It has been three years since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. At the time it happened, the north and central areas of the State of Louisiana only felt a little wind; the southern sections were devastated, but none more than the City of New Orleans
It has been three years since
Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. At the time it happened, the north and central areas of the State of Louisiana only felt a little wind; the southern sections were devastated, but none more than the City of New Orleans. The fact that small towns were almost swept away is certain, but the crown jewel of Louisiana, America’s only European-like city, was brought so low that it landed on its belly and hasn’t been able to get up since. Galveston was hit three years later and was just hit again with the announcement of the closing of a major employer, the University of Texas medical complex that will be laying off hundreds of workers.
These days New Orleans looks like a used woman of the streets who has just awakened after a hangover not remembering who she slept with or how many of them the night before. It continues to stagger day to day, bucked up by Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt and a few other Hollywood cheerleaders, but nothing has truly changed, for the essence of the city is gone. That essence of its music, its art, its upbeat, original style, its fun and its fabulous nightlife has given way to doorways of leering men, hoping to entice a couple of strangers into a darkened room to watch blurry-eyed women hanging on to posts they are too apathetic to even slither around anymore.
Travel down Bourbon Street, and you find the place dark and dangerous as opposed to lively and naughty. Now it isn’t just a bit bawdy; it is garish, a wanton caricature of itself that the visitor turns away from, hoping that the vision will vanish and the old, wonderful ways might return. But those ways haven’t returned, and in fact at the rate things have not happened, it’s likely they never will.
Holly Sarre was an artist I met on Jackson Square in New Orleans a short time ago. Like Del Forsloff, my husband, an artist who worked there many years ago, she loves her art and New Orleans. At first she was hopeful, but during a recent visit she had gone, her spot left vacant and dark by the fence where her lively and unique paintings once hung. A few tarot card readers sit in the rain alone, waiting for the occasional sucker-type to come along, sit down and get a fortune read. But who believes in good fortune when there’s virtually none in New Orleans.
The national media, including the Louisiana flagship paper,
the Times Picayune, report that New Orleans is now the most dangerous city in America. While the same media highly laud Bobby Jindal, pondering possibilities of his potential to run for the Presidency against Barack Obama in 2012, he was one of those who proclaimed that had he been Governor, as Kathleen Blanco was at the time of Hurricane Katrina, he would have made sure that every private citizen had a gun for protection. This was something he believed in spite of the fact that some armed citizens killed themselves after the devastation, as they suffered from depression. The whole city is a collective, barely moving, anxious post-traumatic stress disorder with solitary citizens still reeling from memories of the terror of the floods from Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.
I was there, shortly after the storm, helped to counsel folks who had fled to the Central areas of the state, to Natchitoches, that is designated usually as a shelter for those from the south. In fact Governor Blanco had cried out to people to head north. They came, bewildered and fearful; and some continued on to settle in Shreveport and Alexandria, in the north and central areas of the state, taking their problems with them and adding to the ones already there. I have returned to New Orleans many times since, once less than a few weeks ago. It remains a haunting shadow of its former self, desperately wheezing as if it will die any moment.
On September 13, 2008, it was Galveston’s time to pay, its people living near ocean waters surrounded by oil fields in a historical old city that is now in tatters. The citizens of Galveston have just learned that a major health complex, the University of Texas medical center, will be closing, just as they were trying to recover from
Hurricane Ike that laid the city low. Homes that had lined Galveston’s tree-lined boulevards and that had lasted for centuries, like the homes of New Orleans were taken down by high winds and waters that topped roofs, that swept through leaving nothing but shreds of wood and strips of cloth that once were curtains hung over lovely windows.
I remember Galveston, just two short years ago when I went there on vacation in summer. I swam on its beaches, visited its restaurants, laughed with other visitors, and loved every moment. My memories have been disturbed with television images of what now is while I had hoped to remember what it was when I was there.
Today’s news of a final blow to Galveston, a blow that will lay off hundreds of workers during a major recession, when people have already lost homes and personal possessions, and many their life savings in trying to regain what they once had, must be painful. Television images will fade in a few days, maybe recalled and updated a little; but Galveston may be like New Orleans and be forgotten over time. Unless our new President reaches out swiftly with a plan of action for change for those who need it now, more than ever and likely more than the rest of us.
