Louisiana on my mind
Sep. 21st, 2005 06:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellarienIt's no good. I haven't posted anything to speak of about Katrina and New Orleans, because I haven't anything helpful to add, but I can't stand it any longer. So here are my personal, and not at all useful, reactions.
I don't know anyone in the Gulf area, but ... we were there, not all that long ago. In May I was blogging cheerfully from the very Convention Center that turned into a place of terror and misery only three months later; being able to picture the place, remembering the way they used to post security in the restrooms, presumably to exclude the street people, didn't make it any easier to listen to the horrific reports coming out of there. What I hadn't realized, until we all got a crash course in New Orleans topography, was that where we were, in Canal Street on the edge of the French Quarter and at the Convention Center on the river bank, was actually the high ground. We were never sure whether the palm trees in Canal Street, their fronds neatly tied up for travel, were coming or going, but suspected it might have something to do with the previous season's near-miss hurricane.
I was a little comforted to hear, early on, that the aquarium had survived; it seems frivolous to grieve for the fish, but they were innocent and beautiful. One of my birthday gifts to my mother this year was a little box with a photograph (not my own) of a jellyfish on the lid, from the gift shop there. It was early September when I gave it her, and we didn't discuss where it came from.
As for what happened in the aftermath of the storm -- it was horrible, sickening, shameful and tragic.
And now it's happening again, and New Orleans is under threat again. It's hard to comprehend.
I feel a little happier that some lessons seem to have been learned, that maybe Rita will be handled better. I feel sorry for the evacuees who ended up in Houston and even Galveston, who now face being moved yet again.
I don't know anyone in the Gulf area, but ... we were there, not all that long ago. In May I was blogging cheerfully from the very Convention Center that turned into a place of terror and misery only three months later; being able to picture the place, remembering the way they used to post security in the restrooms, presumably to exclude the street people, didn't make it any easier to listen to the horrific reports coming out of there. What I hadn't realized, until we all got a crash course in New Orleans topography, was that where we were, in Canal Street on the edge of the French Quarter and at the Convention Center on the river bank, was actually the high ground. We were never sure whether the palm trees in Canal Street, their fronds neatly tied up for travel, were coming or going, but suspected it might have something to do with the previous season's near-miss hurricane.
I was a little comforted to hear, early on, that the aquarium had survived; it seems frivolous to grieve for the fish, but they were innocent and beautiful. One of my birthday gifts to my mother this year was a little box with a photograph (not my own) of a jellyfish on the lid, from the gift shop there. It was early September when I gave it her, and we didn't discuss where it came from.
As for what happened in the aftermath of the storm -- it was horrible, sickening, shameful and tragic.
And now it's happening again, and New Orleans is under threat again. It's hard to comprehend.
I feel a little happier that some lessons seem to have been learned, that maybe Rita will be handled better. I feel sorry for the evacuees who ended up in Houston and even Galveston, who now face being moved yet again.
