Earlier this week I marked 18 months living here in St. Charles as well as the first time I've actually been glad that I'm not in Nola. Why would I ever think such a thing? Because I don't think I can handle the media bombardment of the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
For many people Hurricane Katrina is still a wound, even ten years later, and we don't want to pick at it. I was incredibly fortunate, I left Nola early for evacuation and my house was barely touched, although my office was destroyed and my job gone. But in the first days and weeks, when those of us who had evacuated were watching the incredible destruction and following havoc, before anyone was allowed to go back and see what was left...those days and nights were agony as I watched my hometown turn into a wasteland, not knowing what was left of everything I knew.
Even with all that I can't imagine what it was like for those that stayed, those that huddled in shelters of last resort or worse, dealt with the rising water in their homes. I can't imagine what it was like to see water rise an inch every hour once the storm had passed and see it slowly consume whatever was spared nature's fury. And now to have media bombard residents with articles praising recovery and reminding us of the destruction or the insult of the disaster tours that took tourists through destroyed neighborhoods.
People seem to think that the private pain of everyone who lived through Katrina is public property.
Yes, I got off easy this time. I didn't lose my possessions, my home, my family, or my life. What I did lose, what so many of us lost, can be intangible. Our memories of places that were will fade with time. Lives are now divided into two parts, before the storm and after. Even ten years later we qualify things with such and such business did it this way or some place used to be open until x time "before the storm". Evidence of entire childhoods wiped away, from having mementos and pictures lost to the flooding to places and things that have never returned or recovered.
And there's the rapid change to New Orleans culture. The recovery brought new people from all over. Before I moved I found myself in an interesting place socially where I was almost always the only native at the table when out with friends. That's not a bad thing, mind you. Cultures change and grow over time. The thing here is seeing it happen so fast, so compressed. The entire dialect of New Orleans is changing. Cultural aspect that took generations to change now seem to mutate in just a few years. Gentrification has always been an issue, but now is even more important for people that fear to lose their heritage to this fast moving tide.
I will admit not everything about Katrina was wailing and rending of garments. If that storm hadn't hit there are people I never would have met in Houston. I probably wouldn't have gone back to school full time, certainly not when I did, so I'd miss out on all the classmates with whom I went through the program. So many more friendships never would have happened because they wouldn't have moved here, drawn by the recovery. Ten years is a lot of time to think about what would have been, but that's not as satisfying as what is, warts and all.
So, do I want or need to hear about all this K10 media coverage? No, I'm good. I feel for all those dealing with their demons that have been stirred up by the reminder. I'll probably pour myself a Sazerac.
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