This is gonna be a long one, y’all.
It’s all so surreal now, I remember everything; events, emotions, reactions, but after this much time & distance from it, it also just feels like a dream, well, a nightmare, really…
About a year after Katrina, I remember standing on the 3rd floor of UNO library talking to a janitor that I’d become friends with over the years of working at the University of New Orleans. We swapped horror stories & what was left of our homes, family, etc. And, we both discussed the city’s projections about how we probably wouldn’t be anywhere near what the city was like Pre-K for at least 5-7 years. That was the most daunting notion, I’m a patient person, but 5-7 years?! That seemed like a lifetime away. But, we were both committed to being back in nola, being back home. So, we’d tough it out, which we did, along with so many others.
I returned back to the city relatively early, October 2005, as soon as electricity was back uptown & the water was potable. I’d spent a month & a half like many other Katrina evacuees, as a nomad for the first few weeks, bouncing from friends’ & family’s homes in North Carolina & South Carolina. There just wasn’t enough room for us (I was with my Mom) to stay at these places for very long. We finally made our way to Memphis, my Mom’s old friend from college has a huge house & lives on his own. When my mom got in touch with him, he told us to come on over! Although it was hard watching the coverage on the news & feeling so helpless, we spent a lovely month in Memphis. Our friend was so hospitable, & charming, a real lover of culture, so we got along quite well. We were so fortunate to have him open up his home to us & Memphis was great to all the Katrina evacuees that had ended up there. But, it wasn’t home. And, in the famous words of Louis Armstrong, I know what it means to miss New Orleans.
In the first moths after the storm, I remember driving home (back uptown) from work out by the Lakefront & wandering through what I called, “no man’s land”. It absolutely was as if we were living in what had been a war zone. The national guard walking through the middle of the streets carrying rifles, heaps of trash 3 stories high, devastated homes, the now iconic neon x’s that had been spray painted on doors by rescue workers after searching homes for survivors or bodies. The city had early curfews, residents relied on the grapevine to find out what grocery stores & gas stations were open. Most of us were living out of ice chests b/c our refrigerators were a lost cause, just taped up & ready to be put out on the curb. One friend actually took on the mission of documenting as many fridges as possible out on the streets b/c many were using them to voice their frustrations with messages like, “Rotten to the Corps”.
My Mom & I both worked at UNO library, which was under the LSU system. Fortunately, working for the state paid off. We still had our jobs & even continued to get paid through direct deposit into our bank accounts. Of course, our workplace was off limits for a while, so those of us back in town took turns working shifts for the library manning 2 computer desks inside a small computer lab in UNO’s Jefferson Campus on Causeway Blvd. in Metairie. The Jefferson campus became UNO’s hub until the Lakefront campus was reopened in December 2005. Even when we returned to campus, we lost power constantly, most of the offices had been ripped apart (by survivors that had been dropped on the campus temporarily after being rescued from the floodwaters). But, I was thankful to have a job, & working at UNO had always been about making the best out of a bad situation, working with very limited resources, & little financial support.
My personal losses from the storm were mixed. I’d lived in a 2nd floor apartment in Broadmoor, a neighborhood that took on about 8ft. of water. Fortunately, most of my personal belongings were high & dry on the 2nd floor of a house that took on about 5ft. of water on the 1st floor. My downstairs neighbors weren’t so lucky.
My mother lived just blocks away from UNO’s Lakefront campus & the London Ave. Canal breach on the 1st floor of a little rental house. Mom lost everything. A few weeks after we returned home, we put on our mud boots, masks, & gloves w/a group of my friends & made our way through her place. I took pictures to document for Mom’s renter’s insurance (although her losses added up to double what her insurance covered). The ceiling had caved in on a portion of the house, where the ceiling remained in tact, ceiling fans hung like filthy wilted flower petals. Rotten chicken from my mom's freezer hung from one fan blade. Beds from the back of the house had made their way into the living room in the front of her home. My friends insisted that we try to salvage a few items, it was easier for them to be impartial, b/c me & my mom were still just sorta stunned. I remember a small van of tourists passing & taking photos as we sorted through items on what had once been the front lawn. I looked at them with such disdain. I was conflicted, I know they were curious & the more they saw, the more the rest of the country learned about what was left in Katrina’s aftermath. But, I also felt violated, this wasn’t a tourist attraction, it was our broken lives, it was personal! I’d never been on that side of the glass, so to speak. It was eye opening to say the least.
As for the rest of my family, my father, a retired attorney, had taken over my grandfather’s business a few years before the storm which consisted of over 50 rental properties in the uptown & Broadmoor areas. 95% of the properties were flooded (including my home) & we didn’t have flood insurance. My father’s home was high & dry just off St. Charles Ave., or as locals began to call it, “the isle of denial”. However my father & my family’s income was gone. My grandmother had just moved into a nursing home 2 months before the storm & the bills were piling up.
Of course, I still looked at my own situation & considered myself relatively fortunate. My family & I had evacuated the city in time, none of us had to ride out the hurricane in our homes or were trapped for days even weeks by polluted flood waters. All of my family was safe & back in the city. I had a place to stay, my grandmother’s home was also high & dry just off St. Charles Ave. (and empty since she was now in a nursing home). My old place was still uninhabitable, there wasn’t power or water in Broadmoor & my old neighborhood was pretty desolate for the 1st year after Katrina. I watched the news & read the Times Picayune religiously, keeping up with the city’s struggles to come back, or well, just to keep it’s head above water (no pun intended). There were so many others that lost so much more & weren’t even able to return to the city for months, even years after Katrina. I had a lot of survivor’s guilt, much of which, I drowned in bottles of wine with my friends each evening. I was still so relieved to be with my friends back in my city. During the mandatory evacuation, I wondered when I’d ever see them again, we were spread out all over the country & for a while, no one knew when they'd be back home.
Even a year later, most of the trash & devastated homes (especially out by the lake & 9th ward) were all there, just as they were immediately after the storm. Traffic & street lights still didn’t function, most streets didn’t have street signs, creating a great deal of confusion among all the outsiders that had come down to rebuild. I turned onto Nashville Ave. one day & a huge pick-up truck almost drove head on into my car. The guy was driving the wrong direction down my side of the neutral ground! Besides that danger on the streets, most of the time I was worried I’d get a flat tire from driving over piles of nails & other debris. AAA wasn’t around to come to our rescue back then, so getting stuck with a flat tire in the middle of the night was a real possibility. The city was a broken shell of its former self. Nevertheless, we all became accustomed to it & trudged through each day.
Every year I’ve become a bit more numb to the harsh realities of post-K life in nola. Not that it wasn’t upsetting, but I’d just gotten used to it. And, it didn’t help to break down all the time, we were focused on moving on. Not that I didn’t have my break downs, believe me, I could burst into tears at the drop of a hat…at home after reading some article in the paper or thinking of some childhood memory & realizing we no longer had those pictures & the places these memories were made were still devastated. Honestly, I even held a little resentment towards my friends that didn’t grow up here, especially those that didn’t lose their homes or jobs. Even though they had to deal with the evacuation & poorly functioning city, they didn’t lose their hometown. It simply seemed like a temporary inconvenience to some. I stayed in nola b/c I love my hometown; I have great memories growing up here & have continued to make more wonderful memories as an adult in the same city. But, I felt like it was more personal to nola natives, even though all nola residents share the same love & pride for our city. This resentment was not something that I ever expressed vocally to any of these friends, but I think they picked up on it.
Now, looking back on the early years after Katrina, I realize how much has changed in the city & for me personally. I’ve stopped using the terms “pre-K” & “post-K” on an every day basis. I’m used to having grocery stores, gas stations, & all the other modern amenities & creature comforts at my finger tips. The streetcar runs down St. Charles again, hearing the screeching of the rails & ringing bell from my bedroom feels normal again. When I bring myself back to those early months, & even years, after Katrina, I wonder if I take all this for granted now. I know how easily you can lose all of it, yet I carry on my day expecting all these conveniences to be there. Most of us are past that point of just keeping our heads above water, now we’re actually living our lives, enjoying our lives…which is the real New Orleans way.
I view disasters in other parts of the country & the world in a totally different light now. I’ve always had compassion & sympathy for those going through such a tragedy. However, now I know what it feels like. Now, I know that no matter how hard & miserable it all is, that eventually, with time, it can get better. And, this is coming from a self-proclaimed pessimist, people!
Becoming a tour guide has really helped me appreciate having my city back on a whole new level. I experience so much more of what makes this city unique & enchanting on a regular basis. And, even better, I get to share it with others that haven’t experienced it before & don’t have the privilege of being able to enjoy it all the time. The music, the FOOD, the amazing history, the close-knit community, the small town in a big city, the southern hospitality…the JOIE DE VIVRE!!
So, 6 years later, just as I was before Katrina, I’m proud to call New Orleans home.
