On this date that marks the twelfth year since Hurricane Katrina devastated parts of New Orleans (NOLA), it’s difficult to look at images of Texas under water without thinking about NOLA. My knowing that people are displaced (again) and have lost homes (again) and that their lives will be changed (again) does more than pull at my heart strings. This knowledge conjures all the feelings of Post-Katrina New Orleans that I want to avoid. I keep turning away, forcing my gaze away from the images and the stories. But. It’s important that we look. It’s necessary that we feel. It’s imperative that we do something to help.
Lives are affected in more ways than many can imagine and will be for some time. If those of us who were living in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina still feel its effects 12 years later, it’s not hard to comprehend the shock and trauma of those who are going through the ordeal at this moment.
I’ve been slightly agitated all week long, with “something” gnawing just beneath the surface. I couldn’t figure the cause of my mental discomfort till late last night when the date “August 29th” hit me. August 29th. August 29th. Nine years ago, I woke up in my sister’s home in Lithonia, Georgia to discover that just as we all breathed a sigh of relief thinking NOLA had been spared the worst of Hurricane Katrina, the flood protection walls breached. With that break, so many things in my life changed all at once, and I found myself vacillating between moments of hopefulness and moments of helplessness. My husband and I did not lose our home, but we lost so much more than that, and in some ways, I am still dealing with those losses today.
I realized recently that I’m a slow griever. Grief ekes out slowly, laboriously, as I feel I have time to “handle” unpleasant and difficult…
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Thanks Chandra on reminiscing about Katrina. I share many of your emotions. I will always remember that life changing hurricane. Prayers continue for Houstonians.
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