The Weight of Water: A Katrina Reflection
Hello again. Like last time, it’s been a while. Unlike last time, I have no exciting life developments. I’m taking a four-month marketing course and preparing a short story for a Halloween anthology, but aside from that, my life remains the same. Unfortunately, I haven’t escaped the statistic of being a struggling author, nor have I gained the confidence to go sugar-parent hunting, so I’m stuck being broke.
However, this post isn’t about lamenting my life. At least, not in that way.
This August marked 20 years since Hurricane Katrina. My family and I were born and bred in New Orleans, and the storm uprooted our lives. We were fortunate enough to escape the devastation that the storm brought, thanks to a family friend who gave us $100 for gas. It enabled us to drive to safety. My mother had just had a C-section, and my younger sister was just two weeks old. The plan had been to return to the city once things began to settle down.
Yet, we never moved back to New Orleans. Instead, my mother and grandmother chose to stay in the Houston area with the rest of our family.
This’ll likely be a short post, as unfortunately, my memories of New Orleans are few and far between. My family has never been financially stable, so visits to our city have been rare. The last time we went was in 2014. We’d gone every couple of years before 2014, and after that visit, my mother and grandmother talked about making it a monthly day trip.
Then, in 2015, my mother got cancer, and that plan was scrapped.
After a year and a half of treatment, she was declared cancer-free. But the chemotherapy had a lasting effect on her body, and around the same time, my grandmother’s health and mobility began declining.
The last time we planned a trip was in early 2020. Then, the pandemic hit, and traveling out of the state wasn’t only a reckless decision but illegal due to the quarantine.
So, we pushed the trip back to the summer. The pandemic was still in full swing as the temperature rose.
We pushed it back to the winter. The world was still diseased as the days grew shorter.
We pushed it back to early 2021. Insects began chirping loudly as spring arrived, and we still hadn’t left Texas.
At that point, we gave up planning a trip to New Orleans, no matter how much we all wanted to visit our city.
I acknowledge that I was raised in Texas, and even though I disagree with the right-wing politics that the state is known for, I consider myself a proud Texan. However, I consider myself a proud New Orleanian, too. Because, despite being away from the city for so long, it’s where I was born. It’s where I took my first steps, said my first words, had my first memories, and reached my first milestones. It’s where generations of my family have resided, and where I long to make a life.
My mother and grandmother did an excellent job of instilling the city’s culture in me, even if I wasn’t raised there. They taught me the recipes, the slang, about the history and landmarks, shared their memories, and repeated their stories. It made my heart ache for what could’ve been, for what should’ve been, but for what poor planning took from me, and so many other people.
Beyond the devastation of homes and businesses, to this day, it isn’t known exactly how many died, and hundreds are still missing. Hurricane Katrina created a demographic shift that the city is still recovering from, and every resident capable of retaining memories walked away with some trauma.
Even though we’ve been deprived of our city, we got off lucky, as we survived the storm. The same can’t be said for so many others, as mismanagement on so many levels created a crisis that isn’t spoken about often enough.
Since I was old enough to read, my mother has bought me and my little sister books about Hurricane Katrina, and I’ve watched my fair share of documentaries on the storm’s devastation.
Recently, I watched Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time with my mother. Some things I already knew. Other pieces of information were completely new to me, such as the simulation of a destructive hurricane a year prior.
However, this documentary focused on the accounts of survivors like none other I could think of and left me more emotional than any documentary I’d ever seen. My heart ached as I heard the accounts of people trapped in the Superdome. I wanted to cry when I heard a woman share through tears about seeing a deceased baby girl in the floodwaters, and as another spoke about thinking her family would drown in their home. Hearing people forced to walk through dirty floodwaters with injuries angered me, as did learning that the National Guard forced people out of their homes at gunpoint, even if their houses had withstood the storm surge.
By the time it was finished, I had a surprising thought: Kanye was right.
It’s a thought I didn’t expect to have, and a thought I’ll probably never have again. Even with knowledge about Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath, I’d dismissed Kanye’s words on national TV as a meme. However, following my viewing of Race Against Time, I was left agreeing.
Bush and the country at large didn’t care about Black people. If they had, the predominantly Black and lower-income residents stuck in a destroyed city would’ve been treated as victims. They would’ve been shown compassion for being in a historically traumatic situation, and the focus would’ve been on the failures of those in charge.
Instead, lies were spread about crimes that never happened, and people just trying to survive were vilified. People shooting guns to catch the attention of responders were demonized as psychos trying to kill their saviors. People who went into damaged stores to feed themselves and others were seen as looters who took advantage of an awful situation. Instead of correcting the lies being spread, the people in charge added fuel to the fire. And while many first responders saved lives, others worsened the suffering being experienced in New Orleans.
Even in a devastating national disaster, the media took the time to portray Black people and poor people as violent thugs. If New Orleans had been a whiter city, or if those weak levees had only devastated wealthier locations, the response would’ve been different. The storm surge didn’t discriminate, but the response was fueled by prejudice. And knowing that a combination of racism and classism left an ugly scar on a beautiful city not only breaks my heart, but makes me angry, as many of the people responsible will never face proper consequences for their part in the disastrous aftermath.
Okay, so this post won’t be a short one. If you’ve stuck around this long, you’ve realized that. But it’s almost done, I promise.
To close out my rant, I not only encourage you to watch Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time for yourself, but to keep in mind the impact that poor planning and habitat destruction had. Part of what made Hurricane Katrina so deadly was the loss of the natural wetlands that used to surround the city.
Swamps protected New Orleans for centuries, and as they’re destroyed, the risks storms pose grow more dangerous. As they continue to be destroyed, the possibility of a hurricane devastating New Orleans in the way Katrina did rises. And as sea levels rise, the likelihood of coastal and low-lying cities around the world being ravaged by nature grows.
However, this isn’t a post about the dangers of climate change or habitat destruction. They’re well known at this point, and if the globe’s top scientists warning the world isn’t enough to induce change, a struggling 22-year-old author with a BFA in Creative Writing won’t be.
No, instead, this is a post to commemorate America’s most destructive storm, to reflect on the havoc it wrecked across the Gulf Coast, but especially in New Orleans, and to mourn the impact it had on my beloved hometown. It’s also a reminder that home is truly where the heart is, as even though I’ve been in Texas for more years than I would like, my heart is still in New Orleans, and one day, I’d love for the rest of my body to reunite with it.
Until next time, dear reader
