Today is the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina slamming into the Gulf Coast, instigating days, weeks, months, years of trauma on the people of New Orleans and Mississippi. While some might shake their heads in wonder at four years having already gone by, I'm in the privileged position of thinking: only four years? It seems so long ago.
In January 2004, I visited New Orleans for the first (and so far, the only) time. I had just graduated college and my friend Ben was a month or so away from leaving for a semester abroad. We manufactured a student group at the University of Michigan ("The Mississippi Delta Music Project"), checked out a van from the university for a group 'field trip' south, and though neither of us were enrolled students, we left in search of the blues. We visited the places we heard Robert Johnson sing about, like Friar's Point, and the state prison in Angola, where Leadbelly was only one of the blues artists to emerge. We looked for live music everywhere we went. The illicit van was our only consistent shelter. For some reason I had the idea that the south would be warm even in January, and so Ben and I shivered together in the nights we slept in the van, parked in what we hoped were safely hidden places. Aside from one encounter with the Louisiana police, we were fine. Just chilled.
We had zero money, but it was New Orleans where we committed to spending nights in a hotel. An inn, really. There was heat, there were hot showers, and my god, there was music. A nice thing about visiting New Orleans in January-- it was less of a tourist destination and more of a city. "Don't forget the kitty before you leave the city," rhymed the trumpeter who led the Preservation Hall band as he passed around a hat for donations. Ben and I were so enamored with the street performers, we'd sit down before them to to listen. Inspired one rainy afternoon, we slipped into a cafe, smoked hookahs, and beat our palms on our thighs in (somewhat) musical rhythms.
Four years ago today, I took the commuter train from Boston up to the north shore so I could play in the ocean with two friends. It was a gray, but lovely day. I had caught wind of a hurricane down south, and on the train ride back, as our hair dried and the saltwater evaporated from our skins, I mentioned to my friends that I heard they were evacuating the city of New Orleans.
"I doubt they'd do that," my friends said. "Can you imagine what a mess that'd be, evacuating a whole city?
"Besides," my friends said. "They're used to hurricanes down there. They prepare."
Famous last words, I know. And never, as the extent of the devastation became clear, have I felt less inclined to pull an I-told-you-so.
Months later, in January 2006, I was still living in Boston in Haley House. Among the homeless men who came over in the mornings was David--a refugee from New Orleans who spent several months living in Boston's shelters and on the streets before he was able to return to his hometown. We met him at about the same time when so many of our college student volunteers were leaving for the Gulf to do service trips, including one gal who went and stayed, working with a nonprofit a friend of hers had started in response to the post-Katrina devastation.
David had never been homeless before and the way he articulated his experience-- the shock of it all-- has stayed with me. David's girlfriend, who I met once when she came to Boston to meet him, was working on a documentary about what happened in New Orleans. I always wondered what's become of all the video she took.
This is a long-winded way of saying: I am in a position to not directly feel the impact of Hurricane Katrina on my life, to feel grateful for my time in New Orleans and Mississippi, to commiserate with those who came north and told me all about it. I have a lot of privilege in this. Which is why, on this anniversary, I'm shaking my head: that was only four years ago? My life, it seems, has changed so much since then. It feels like that bad day was so much longer ago.
For so many though, this is still their lives.
As the indomitable Melissa Harris-Lacewell and James Perry (candidate for New Orleans mayor) point out:
Despite the spirit and commitment of its people, the city's levee
protection is inadequate, its violent crime is soaring, its school
system is failing, its local economy is overly dependent on tourism,
and its neighborhoods are ravaged by blight. For example, millions of volunteer hours over four years have put more
than 2,000 units of housing back into commerce. While noteworthy, the
success pales when one considers that more than 80,000 units of housing
were damaged.
Their excellent future-focused column articulates a strong vision for New Orleans, as well as the lessons that every city in the country would do well to take with them.
Speaking of vision, here are ways that we--especially those of us like me who find it so easy to forget--can take another long look at New Orleans, the Gulf Coast, and the truths that emerged through the spaces that Hurricane Katrina cracked open:
- When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. Have you not seen Spike Lee's film yet? Then get the hell off the internet and watch it right now. Rarely have I seen such insight, beauty, nuance, and even humor contained in one movie. Watch it now, this hot second. You'll thank me.
- Follow @harrislacewell and @JamesPerry2010 on Twitter. Their passion for New Orleans is matched only by their brains. I've learned so much from them both, and am grateful.
- Not on Twitter? Read more extended commentary on post-Katrina cities here, here, and here.
- Consider indulging in a reading list centered on the deluge. It might include:
- Go. Go to the Gulf Coast. Go to New Orleans. Visit the places that aren't in any tourist's guidebook. Talk to people. See what is to be done. I say this as advice to myself. As I mentioned, I've never been to the post-Katrina city and coast. I loved what it was, but I want to become acquainted with what it is now.
So let's go.
Image Credits: Left Eye of the Mind; National Geographic
