People

Recollections from New Orleans

I’m a privileged kid. What do I say? Should I apologize for what I have? Anyone with less should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps, correct? That’s the beauty of America: You can get anything you want so long as you are willing to work for it. You want money? Work for it. You want success? Work for it! You want a swimming pool filled with jello? Then goddamn, you better work for it.

In the months since Katrina, I’ve heard that sad refrain often. In American, anything is possible if you work hard enough. Move on and rebuild your life. Stop whining. It’s easy to say that as we, all of us, stand on our square foot of earth and look around at all that we have. It’s easy to say when we’re comfortable. What happens when we lose it all?

Not just the grill or the HDTV or even the new carpeting. What happens when you lose your water, electricity, your history, your home, your job, your place of business? Just imagine if water invades your home, your community. There’s nothing that you can do except leave and return to whatever the water has left you.

larger imageYou can’t rebuild until you’ve torn it apart. You can’t do that without help or money. And you can’t sell what isn’t fit to sell. Nobody wants to buy it, anyway. You’re left between a rock and hard place with nothing but a 1200 square foot anchor around your neck.

The water has been in homes for over 6 weeks and the houses are so toxic that they are unlivable. Neighborhoods that have seen children grow up are gone. Family pictures are gone. Family histories are gone. Families are dead or scattered. The only things left are the carcasses of stray dogs, cats, and humans who couldn’t get out in time.

larger imageMarkings spray painted on the houses state that each has been checked, who checked it, when, and how many bodies were found. Many of the counts have been lost, rubbed off, or painted over. These markings are on every house, accompanied by the abbreviation TFL—Toxic Flood Water.

There is no work ethic or bootstrap alone strong enough to fix this. That’s someone elses dream. It’s not reality. And yet, these people are the ones who know what ‘we don’t cut and run’ means. They live it every minute of every day. I have never seen people more determined to survive.

They say don’t feel sorry that you still enjoy the things that we’ve lost. Just appreciate it because it can be gone in a second. The things that really matter are people.

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from the journal:

Tonight as I hauled food to the gym, a man and a woman stopped me to ask where food distribution was. The serving line feeds people a real meal, but the distro is where citizen donated food items are free to residents in need. The woman exchanged pleasantries and began picking food out of the store room while the man began to talk to me.

Sometimes the residents will begin making small talk about weather or sports, as if they are reluctant to talk about the storm and what they’ve been through. Others begin the conversation not with small talk but with the horrifying details of their experiences during the storm and after, almost as if they’ve no one else to tell. For them it needs to be said and I am their surrogate counselor.

These people begin to tell their stories and the details are so intense and dramatic that I find myself speechless. What do you say to a person who, in their first words, tells you that they had to bury two of their children because of the storm? I can’t relate to that. I can’t say, “Yeah, been there, done that. I know what you mean.” Because I haven’t. I don’t want to be able to understand what that feels like. The only thing I can do is listen. Anything else is just trite.

This man was one of those people; one of the ones who has a story needing to be told. To someone. Anyone. His story wasn’t dramatic and filled with horror or death. But in his personal life, his story was horrible.

He started with the corruption of the Louisiana government, which is a topic more residents mention than the storm. They talk, he talked, about the corruption in office, the embezzlement, the fact that nothing is done unless you know somebody or can make it worth their while, even in this disaster zone. Then he talked about the levees failing and how the levees failed in exactly the same way during Betsey when a barge broke down a storm wall. It shouldn’t have happened again, but it did.

He then told me he got his FEMA trailer a few weeks ago. At this I perked up, thinking this was a chance for a little less intense conversation. I asked him how it was. He said he didn’t know, he’d had it for eight weeks and still hadn’t been inside. The reason why?

He has no key. He was never given one.

He was told that he has to wait for his key. If he breaks into the trailer, he will be charged with vandalism, breaking and entering, and destruction of government property. His only home, which he can’t get into because of a stupid error, is FEMA property and, therefore, federal property.

I asked him why he hadn’t asked FEMA for a key. He did, but they blew him off. They told him it was in the mail. Their exact words, “Hold on another week, your key is in the mail.” That was what they said seven weeks ago, six weeks ago, five weeks ago… He still doesn’t have a key.

The week after his trailer arrived, they turned on the utilities to the trailer, which aren’t a part of the free assistance. Residents pay out of pocket for the utilities to their trailers, at highly inflated prices. Each utility—water, electricity, heating—are all independent systems working off propane tanks. For seven weeks he has been charged for expensive utilities he can’t use in the trailer that he can’t get into. And no one will do anything about it. He said if he had the money, he might be able to persuade someone to pay attention.

This man lives on social security and was, maybe, 80 years old. He can’t afford to pay out of pocket for something that he can’t use. He needs to spend his limited money on things that matter.

He pointed to the woman who was still picking through groceries. He told me that he was staying with her; she had a key to her trailer. They had been best friends since they were small. They had grown up together and had been through countless adventures. Betsey was one of them. He called her his guardian angel and I believed him. He said, “Son, I hope you are blessed with a guardian angel like mine if you need one someday.”

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People who don’t have guardian angels or a FEMA trailer—yet!—live this way while they try to reclaim their homes. Empty parking lots all over sprout tent cities or car cities (a car at least has a roof). The lucky ones have travel campers and don’t need to fool around with FEMA. The others do the best they can.

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