Nineteen Years Post-Katrina

It’s been 19 years since Hurricane Katrina permanently altered my life.

It was early in Monday morning when Katrina came on shore just east of New Orleans.  The Friday before that I was unaware a storm was coming, and only caught wind of it over the weekend.  Everyone I knew was either hunkering down or evacuating.  I didn’t have a car, but I had a big dog, Hazel.  She was a Labrador/Chow-Chow mix, big and beautiful and plenty furry.  I had only gotten her that spring when my friend Jackie Smythe moved back to New York to work at Lion Brand Yarn Co.  She was a big heavy dog, but was dwarfed next to the big elephant ears growing in the back yard.

Anyway, one of the neighbors offered to let me ride along as they evacuated, but nobody was willing to let a big dog ride along, so I had little choice but to just stay put with Hazel.

I had woken up and gotten a pot of coffee made when the power went out as the storm moved in.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but Hazel and I hunkered down underneath a table, listening to the wind whipping trees against the house.  It was terrifying, and contributed to my storm-related PTSD which rears its ugly head every time we get a big storm even now.

When I finally dared open the front door, either later that day or maybe Tuesday morning, there was silence all around and evidence that something terrible had happened.  The streets were basically void of traffic, although I did see some kids trying to break into the little gas station down on Magazine Street.  One of them yelled, “It’s the end of the world! Take what you can.”   I left them to their own pursuits.

On Wednesday, as I was walking up Constantinople St., I met some other people who had also stayed to weather the storm.  I ended up staying with them as we heard rumors of the levees breaking and the city flooding.  The flooding came up as far as St. Charles Avenue, just another block or two from where we were.

In a day or two, the National Guarded started driving through to check on people and bring MREs and potable water.  Military helicopters were flying a grid pattern overhead all night long, almost every night, looking for people trapped on rooves or needing rescuing.  We were in the very narrow part of New Orleans that didn’t flood, so mostly the National Guard would just come around to check on us but mostly left us alone.

We had broken into someone’s private yard and discovered an above-ground pool, which became a source of toilet-flushing water as well as a place to somewhat bathe.  And the National Guard team went and approved it as an above-ground pool.  They rejected in-ground pools, but we were okay to use this one pool.

Finally, the next Thursday (if I remember correctly), the National Guard was coming around with huge ‘people-mover’ type open top trucks, into which we were all suppose to board, for them to carry us out of the city.  There was a phone at the place I was staying, and I had made some calls to arrange a different escape.

Hazel would go with someone else to a big property somewhere between Covington and Baton Rouge, since they had enough property and animals that she would be cared for.  I snagged a ride with a stranger who carried me to Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center in Baton Rouge, where I would be met by another co-worker who took me to her place on Opelousas, and then my son-in-law drove there to bring me to Houston.

Because of my work as the administrator for the Louisiana Cancer and Lung Trust Fund Board, I knew the CEO at Mary Bird Perkins and he said I could come there as a stop and meeting place for Jesse to pick me up.  I’m sure I was a sight — unbathed and unshaved for a week and a half, walking into a sterile prim and proper cancer center with my granny cart of essentials like clothes, a pillow, and other things.

Why did I have my granny cart?  Before discovering other people in the neighborhood, I had intended to load up some essentials, including dog food, and Hazel and I would walk the bike path along the river until I got into Jefferson Parish or whatever else I could find for me and Hazel.  It wasn’t a well-thought-out plan, but being alone I couldn’t see another choice.

The people who carried me to Mary Bird Perkins turned out to be some well-known judge from a parish up north, who had driven in on his official credentials to check on one of his relatives who lived on that street just a block away from us.  I told him I needed to get to the cancer center and I let him assume I was a patient and not a state employee.  Whatever.

I ended up staying with my daughter and son-in-law until October 15, when I got the all-clear that my neighborhood had water and lights again.

On August 29, 2006, I officially moved back to Houston to stay.   There’s a lot more I could say about it all, but for now, it’s just a day to remember how my life was permanently changed.

Oh!  As for Hazel, she stayed on the property for a while with the people who had taken her.  At one point during my stay in Houston, they called to let me know Hazel was doing okay and was learning to bark in French.  It was a heavily Cajun family there.  She moved on to live her best life on a big property in Alabama, if I remember correctly.  I never did see her again.