Did We Survive Hurricane Katrina or Not?

It has been months since I have really written anything for the blog. I have blogged news articles and made a comment here or there. I’ve blogged pictures or blow-by-blow descriptions of irritating home-improvement (when anything is an improvement) projects.

How long has it been, though, since any of it has really come from me?

I could claim to be busy – as a matter of fact I have claimed to be busy. It’s not true though, folks. I’m not busy. There’s homeschool and the teething Emily and the perpetual-motion that is Yvonne – but there are also deafeningly quiet moments when time drags on .

Those were the moments when I used to blog. Now I spend them thinking about it… Tempted to write something again… But I always stop myself. And time drags on even more slowly then.

There is very little I could write that I haven’t already written. There is nothing I could write that hasn’t already been written by someone somewhere.

Once upon a time, there was a hurricane that carried an enormous tidal wave on its back. Together they destroyed a huge chunk of the coastline of the northern Gulf of Mexico. In the process, many people were killed… many people were injured… many people lost everything… many people had their hearts broken. People were scared and alone. But then the cavalry arrived. There were helicopters and trucks full of food and water and medical supplies. They swooped in on the injured areas with stunning speed and efficiency. They removed the dead – treated the wounded – reopened our roads and set up central command offices for the coordination of relief efforts. The trucks drove through neighborhoods distributing ice and water and even food to those who were unable to get to a distribution point. They passed out tents and flashlights to those who had resorted to sleeping in their driveways under damp blankets. All around there was the rumble of heavy machinery and the buzz of chainsaws. There were touching moments (they make great photo layouts in major news magazines) when a camoflauged soldier put down his gun for a moment to hold a weeping woman… The children never tired of waving their little American flags each time the trucks rolled through the neighborhood. Everyone knew – as bad as things had been… they were only going to get better now.

That’s the stuff of news articles. That’s the stuff that people like to read. That’s the sort of thing I would blog about. That is – if it were true.

But you see – everything after the part about people being scared and alone is myth. These fantasies are bits and pieces of my memories as a child and a young adult following disasters in our area. I remember stepping out into my front yard about three weeks after Hurricane Georges swept through to the east of Gulfport and watching the National Guard trucks roll down my street. One guardsman shouted from the window of the truck as they passed asking if I needed anything. I was alright. And I thought to myself “Okay – this is really cool.” And I felt a surge of pride in my country.

Those trucks came through that neighborhood every day for weeks. Down a street where there was little more than tree damage and downed power lines. Weeks. Every day. They patrolled at night to keep looters at bay and distributed ice and water to the elderly.

I think we had every reason to expect the same or more following Katrina.

The government responded slowly, if at all. It made headlines. Not so much the storm as the criticism of the government’s response or the heated partisan debates about who didn’t do what and when. In the meantime, people were still scared and alone.

Time passed and there were no more headlines. But nothing had changed. The dead remained dead – and more died everyday. Some from injuries or lingering diseases left untreated too long… Some from exhaustion or broken hearts – many by their own hands. They aren’t included in the official death toll. There is no official death toll anymore.

The rescue operations ended before they started. Most people climbed off their rooftops on their own when the water receded. It has been 331 days since our family made a hundred desperate calls to 9-1-1 and we’re still waiting for someone to knock on our door and see if we are alive. It has been 329 days since we ran out of ice and water and we’re still waiting to see the first National Guard truck rumble through the neighborhood with supplies.

No, it’s true. We don’t need to be rescued anymore. We don’t need the ice or water. We survived.

The problem is that is about all that can be said for anyone down here these days: They survived. Since that initial survival – what else has happened?

I never mean to downplay the efforts of the people involved with church groups and charitable organizations who have made long trips and devoted even longer hours to trying to help people with their very real needs… It is a fantastic thing. It makes for superb human interest stories in the local paper. But I have to wonder – for every one of those fairy-tale endings we read about – how many hundreds more are still waiting for the first glimmer of hope?

It’s too big – too widespread – for grassroots efforts or selective programs. It’s like putting a band-aid on a shotgun wound.

Last August I didn’t think anything was too big for the United States of America. That was last August.

Shame on me for rehashing the events of almost a year ago today. Shame on me for not looking forward – forging ahead – keeping my chin up. Shame on me for seeming cynical… bitter… disillusioned.

I know what I am supposed to say and I know how I am supposed to feel… But as time marches on I find it harder and harder to say it – let alone feel it. Still, sometimes it’s simply easier to spout the expected platitudes or – as I’ve done so much lately – just fall altogether silent – than it is to express what’s really going on.

Yes. I do feel sorry for myself. I feel sorry for my kids. I feel sorry for my husband. I feel sorry for my mother. I feel sorry for the entire Gulf Coast. We lost a lot more than family photos or furniture or walls – we lost our security. There is no ‘safe place.’ There is no cavalry. There is nothing but the stark reality that everything we know can be gone in the blink of an eye.

To be continued…