After the Aftermath

When a disaster strikes anywhere in the world, it appears that most of humanity rises to the occasion and rushes to the aid of those most affected by tragedy. Even where governments and institutions fail – plain ol’ people pick up the slack.

Here in our neighborhood in Pascagoula, Mississippi we waited for the rescue helicopters and for the food drops. We waited for medical personnel. We waited for FEMA and we waited for the Red Cross. We even waited for 911 to return our calls – but no one was there.
For four days we rationed our emergency supplies of food and water while trudging through our flood-water soaked home and trying to salvage what we could to keep our sanity. We exchanged words of commiseration with our neighbors and offered to share whatever we had left. No source of fresh food, no running water, no transportation, and very little communication with the outside world. Our greatest consolation came from the garbled and choppy cell phone calls we were able to make to friends and relatives over the course of those four days, even if just to say “We are still here - don’t forget us!”

But at the end of the week hope started pouring in. It didn’t come on a helicopter or a national guard truck or even on AirForce One. It came from a neighbor knocking on our door to tell us she was a nurse and asking us what we needed. It came from another neighbor running through our yard to tell us, “A truck is here. Our friends sent a truck full of supplies – come take what you need!” One after another, they came bearing boxes of diapers and bottles of water.

Eventually FEMA came too. And the Red Cross. They passed out paperwork and pork n’ beans in a can. But at least they were here. The helicopters began to fly over and church groups set up distribution centers for food, water, and essentials. The news was inundated with reports from the Katrina Disaster Area. (Even though this area was usually defined as “New Orleans and surrounding areas” we were hopeful at least that someone might pass through and give us a hand on their way to Louisiana.) The Mormons came in great numbers and worked feverishly helping people clean up and distributing all manner of goods to those in need. Debris trucks roared through the neighborhoods late into the night – crunching what had once been our prized possessions into unidentifiable chunks of material and dropping it unceremoniously Three weeks after the storm, the Navy arrived with their hospital ship and fanned out through the community to let us know, “We’re here and we’re ready to work!” We even heard that the President of the United States made a visit to Pascagoula, although he didn’t stop by our house.
All too quickly, the distribution centers gave way to traveling vendors selling their wares and stands selling “I Survived the Big One” t-shirts stood outside the littered ground where the make-shift relief centers once stood. The local Wal-mart opened for limited hours and so generously pointed out that they would be accepting Red Cross vouchers – in the event you were in dire need of some essential item. Out-of-state contractors descended upon the neighborhoods like crop-starved locusts and littered the 15-foot high debris piles with hand-made signs boasting of their services. Sight-seers were sure to cut us off in traffic and make dirty gestures as a sign of victory and superiority as they raced into our neighborhoods to pick through our unguarded possessions in search of something valuable.

For heaven's sake - they stole our kitten.

Now even most of the bloodsuckers and voyeurs have moved on to fresher victims. I have noticed the word 'Katrina' no longer appears on the Yahoo! search page and I watched a full evening of news without catching even a passing remark about our situation here. I suppose we aren't headline fodder anymore.

This is when the depression sets in. What has really changed? There are blue tarps on the rooftops here and there and the piles of debris are only chest high in most places now. But our friends are still completely homeless and displaced. Our children still struggle through school each day with no textbooks and empty libraries. We still have $90,000 in uninsured damages to our home and possessions and we still have no clue where we are going to come up with even a quarter of it to cover the basic repairs. We are resigned to living here as is because it is truly the only thing we can do. And we wait. We don't know what we're waiting for. We only know to wait for something - anything - to happen.

The later it gets the deeper the depression becomes.. another day of waiting has passed - but to no avail.

I just want my life back. We don't need a dining room table. I don't even need shoes. What I want is to wake up in the morning and let Yvonne run around the living room and play with her toys while I get the baby clean and dressed. I want to clean the bathrooms and fold clothes and make beds all day. I want to pack the babies in the stroller and walk down the street to meet the boys as they come home from school. I could start dinner and help George & William with their homework while I get dinner ready and then we could all wait for Daddy to come home. That's what I want.

But Yvonne can't run around the living room because the floors are cold and dirty and hard. She skins her knees and tears the bottom of her feet on the carpet tack randomly scattered here and there. It's impossible to baby proof a house with exposed wiring and no doors. Besides, Yvonne doesn't have her toys to play with anymore - the mold kept growing back no matter how many times I soaked them in bleach. She spends her days mostly in her playpen or in her highchair now - and she's as tired of it as I am. We tried taking walks outside when Emily was sleeping in the beginning - but after I pulled the third roofing nail out of the bottom of her shoe I decided it wasn't worth it. I can't fold the clothes anyway -- there is no where to keep folded clothes. I hang as many as I can but we're short on clothes hangers and most of the closet bars were removed to strip the sheetrock. We can't walk to school anymore without a stroller -- oh yeah and I would imagine a longer walk would increase the roofing nail risk.

I can find something good here. Most days I do. We are lucky. Very lucky to have a roof over our heads. Literally. It would be more bearable overall if I knew for certain that there is an end to it. Surely things will be normal again someday - but when is someday? And how long can we continue like this? Even when we manage to get the money for a particular repair together - we can't find any contractors willing to do it.... Even when we manage to find a willing contractor they tell us grimly that we may need to wait weeks for them to get to us - maybe longer. Ah and the more time passes and the further from the disaster we get - the more we are forgotten and the more we find we are completely on our own.