Five years ago, I had just moved from the Gulf Coast, my home for 21 years, to Lubbock, TX. During the first week of classes the hurricane hit. I knew my family was safe, but I had friends who couldn't find family members until days afterward. And they were the lucky ones.
If you've never been through a hurricane (and Katrina made landfall as a Category 3 out of 5), different areas have to worry about different things. My family lives on high ground but amidst lots of trees, so we worry more about wind. New Orleans on the other hand, being below sea level always has to worry about floods. Some places along the Mississippi Gulf Coast had to worry about both. When you worry about wind, it doesn't really matter how long the storm sits in one place, but with flooding you want a storm to pass fast. Katrina sat there.....and sat there.....and sat there. And the levies broke.
1,836 people lost their lives in Katrina along the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama Gulf Coast. But the bigger tragedy isn't the devastation that Katrina itself caused; the bigger tragedy is our lack of prolonged attention, our lack of compassion, and our inertia towards protecting, defending, and rebuilding the Gulf Coast. Not just for Katrina, but for the BP oil disaster as well.
Lake Ponchartrain overlooks the City of New Orleans. Appropriated below, the incomparable Paul Brady performing Lakes of the Ponchartrain.
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