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Eh, La
Bas, Cherie!
A Letter
from Mackie Blanton
A New Orleans Evacuee
In NE Covington, we have no electricity yet,
nor running water. Our cell phones do not work there ever, under
the tall pine trees. These days we are coming into downtown
Covington to a bar where we can get internet service and
smoothies. Alcohol has been banned until the parish (St. Tammany
Parish) gets all of its residents back on their feet. As yet, we
do not really know what state our residences (Jordan's and ours)
are in Orleans Parish. Or perhaps we just can't face facts yet.
The city government is predicting that residents won't be
allowed back in until shortly before or sometime after
Thanksgiving.
First, they need to evacuate the entire
parish, then drain it entirely, then clean and disinfect it.
Every now and then I imagine something that is most likely under
fifteen feet of water: Jordan's baby portrait on canvas,
Jordan's first drawings as a kindergartner,
Jordan's later art work, our carpets and rugs and artwork from
North Africa, a nice hand truck I bought once, a naddy tweed
jacket I recently got elbow patches on, all of the tapes of my
cable tv show, my video camera I bought for documentaries,
Linda's quilts, Linda's notebooks, books upon books upon books,
and clothes. There is no longer a distinction
between possessions and memorabilia. There's just memorabilia
now.
It's weird, but as we were leaving Heron St. for Fussell
Cemetery Road, I reached for my passport, passport pictures, my
laptop and zip disks, and a Faruk Turunz oud. Linda packed
important papers (as we've always done) and reached for some
memorabilia and jewelry. I still can't understand why we didn't
pause to notice what we were doing long enough to see that we
should have also packed up the jeep with clothes and other
items. We left the Jeep behind. All our clothes – and my
clothes and luggage for Turkey – we left behind.
Somewhere in our psyches, we thought, as New
Orleanians always think during hurricane season, "We'll be
back in a day or two. Surely, this one will veer east or west or
downgrade to a Category One hurricane and all we'll get is a lot
of wind and a few
wind-felled trees."
Katrina did veer east, but it didn't matter.
The eye of this Category Five hurricane was 30 miles wide and
its wind gusts were 150 miles an hour. And it traveled slowly,
very slowly, taking its time chewing up our worlds.
All in all, we three are quite well. We have our lives and a
house, though a house surrounded by wind-felled trees. I think
those tall pines might have saved this house on a pond. This
morning, I saw the bass weaving to and fro below the pond water.
We
can always fish! Last week, Jordan and I assisted one of our
neighbors, a nurseryman, to clear-cut the roads up to the
highway. Then she drove off to a wedding on one of the sea
islands off the coast of Georgia. She should be back sometime
today.
Did I say that I still plan to go to Iznir? I was supposed to
leave yesterday but I've postponed my departure to the 20th. I
need time to buy some clothes, but also to continue clearing the
land as much as I can. Linda and I think it makes a lot of sense
for me to proceed as usual just because for us, fortunately,
life will be somewhat as usual, even if
it will again become so slowly.
UNO is setting up offices and courses at LSU;
so she will be needed there. She will more than likely commute
to Baton Rouge from Covington, or from her Cousin Patty's home
in Houma, or from Patty's apartment in the French Quarter. There
is very little that we can do but sit and wait for insurance
agents. After they make their estimates, we can hire local crews
to clear away fallen trees in Covington and, if it comes to
that, to bulldoze our home in New Orleans. So life needs to go
on.
We all, however, of course, grieve for those
thousands upon thousands who have perished or may wish that they
had perished since they lost so much. This morning I had coffee
and conversation with two men who did not lose much but who were
in tears just remembering the human suffering we have heard
reported on the radio and tv.
The problem for us Louisianans is that the country's marine
biologists, meteorologists, geologists, environmentalists,
physicists, architects, etc. have reported for at least the last
forty years that disaster would one day be visited upon us if
the politicians did not rebuild the coastal wetlands, construct
more powerful city pumping stations, and create higher levees
and gates and locks against the lakes and rivers.
It happened finally this year because the
temperature of waters in the Atlantic and the Gulf were warmer
or hotter than in the past. When a tiny swirl of wind in the
Sahel of Africa, rises and makes its way across the deserts
toward the Atlantic, it becomes twisters across the sand and
when it reaches the shore, crossing into the Atlantic, it
becomes a tropical storm. A tropical storm will become a
hurricane if warmth from the waters fuels its core. Tropical
storms or hurricanes for us will, after the Atlantic, cross the
Caribbean waters and Gulf and engulf us fiercely of severely.
Eh, La Bas, Cherie! as we say here in
multicultural/intercultural Southeast Louisiana. --Mackie
posted 8 September 2005 |
