Anniversary of a disaster

The world came crashing down for the citizens of New Orleans one year ago today. I remember so clearly walking home after dropping the girls off at school, discussing this very scenario with Melissa. My dad told me this possible phenomenon was discussed in urban geography courses forty years ago. So when it actually happened, we weren't surprised, necessarily.

But that doesn't mean we weren't stunned. The level of devastation was shocking. The stories of people abandoned, trapped in their attics, alone, no help on its way. It was tragedy on a level that was hard to comprehend. Much like the tsunami the Christmas before — it was an event that sucked the very life out of a city, a country, and we were left helpless on the sidelines, too paralyzed with shock and grief to properly respond.

I saw the after-effects up close when we visited Houston the very next week on a house-hunting trip. The hotel lobby, full, in the middle of the day, of adult men, clearly sitting there with nothing to do. The people carrying laundry in grocery bags. A table full of donations of toiletries and literature on where to get relief. Signs on the sides of roads advertising temporary jobs.

Even two months later, when we visited again to finalize details on the house, we got glances inside hotel rooms and saw clear evidence of people who had been living there for weeks, months. There was the sweet woman at breakfast who asked us if we, too, had been displaced by Katrina. When asked if she would be returning to New Orleans, to collect her things, she smiled and said, sadly, "There's nothing there to get." Her family was from New Orleans; her mother, she said, had refused to leave. Her husband had loved it there. But he had already passed away, so she wouldn't be returning. For her, life was now in Houston.

Fast forward, and today there are still 118,000 Hurricane Katrina evacuees, if you will, living in Houston. Many of them are here permanently — thye've found jobs, reinvented their lives. The children enrolled in the Houston schools are being held back, not doing well on standardized tests. These people are victims of crimes, they are the perpetrators of crimes. And we know, because the fact that they were displaced by Katrina is always part of the story.

The recovery is slow; areas like the French Quarter, the Garden District and Bourbon Street are nearly back to normal. But so many other parts of the city, virtually obliterated by the flood waters, will never be the same. People tell of working to restore their homes, only to be the sole house on the block that is rebuilding. What happens to these neighborhoods? Will there be businesses, jobs and services for them? Will the city recover?

Such a loss. Certainly for the residents of the city, but for all of us, for the entire country. With a death total over half of the casualties in the 9/11 attacks, it is the greatest natural disaster in U.S. history. But where is the million-dollar payout for these victims? Where is the government relief? Why are their lives and their tragedy less important?

I'll be watching, along with the rest of the world, hoping that New Orleans recovers in some sense. Maybe not just the same, but a city still. We need it; we need to see New Orleans come back.