And here we are
again, four years after Gustav took down 25% of the canopy in Baton Rouge and
seven years after Katrina flooded New Orleans and killed almost 2,000 people, here
we are again with that helpless feeling again of hearing sirens in the distance
of fire trucks racing down streets nearby and watching wind and rain out of
windows and sliding patio doors, the trees bending unnaturally and limbs flying
off and the thump of them hitting the ground and leaves swirling and littering
the streets and yards like it is winter and time to rake into piles not brown
but green with recent life.
Unlike other
recent hurricanes and with winds not quite as high, Isaac is so slow moving
that the destruction may be worse in some areas, the winds and flooding water
grinding south Louisiana down by its stationary persistence.
In this age of
instant communication (before many lose power) there are Facebook posts on
supplies gathered, the inevitable lists of alcohol purchased to last for the
duration of closed stores, discussions of the impact of cancelled football games
(for many hurricanes seem to hit the last week of August), posts from people
who once lived here and now expressing concerns from states far away, and one
post from a woman in New Jersey who once lived in and still calls New Orleans
home, her post letting everyone know that her friend was tired of the woman’s
post about her concerns for family and could not understand why people still
lived in this part of the country, that friend showing her ignorance by not
stopping to think that all parts of the country experience disasters, natural
and man-made. Why would anyone want to live in Manhattan, someone responded,
when planes sometimes crash into tall buildings?
The woman in New
Jersey vented in a long post exactly why south Louisiana—New Orleans in particular—is
so special, and, finally, halfway down in her Facebook rant about her friend’s
utter lack of understanding and compassion, she hit upon exactly why people
stay and endure whatever comes in this part of the country: it is home.
No matter if there
are hurricanes spinning off deadly tornados or straight-line summer
thunderstorms that knock trees down quickly, no matter what forces align and
threaten the house occupied, there are pets buried in the backyard and
relatives in the cemetery down the road. It is football on the weekends and
tailgate parties with good friends that take place near the stadium or in the
back yard. It is also a heritage of place given voice by Louisiana writers
imparting a sense of family and history—whether that history is ground
blood-soaked or merely littered with storm debris. It is simply home, the place of growing up
and learning the hard truths of living anywhere. 