Here is what I like about our new home: Hot water.
Oh sure, there are hardwood floors, a king size bed and the breeze-swept balcony with a view of the New Orleans skyline. My Darling Wife loves the high ceilings and fans and our Precious Daughter is enjoying her red and black room with full-length mirrors on the closet doors.
But for me, the greatest improvement in quality of life is the new bathroom.
Let me explain.
Here's how my mornings used to go: My alarm would go off. I would turn on the hot water heater. I would reset my alarm for 15 minutes. I would go back to bed. My alarm would go off again. I would get ready to shower. I would stoop slightly and step into the tub. I would remain bent because if I stood straight my head would hit the ceiling of the trailer. I would shower and shave as quickly as possible, because the trailer hot water tank only held about 6 gallons and it usually lasted about 15 minutes.
That's how it was for about 22 months in the FEMA Travel Trailer.
Here's how my morning goes now: My alarm goes off. I get ready to shower. I stand up and no stooping or bending is required. I stand under the strong spray of hot water for as long as I please. I emerge happy.
If clean water is one of the hallmarks of a civilized living, hot water is one of its essential luxuries.
Oh, I could probably wax poetic about the essential nature of water versus the sensuous pleasure of a hot shower, or even the paradoxical relationship we have with water since it was, after all, a water event that plunged us all into this long journey of misery in the first place.
But I'll let that alone for now.
I suppose at one time or another we've all been deprived of the luxury of a hot shower. Whether camping or during a power or gas outage, we probably had to deal with the inconvenience of little or no hot water for a day or two.
Well that's nothing. Try it for 22 consecutive months.
And then you'll know why my favorite part of the new house is all wet.
There is a line that runs through all our lives here. It marks the place where everything changed.
It is first and foremost the water line. Thirty-two months ago, every house, pole, tree, car and street sign in the flooded parts of New Orleans bore the line. We've washed that ugly stain from most of our homes now, but the line remains. I can still see the line in my own neighborhood--the line that separates what survives from what dies.
Everyone knows that to survive, you must stay above the water line. That water line was the subject of a song by Paul Soniat. He sings about how a lot of lives "fell below the water line" in 2005. A lot of relationships, jobs and schools fell below the water line and did not reemerge.
The City of New Orleans is ignoring the water line. At City Hall, the only line they notice is the imaginary line drawn on the flood insurance maps. All they seem to care about is the Base Flood Elevation, that magical line that will allow you to get a building permit, and the best flood insurance rate, and the peace of mind we all crave. Or not.
There are other lines.
There is the line on the calendar that separates our lives in time. It is a line that separates the lives of the people of New Orleans into pre-K and post-K. It starkly separates our lives between how we lived before August 29, 2005, and after. In far too many cases, it starkly separates life and survivors from the dead.
And surviving the hurricane and flood was not an end; it was the beginning of the survivor saga. Fellow blogger Karen Gadbois wrote to me, "Funny how this storm has turned us all into other things." She sees how people have changed where they live, where they work, where they go to school. She knows people who are doing things they never dreamed and never planned to do. But they crossed the line in time and they changed.
For instance, we all know a lot more about flood maps and how to navigate insurance claims than we did before. I always thought I was up to speed on insurance, but you never really know until something happens. You never really know what lurks in the fine print until you get a form letter from the insurance company that matter-of-factly describes what is covered and for how much.
And having traversed that timeline in 2005, we all know more about tropical weather forecasting than ever before. During the past two anxious hurricane seasons, everyone here was keenly aware of every puff of rainy weather in the Gulf of Mexico or Atlantic.
Another NOLA blogger, Mark Folse said, "I don't think anyone without AMS certification knew anything about Invests, etc. until after K. Now we're all looking at computer model tracks and wondering about the reliability of this model over that, thinking about sea surface temp, wind shear, etc."
When we crossed that line, we all became armchair meteorologists, studying the maps and reading the reports and checking the computer modeling. I haven't heard of any fantasy forecasting leagues starting up yet, but surely one cannot be far from forming.
And then there is the line for help. Lines of people at the Road Home closing center. Lines of citizens at City Hall trying to get permits, or to talk sense to their Assessors. Lines at the hardware stores.
Now my family is approaching yet another line, a line that will officially denote our passage from Post-K to Post-Post-K. We bought a new house and we're moving in this weekend. For the first time since Katrina filled our city with despair, we will have a roof over our heads that we can call our own. We will sleep in beds that belong to us and us alone. We will change our voter registration and discard stationary with our "old" address on it.
We fled the city and our home in August 2005, seeking shelter with family in Texas and Virginia, brief stays in friends' undamaged houses in Harahan and uptown New Orleans, a few months in an expensive apartment in the Sliver by the River, and almost 22 months in a FEMA Travel Trailer.
We bounced around quite a bit, but only now are we landing safely in a place we can unambiguously call, "home."
My family for the past almost three years has been somewhat controlled by a broken line on the highway, a line on a map, a line on the calendar, a line to get help, a line of credit to replace what was lost, and of course, the water line.
Most of these stories are recorded in the lines on our faces. I'm hoping that by this time next week, the dominant line on my face will be a smile.
We spent the day working at the new house, painting and getting ready for furniture and the final “move-in.” D-Day is Saturday, May 3.
Our new house is just a few blocks from The Fair Grounds, host of the annual Jazz Fest. We had the windows and doors open, but we heard nothing more than a few booms and thumps carried on the wind. Nothing you could identify as anything other than just remnants of music.
Fortunately we had the radio, and WWOZ was broadcasting select acts from the Blues Tent. That’s how I was able to hear Delbert McClinton late in the afternoon. Had I been able to get the Jazz Fest today, I would have been in the Blues Tent for that set.
At one point, my Darling Wife asked that we turn the radio off. “What will we listen to?” asked the Precious Daughter, who was a great help and did her best to keep her budding teen angst at bay. “The Sounds of Silence,” I said.
“We’ll listen to the birds, the cars, the people on the street,” she said earnestly. “We’ll listen to the world around us.”
That struck me and the Precious Daughter as a radical idea, but we gave it a try for a while.
Two interesting observations from this experiment: because of Jazz Fest, there were two small planes circling The Fair Grounds. They were trailing advertising banners and they buzzed over our house at regular intervals. I hadn’t noticed that when the radio was on.
The second thing I noticed was the frequent wail of sirens. We’re near Esplanade and right off Broad, two busy streets that carry a lot of traffic. We experienced the same thing a few years ago when we lived for a year on Esplanade near City Park.
Sirens. Day and night. Believe it or not, you get used to it.
After a long day, we cleaned up and headed back to the trailer. There was a hard rain again this afternoon and the many vacant lots in Vista Park were no doubt saturated. The sun had set and the street lights shined off the wet pavement.
As we walked from car to the FEMA Travel Trailer, my wife noted the echoing noise that filled the street. “Listen to those happy frogs,” she said.
A chorus of amphibian singers filled the night. There was a steady “Chirp, chirp, chirp” being carried by a countless collection of frogs, punctuated by the longer “Ree-bee, ree-bee” and the warbling bass section.
These are the sounds of New Orleans today: frogs, sirens, Jazz Fest.
And these sounds remind me again of the diversity of life in the Crescent City: a soundtrack with room for everybody and everything, a soundtrack worth listening to.
A letter from Entergy assures us that New Orleans' distinctive street name tiles will be replaced by the utility company as it proceeds with routine work in our historic neighborhoods. They blame the whole unfortunate episode on "a subcontractor's crew."
And while they claim to have uncovered and dealt with the issue on their own, they mention columnist Chris Rose who wrote briefly about it in The Times-Picayune two weeks ago.
I have no reason to doubt their story, but do take exception that they credit Mr. Rose for calling attention to the matter without any credit to the man who first kicked over this ant pile: Ashley Morris.
Yes, Ashley Morris, the same "pain in the ass" neighbor of Mr. Rose who the columnist realized too late was a true friend of New Orleans.
There's a big difference between people who talk and people who do. It is my observation that the "complainer" gene is rampant in the species, and people like Mr. Rose are an excellent example. By definition, reporters show up after the fact and scribble notes about what happened. Columnists like Mr. Rose complain about why something happened or did not happen largely for entertainment value.
But the credit for making something--anything--happen rarely if ever goes to the journalists. It is the "citizen soldiers" who carry the battle to the enemy. People who show up at City Council meetings and speak up. People who write letters and campaign for good causes. People who alert their neighbors and agitate for change when things go awry.
People like Ashley and the exceptional crew of NOLA Bloggers.
Mr. Rose would marginalize these doers. To him, folks like Ashley are mere "voices in the wilderness, raging at the machine." Although he wrote these words as praise of Ashley, there is clearly a belittling tone to writing that someone spends his time "tilting at windmills."
Well Mr. Rose's column and the letter from Entergy appear to dispel that myth.
As agile and responsive as the world in which we live
In early 2006, the US House of Representatives weighed in with their assessment of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Their report, "Failure of Initiative," came out too early to be able to discuss the engineering specifics but was nevertheless a thoughtful look at the big picture issues.
The major take-away for me was this statement:
"Officials at all levels seemed to be waiting for the disaster that fit their plans, rather than planning and building scalable capacities to meet whatever Mother Nature threw at them. We again encountered the risk-averse culture that pervades big government, and again recognized the need for organizations as agile and responsive as the 21st century world in which we live."
(From the Report by the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina, http://katrina.house.gov/)
Two big ideas there.
First, since when does Nature play by our rules? She does not, so anyone who plans for a specific scenario and ignores all other scenarios is planning a catastrophe.
And second, you don't avoid risk by ignoring it. You can pretend that there is no risk, but all you're doing is pretending.
When I read the report about two years ago, I immediately copied down that quote and kept it close. I like to remind myself of those two big ideas from time to time, and I hope it helps keep my guard up.
But then recently I gained a new insight. This statement, written to chastise government agencies and functionaries, has much broader application. Could not almost the same be said of many rank-and-file citizens?
Because surely, if we rebuild our houses at exactly the so-called 100-year flood elevation and not one inch higher, if we refuse to even consider raising our homes and simply repair them where they are, regardless of the reality that there recently was 6 or 8 or 10 feet of water in them, are we not guilty of the same poor habits the congressional report excoriates?
And if we rebuild New Orleans and the surrounding communities in exactly the same way, refusing even to consider doing anything differently, rejecting all attempts at improvement, and fail to take advantage of this opportunity to change things, what will be said about the citizens of New Orleans if (when) the city floods again?
We may very well find ourselves accused of "Failure of Initiative."
Everybody's talking about the rising Mississippi River and the levees that keep it in check. And I'm not just talking about in the coffee shops and beauty parlors of New Orleans; my office is intense with activity.
It's called a flood fight, and with good reason.
When the water gets this high, even though reliably forecast to peak several feet lower than the tops of the levees, the weeks of water pressure and velocity on the levees will take their toll. As in any battle, troops will be deployed and defenses will need to be reinforced as the fight goes on. In 1973, I understand there were two locations where the main levee was showing signs of considerable stress, so a backup levee was constructed to keep the river at bay.
This is normal procedure. Cause for concern--yes. Cause for panic--no.
This is considerably different than a hurricane event. For one, the river is a well defined problem. We have mountains of historical data and a thorough understanding of how its waters flow. Hurricanes, to the contrary, are still very unpredictable. The National Weather Service has made huge strides in tropical cyclone prediction in recent decades, but it remains a game of odds. We don't have such gaps of knowledge when facing our foe in the Mississippi River. We know what's coming and when with great accuracy.
When a hurricane comes, all we can do is run away or hide behind levees. Again, a flood fight is different in that we can do much more. We have tools at our disposal--spillways that we can use to reduce pressure on our levees and divert the peak flows of the river.
Another difference is in how we conduct the fight. During the height of a hurricane it is simply not possible to closely monitor flood defenses or to attempt repairs. Even pump operators must take refuge in armored "safe houses" when the wind is at its worst. But the Mississippi River provides no such obstacle. Throughout the flood fight, inspectors will drive the levees and look for even the smallest indication of trouble. And when trouble occurs, crews will be able to respond quickly.
We can take solace in the knowledge that the river has not flooded the city since then: the levees have worked every time.
However, we must not let any of this lead us to be complacent. Just as we should never forget the hard lessons of 2005, we must always remember the suffering of 1927.
There's a reason it's called a flood fight. And the fight is on.
"Ashley Morris, PhD, passed away on April 2nd, 2008. Ashley was a father, a husband, a teacher, a scientist, a musician, and above all, a New Orleanian. He was a fiery spirit who inspired and energized anyone whose life he touched. Ashley left behind a wife and three small children and expenses are mounting. Please remember Ashley and help his family by making a donation through the PayPal link below."
Greg Peters over at Suspect Device gives us this tribute to Dr. Ashley Morris. It features photos of his family and friends and the music of Warren Zevon.
It's hard to believe someone who lived and loved with such ferocity could suddenly be... gone.
The NOLA Bloggers are still in shock, but so too are they mobilizing to help Ashley's wife and three children. Talk of fundraising and memorials that will carry his passions forward are in high gear.
Ashley was both large and larger than life. As passionate and enraged as he often was on his blog, in person he was one of the most considerate and affable people you could possibly know.
Some quick stories to remember:
When we had what was left of our house demolished, I blogged about losing my albums. My music collection was mostly 70's and 80's rock and punk, and I lamented that many were either too rare or too local to ever replace. Ashley immediately rushed in to help. He offered to give me his collection of old LPs and a turntable that he said he no longer used. Ashley noted that we shared a similar appreciation for early punk rock. Tempting as it was, I had to turn him down because there was no room in a FEMA travel trailer for such a gift. Undeterred, he later offered to give me a TV.
When the Saints returned to the Superdome, Ashley was right there. His blogs about that experience were so powerful, so completely heartfelt for something as trivial as a football game--yet Ashley was able to make the connection between a mere game and the soul of this struggling city, a city down physically and emotionally. His words poured out of his blog like fine wine, each phrase so delicious to savor. Out of the blue one day, Ashley invited me to be his guest at the next Saints game. This time I took him up on his generosity and we enjoyed a smashing Saints victory.
Ashley later had a large fleur de lis inked into his arm. When I saw him at Rising Tide II last year, I immediately asked to see the tattoo. Ashley's grin grew as wide as his biceps as he yanked up his sleeve. Nobody ever loved such a dysfunctional, backward, messed-up place as New Orleans as much as Ashley did.
--and for you wags who grew up "cruising" the discos of the late 70's, that's not what I'm talking about.
What I mean is, I'm still picking up plastic bags and various paper wrappers along the streets of Vista Park, the tree-shaded neighborhood of New Orleans flooded by the London Avenue Canal breach in 2005.
When I first saw my house several weeks after Hurricane Katrina, the street, sidewalk, driveway and lawn were covered with about one-half inch of dirt, the dark sediment left by flood water that rushed in and left slowly. And there was all sorts of trash about as well. Things that floated or were washed from who-knows-where to end up on my quiet street.
Odd things, like a pink Care Bear doll and a DVD of the movie "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids." Curious, I picked up the silver disk, washed it off and kept it. I still have it and it works just fine.
Other things, like plastic wrapping from military MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) and plastic water bottles were obviously post-storm debris. In those early days I had no trash can so I just made a pile of the trash I found and trash I generated--as if putting trash in a specific pile amounted to a hill of beans back then.
Months later when the family returned and we settled into the FEMA Travel Trailer, trash along our once-idyllic street filled the gutters like leaves in autumn. All around us, houses were being gutted, unceremoniously disemboweled and the entrails piled along the right-of-way. All manner of refuse found its way up and down the street. Old magazines, bottles of nail polish, cancelled checks, flattened boxes that used to hold macaroni dinners…
For months, the activity was non-stop, as was the litter. Bobcats with solid-rubber tires rumbled to and fro like large, slow sugar ants, scooping trash and rumbling off to find more. Demolition crews took their turn, too, taking out six houses in the immediate area of our government-issued temporary home.
The one constant was the trash. At some point I decided that the Bobcats and demo crews were only going to pick up most of the trash. Large debris was not a problem; furniture and 2x4's all got scooped up and carried away. But the small stuff, whether paper or glass or plastic, seemed to escape the claw of the backhoe and the bucket of the Bobcat. Small stuff that could blow down the street, or be carried by rainwater toward the catch basin, evaded capture and congregated in the gutters of the neighborhood. And so I began to make trash sweeps of the street.
Right away I noticed a disturbing trend. A lot of the trash I was picking up was of the drink bottle and fast-food variety. This is trash not left over from somebody's destroyed dwelling, but trash brought in and dropped by the workers themselves. Lots of water bottles and coke cans. Lots of Burger King wrappers and Styrofoam plates.
It struck me as completely contrary. Grateful as I was for the government-funded clean-up crews, the volunteer house gutting teams, and the contract workers rebuilding the houses, it made me angry that they would consider my neighborhood suitable for dumping their trash. I fantasized about seeing such a person one day, catching him or her in the act of tossing an empty plastic water bottle to the side of the road. I imagined the confrontation, the righteous ire of my admonitions, the stumbling regret of the accused…
But it only happened in my head as I zigzagged up and down the street picking up trash.
After many months, the trash seems to be under control. Perhaps it's because the daily traffic of workers in the neighborhood has abated somewhat since late last year. Or perhaps it is because the street looks cleaner to the casual observer, which inspires him or her to not act as if our neighborhood is just a giant dump.
Whichever, I am grateful. I am still picking up trash, but it is mostly paper and plastic wrapping from someone's new appliances that was probably pulled from a proper trash pile by the wind. Most of the trash I gather now is not the remains of Vista Park's past, but its effort to forge a future.
We like to think we can control time. We schedule everything down to the minute, with alarm clocks and watches and cell phones that prompt us with beeps to move on to the next task. We pride ourselves with being able to calculate the precise moment when the apparent path of the sun crosses over the equator and signals that time of year we designate as Spring.
And when it suits us, we change time, going forward and backward an hour as the mood strikes us. We call this Daylight Savings Time, as if we can bank the extra hour and as if we can control time.
We control nothing.
Time rampages forward as it damn well pleases. As if we could build a wall or an embankment to stop or slow, or funnel time to a place we'd find more useful or pleasing. But time is unstoppable, unchangeable.
We recently set our clocks forward in this annual ritual. On the Friday prior, I had left the FEMA Travel Trailer in dawn's early light. But on Monday, I emerged from our boxy abode to the darkness of my still recovering neighborhood. All around me was illuminated by the yellow glow of the trailer porch light. A little beyond was visible under the glare of street lights.
Now that my house is gone, and the houses that used to stand on either side of my house, and several other houses through the immediate area, I can see much more of Vista Park than I could see before the flooding. Which is to say, I can see farther because there is much less to see in this part of New Orleans.
The house is gone, but a little strip of walkway remains. The nice folks who installed the Emergency Housing Unit here made sure to line up the trailer steps with the walkway, so it almost looks like it belongs there. But this concrete walk goes about 12 feet, and then ends. At nothing.
Sometimes I look down as I walk this path. I look down and imagine that Katrina never happened, that the floodwalls are still standing, that our blond brick house is still there. I focus on the concrete walk and shut out the recent images of my city, instead pretending that the past was present, allowing my mind to trip momentarily into the images of what used to be.
But inevitably, I reach the end of that walkway, and the house is not there, the daydream bursts and the reality of the situation floods back in. I look up, and I look around at the empty lots, at the mix of repaired and empty houses around me.
Yes, we made the dawn come later and delayed nightfall, but who are we really fooling? Time rushes forward and sweeps us along with it. We control nothing.
