyway. But a people with no opportunity will seize any opportunity that presents itself. They found out that they could go raid stores and steal shit. A flat screen television became their version of the holy grail. Forget that there is no power and won't be for perhaps months. Forget that you can't even take it down to the pawn show for some money. No, it is an icon of the american dream. It is something that every american SHOULD have. Y' know, it's a shame that it's come to what it has, and I do not subscribe to the ideology of exploiting every situation that presents itself. I'm a nobel person and I try to conduct myself with integrity. However I am not upset that the looter HAS a flat-panel TV. With what he's experience in life and the limitations he's incurred, he probably deserves it. Call it his 40 acres and a mule compensation. But it's the MINDSET that is coexisting with procuring that TV. The pissing contest mentality of "if I'm not top dawg I'm getting stepped on." Bottom line is this. We as a country have a situation to support. A disaster that requires us to keep our hearts open and to be of service in any manner we can contribute. If you have money, give of your money. If you don't, give of your time. Connect with the people you know and get them to contribute. If we all give a little it'll make all this a little bit easier than needing to go it alone. C' mon people now, smile at your brother, everybody get together we gotta love one another right now... I refrained from adding with biting sarcasm how I was so relieved to hear that a 20 year old chippie from the university of akron in the great state of Ohio had this situation all under control in her mind and that I felt a need to call the FEMA agency in Baton Rouge and tell them that we have a great mind up here who could get this situation all wrapped up and if her daddy who had probably paid for her tuition, rent, multi-textural hair coloring at a sa-loooon and her lovely air-brush designed nail, could find it in his wallet to charter her a helicopter (since all transportation into and out of the city via railways, airports or vehicles has been rendered useless) she's be right down to help FEMA out with her big 'honking brain. Whoop Whoop. |