Gustav, 9/11, & Ike

What a September! I haven't yet posted about our experience with Gustav. I'm waiting a little bit on that... I need to get some pictures from my dad. But although Gustav didn't do much damage in our immediate area, it woke a large number of us up to the fact that we still haven't fully healed from Katrina. We thought we had put Katrina behind us, but instead Katrina has become a part of us. As Gustav barreled toward Louisiana, even my friend who now lives in Texas and her friend who lives way up north (Michigan?) were reliving the memories. I think that those of us who lived through Katrina, whose families suffered all kinds of losses, both physical and otherwise, are changed. The people of Southern Louisiana are no longer the same. We are haunted by the memories of people suffering in New Orleans shelters and on New Orleans streets. In our minds are the images of homes moved halfway down the street from their foundations, with the blades of their ceiling fans hanging down like closing flower petals... cars sitting in trees, and other things that just should not be... dead bodies... disappearances. I remember not knowing where the vast majority of my family was located. We are a haunted people.

Then, a little over a week after Gustav opened those wounds, we observed the 7th anniversary of September 11th. I would imagine that the people of New York and that the nation as a whole feel much like I did before it became apparent that Gustav was heading this way. What wounds would another terrorist attack on our country open up? Because, as a nation, we sure do seem to have forgotten the pain.

But this particular year, I feel a little more in touch with the past than usual. And I remember what it was like on September 11, 2001. I was teaching a class of teenagers when an announcement came over the intercom that a plane had flown into one of the the World Trade Center towers and the televisions would turn on. We watched as the second airplane hit. My mind couldn't at first accept that this was real and not a movie. But as the horror began to dawn on me, I remember my overriding thought being to keep calm so that the students wouldn't panic. As for me, the fear rose quickly. I wanted nothing else than to get on my cell phone and call my father-in-law who was baby sitting my son and make sure they were okay. I didn't think that what happened in New York, and soon Washington (the Pentagon), had somehow spread to New Orleans. But for the first time in my life, I felt vulnerable to a large-scale attack.

We didn't know how big this was going to be. Was it over or was more coming? We didn't know who our enemy was or how we would need to fight. It was a waking nightmare. Watching people choose to jump to their deaths to avoid burning to death made me sick, though I had no idea at the time that four years later I would watch people sit on their roofs with no food, no water, and no rescue and hear of people being raped and harmed in what should have been a shelter from danger. We did what we could; we bought another gun and stayed home. School was canceled the day after 9/11... and I sat home and watched events unfolding on the television... and cried at the tragedy of it all.

But years passed between 9/11 and Katrina, then between Katrina and this month, and here I sit watching Ike pass through Texas, causing devastation in Texas and Louisiana. Last night I watched a video on Fox News. Click here if you want to see it. Yesterday, a group of young patrons decided to stay and party at a Galveston bar rather than evacuating, even though they were warned that they faced almost certain death. The owner's answer, "Well, I pray we don't face death." (I quoted from memory.)

I hope they didn't die. But I remember death and how it came to many who thought they would escape it. We should not live in fear, but we should remember. I don't believe I would wish to go back to the innocence I had before Katrina, before 9/11. Yes, I have more painful memories now, but I am wiser for it. Let those memories be a reminder for the future... for a better future. Let us make decisions based on what can happen, rather than what we hope will happen.

Gustav's evacuation was rough. The highways jammed up with people leaving for higher ground. A family died on the route to Georgia because the driver fell asleep and crashed into a tree. But the evacuation itself was a blessing. Southeast Louisiana cleared out. People learned the lesson. From our state and local politicians and public servants to the general citizenry, most of us showed ourselves to be a wiser people. Let that continue... and spread. Oh, that we would learn from the past and not repeat it! Oh, that we would learn from the experiences of our neighbors!

Texas, my thoughts and prayers are with you. America, my thoughts and prayers are with you.