Nothing good down that road

All of us are prey to unpleasant memories.   I've done a really good job for most of my life of saying to myself, "There is nothing good down that road" and turning away from the memory that still has the power to evoke the emotional turmoil of the original event.

Not so with the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaching on Saturday, August 29, 2015.  I simply cannot help myself from watching the television specials, reading the news reports, looking at the photographs.

Maybe it is because Hurricane Katrina is not really over yet.  I watch the new pumping station at the 17th street canal being constructed on my daily walks.

I drive through Lakeview, which still has slabs where houses used to be, and the streets look like something in a fun house at an amusement park, tilted every which way but flat.

I go to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where empty lots stand where grand homes once stood, and where a few blocks off Beach Boulevard there are still steps to nothing, where ordinary people's houses stood.

And I wonder if I'm not wrong this time.  Maybe there is something good down the road of remembering Katrina.

As my husband and I sat in a hotel room in Birmingham, AL, with our old dog Burt, and watched the news of the devastation, it was hard to believe that we were watching America, and even harder because every building was familiar because it was our home.

There was the incredible uncertainty of what would happen next.  We knew we were fortunate, because our jobs were still there, and the plant we worked at in St. Charles Parish was still there and eager to start up.  So we had something many others did not.

We found out that our company was getting travel trailers and setting up trailer parks so employees would have somewhere to live during the rebuilding.  We had very good friends offer us a place in their home until the trailer was ready for us.

But Burt was sick and getting sicker, and our vet was gone for the foreseeable future.  My daughter and her boyfriend (now my son-in-law) had nothing to come back to, so were moving to Virginia.  My normal had completely disappeared.

And then there was the survivor guilt.  Sure, my house had ~$40K of damage, but it was repairable.  None of my friends or family had died.  I still had a job.  So, technically, I was one of the lucky ones.  I have heard and used the term surreal many times in my life.  But until you are directed into your neighborhood by National Guard members with their weapons at arms, to try to secure your property as helicopters continually take off and land at the Coast Guard station and Interstate 10 ferrying people off of roofs and out of harm's way, surreal might be an overstatement.  In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there were many surreal moments, all very much deserving the title.

So what possible good could be down this road of remembering? Well, for one, we can never forget that levees breach.  There is no safe place in a hurricane where you are depending on levee protection.  Two, as good as meteorologists are at forecasting, hurricanes are still unpredictable creatures.  Evacuation is the only right answer.  Three, the civil authorities have an obligation to evacuate those who cannot afford to evacuate themselves.  It is much cheaper to get the people out before the devastation and death.  Four, property can be rebuilt.  Things may be different, but change is inevitable anyway.  People cannot be replaced.  Five, there is tremendous community in shared grief.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, as we were all shell-shocked and trying to get by, there was more ordinary kindness than I have experienced before or since.  It was not unusual to see tearful reunions in church, in the grocery store, at Home Depot or Lowes.  I remember Christmas of 2005.  The K-Mart near my home was open, but was still terribly understaffed.   As I stood in line for one of the two cashiers, I made conversation with the others in line.  Instead of complaining about the wait, which is what I would expect in normal conditions, the conversation was about recovery status.  Are you back in your house?  Do you have all your walls up?  Do you have a kitchen yet?  How is your tarp holding up?  Are you on someone's schedule for your house to be repaired? Are you going to be able to have Christmas?

We all had been through enough in the past few months that waiting in line for a cashier had ceased to be something to worry or complain about.

So maybe that is the good down this remembering Hurricane Katrina road.   Most of what we allow to distress us really shouldn't bother us.  Compared to what most of us on the Gulf Coast have already survived, the trials of everyday life are pretty easy to cope with.