A Hurricane Story by Jennifer Shaw

On today, the 6th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, I bring you a story that's all about hope and beauty.

Back when I lived in NOLA, I saw Jen & Cesar fairly regularly.  They are dear friends of one of my dear friends, and I was often invited to group gatherings. Cesar is from Rhode Island and is of Portuguese descent (as am I on my dad's side), so we had a bit of the "we're not from around here" bond.  (In New Orleans, like in Louisville, when people ask you where you went to school, they mean high school.  Most introductions start with that question or a question about what neighborhood you're from.)

Jennifer, an amazing photographer, was 9 months pregnant when the evacuation orders for Katrina came in. She and Cesar evacuated to a strange motel in a strange town, and in the middle of the night, as Katrina roared toward New Orleans, her water broke. Baby Claudio was born far from New Orleans just as Katrina came ashore.

A few years ago, Jennifer created a photo narrative of her family's evacuation story.  I saw a very early version of it and choked back tears as I read. Now it's available for purchase.  Today the book was featured on NPR's website.

Reviews:

"Like a mournful fairytale, Jennifer Shaw’s beautifully staged tableaux are alternately sweet and menacing, filled with emotion but never spilling over into sentimentality. The poetic marriage of words and photos makes Hurricane Story a children’s book for grown-ups.” —Josh Neufeld, creator of A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge

"Even if you think you've seen it all where Katrina's concerned, trust me, you're going to love Shaw's marvelous memoir."—The Times-Picayune

"This is the kind of book that reminds you that books can be beautiful objects." —The Los Angeles Times

"Hurricane Story is a tabletop, toy box Odyssey. With simple objects, trenchant statements, and exquisite camera vision, Shaw relates an epic tale of displacement, creation and discovery." — George Slade, curator, Photographic Resource Center, Boston

"An engaging variation on a near mythic theme."—Gambit Weekly

You can also see the photographs and text here at Jen's website.  It's a beautiful, honest story.  I hope you take a few minutes to read it.

Happy 6th birthday, Claudio!

Irene and Katrina and Ike

It's 3am, and I'm still awake.  Normally that means I've been having a great night out on the town, but I haven't been out socializing.

I had a lovely night.  We had dinner at Papalino's, then cupcakes at Jamie's 14k Cupcakes on Baxter.  Then Roommate and I went down to Waterfront Park and watched the post-Bats game fireworks (so much fun... and free!).  Came home and watched the brand-new Doctor Who and then watched a couple of episodes of Dexter on a Netflix DVD.

A great night by all measures.

But it's 3am, and I'm glued to Irene coverage on the interwebs.  All hail modern technology, I can watch the NBC news feed from Connecticut and see what Mama Lou would be seeing.

Six years ago, almost to the hour, Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans held a press conference and said that if people didn't evacuate New Orleans, they should be prepared to suffer and maybe even die.  It was an unprecedented expression of hyperbole, but it was enough to get us to leave.

Six years ago minus 24 hrs, Roommate and I were just arriving in Panama City Beach, FL after dodging tornadoes and road closures for hours.  The usual 5-6 hr drive from NOLA had taken us 13 hours.

Tonight, six years ago, minus 24hrs, I stayed up all night and watched on TV as Katrina rolled into my city and prepared to drown it.

Tonight... last I heard, at least, Mama Lou is asleep.  But still I am sitting vigil.

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know that I survived Katrina superficially unscathed.  But when Ike hit Louisville, the winds toppled a 40' tree onto my house, and I lived in a hotel for 8+ months while it was being rebuilt.

Irony? And probably why this hurricane has me so stressed out.

NTDWL: Irene

Last year, on the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, I decided to re-blog some posts from Displaced, the blog I began in September 2005.  But two posts in, I just couldn't do it anymore. Plowing through those 85 posts from September 2005-September 2007 just hurt too much.  I still haven't been able to make it through all of them without quitting.

And even though I have "come out" as a blogger, I don't feel comfortable linking to that blog-- it's very raw, and I share a lot of personal stuff and identify a lot of people by name.  Maybe one day, I will clean it up... make it appropriate to share and then share it with my Loueyville readers. Actually, I'd like to do that.

As the sixth anniversary of Katrina approaches, so does Hurricane Irene.  Today I bristled when I saw Irene jokes on Twitter.  I know I am tenderhearted when it comes to hurricanes, but there's just nothing to laugh about with this storm.  Or any serious hurricane.  I hope I am wrong; I hope I am Chicken Little and everyone laughs at me after the fact for being so concerned.  But I am concerned, and my heart goes out to all who are in Irene's path.

Right now that includes my entire family.

Special Edition: My Katrina, Further down the Road

I became a serial blogger on September 2, 2005, while exiled in Florida, heartbroken to my core, trying to work through what was happening... and what was going to happen... in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  I'd lived in Louisiana for seven years at that point, in New Orleans for six.  You'll often hear people from New Orleans say that they love the city with the same kind of love they have for their families.  And that was me.  I'd fallen in love with New Orleans as a teen, worked my entire young adulthood to get there, and never imagined I would ever leave.  Ever.  So much so, that I'd never evacuated for a hurricane. Ever.  Until Katrina.

A while back, I thought I would honor the fifth anniversary of Katrina by re-posting posts from that blog, simply called "Displaced."  And just ten minutes into starting to re-read the blog, I started to cry.  And I realized I couldn't keep reading.  Most of it is just too sad.  And some of it is too incongruously beautiful.  But I thought I'd start by republishing the first post, at least.  I reserve the right to not publish any more.  I've not changed any of the typos or grammer errors-- or even the places where I sound utterly mad.  Mad as in crazy.  Mad as in MAD, too.  I've just changed a couple of the names and left out a few work details.

... by this post, Roommate & I had been taken in by a mutual friend in Tampa, Fl.

Post title: Sunday Update

Original post date: September 4, 2005 3:57pm

L has a back patio with a screened-in pool.  A little waterfall runs off and on into the pool, and I find myself needing to go to the bathroom every twenty minutes.  It’s either the sound of the water or the beer.  It’s Sunday; this weekend, Roommate and I were supposed to go away for our shared birthdays (Aug 29 & 31).  I’d pretty much decided on a fishing camp on the water in Morgan City; I’d wanted to go to Biloxi to see Dwight Yoakem in concert, but the room rates were too expensive.  And now, neither Biloxi, nor the rooms, nor Dwight Yoakem is there.  Morgan City still stands.

As I type this, the red-boxed “Breaking News” on CNN.com is that police have shot and killed 5 members of the Army Corps of Engineers on a bridge outside of New Orleans.  Details to come.

Was it just yesterday, or this morning, that I felt for a nanosecond that things seemed to be getting better?

I’m so tired.  I don’t sleep well, and that has nothing to do with L’s accommodations.  And I don’t sleep much.  And just being awake makes me tired.  But my God, any time I feel myself lapsing into anything that even remotely resembles self-pity, I feel like dashing my head against bricks.  And that in itself is exhausting, to be honest.  I guess this is what they call “survivor’s guilt.”

I really anticipated having some “news” this weekend.  But we’ve heard only briefly from our headmistress.  I got a personal email from her this morning; she told me to be patient and that she was assessing how much of the community was in Houston.  I’m gathering that there may be a satellite school in the works there. 

I’ve checked out my block on Google Earth; the satellite pictures as of 8/31 and 9/1 show my house and my car.  They’re there, and there’s no tree damage, but that’s all I know.  The Whole Foods three blocks away is missing a good portion of its roof.  We read on the www.NOLA.com message boards that the Whole Foods and all the blocks between there and our apartment had been looted.  But at that time (two nights ago) the homes had been spared.

Every so often, I think of things I left behind.  But somehow in the rush of preparedness, I managed to fill Tony (Roommate's car) with so much of meaning.

I have the photo album that my grandmother, gave me on my 20th birthday full of original and irreplaceable pictures of my dad as a kid.

I have a few pieces of artwork that I did—crappy though they are.  I have the one piece of original art I’ve ever bought, a picture of an iris.  I bought it last summer for more than I could afford directly from the artist in a gallery in Bay St Louis, Miss.  A town that, essentially, no longer exists.

I have framed pictures of my dad.  I have framed wedding pictures of both of my grandparents.  I have the engagement ring that my dad gave my mom that has, since my divorce, hung on my wall in a glass box.

Roommate suggested, as we were leaving, that we should just take everything in our closet and stick it in the trunk.  So I pulled armfuls of clothes out of the closet and shoved them in Tony’s trunk.  As a result, I am lucky to have a plethora of outfits (although not a single pair of pants), but I also have a ton of clothes that don’t fit me—clothes that stayed in my closet “in case I get skinny again.”  If you know of any homeless Katrina victims who are a size 0 or 2, let me know.

Update:  Now CNN says that the corps of engineers were not killed… the people who were shooting at them were.

My lifestyle is such that I am frequently away from home for months at a time, especially in the summer.  This summer I was away from home from mid-June through the first week of August.  Last summer, I was away from home the entire summer.  I am used to being away.  I’m sure Roommate is too—he averages one trip every other month, maybe more.  But still… homesickness.

Last night, B and L and J and I went to the Tampa Theater and saw “Broken Flowers” starring Bill Murray.  I’m a huge Murray fan, and he didn’t disappoint.  And yet, I was the only person in our group who didn’t like the movie.  When they asked why, I could only say that I was not in the mood for that kind of movie.  The cynicism of everyday life doesn’t interest me any more.  I used to be a card-carrying cynic.  But all of that seems so shallow right now.  

Special Edition: My Katrina, First Post

I became a serial blogger on September 2, 2005, while exiled in Florida, heartbroken to my core, trying to work through what was happening... and what was going to happen... in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  I'd lived in Louisiana for seven years at that point, in New Orleans for six.  You'll often hear people from New Orleans say that they love the city with the same kind of love they have for their families.  And that was me.  I'd fallen in love with New Orleans as a teen, worked my entire young adulthood to get there, and never imagined I would ever leave.  Ever.  So much so, that I'd never evacuated for a hurricane. Ever.  Until Katrina.


A while back, I thought I would honor the fifth anniversary of Katrina by re-posting posts from that blog, simply called "Displaced."  And just ten minutes into starting to re-read the blog, I started to cry.  And I realized I couldn't keep reading.  Most of it is just too sad.  And some of it is too incongruously beautiful.  But I thought I'd start by republishing the first post, at least.  I reserve the right to not publish any more.  I've not changed any of the typos or grammer errors-- or even the places where I sound utterly mad.  Mad as in crazy.  Mad as in MAD, too.  I've just changed a couple of the names.

Post title: First Thoughts
Original post date: September 2, 2005 4:22pm


I’m waiting. I’ve always been bad at waiting. Terrible at waiting patiently.

And yes, like every New Orleanian, every displaced denizen of the Gulf Coast, I am waiting for answers, for news, for concretes. And like every American I am waiting, and not very patiently I might add, for help to arrive in my city. For those who have the power to step up and do the right things, the logical things, the compassionate things…

But it’s Friday now, and I’m still waiting, and this time patiently, for the right words. I told a number of friends who emailed me early this week that I would send them a “proper email” as soon as I could. And I can’t.

As soon as I knew I would be displaced (although then I thought it would be briefly—weeks, not months), I knew I’d have a lot of people who’d want to know the hows and wheres and whats of my displacement. I decided that the best way to do that would be to establish a blog; that way I wouldn’t trouble people with newsy emails and anyone who was interested could check in at their convenience. I thought too that it would be nice to have a journal of the experience for myself.

And as I said, it’s Friday now and I’ve yet to put finger to keyboard except to respond to emails, briefly, and to search the internet, incessantly.

Writing has always been an escape, a catharsis. But for the past days, the act of articulation has seemed burdensome.

And I am waiting, too, for the enormity of this tragedy to finally be real enough to me that I am able to parse out my emotions. Grief, yes, more than I can possibly articulate. Anger like I have never felt in my life. Anger that I hope is common to everyone who tunes in the news. But there are other emotions there that I have yet to tap or yet to identify. Dichotomies of selfishness and selflessness, hope and despair, optimism and crushing pessimism.

But there has been a single sentiment that has eked through the morass in my brain, even long before I saw my city become alien to me, long before the ravages of nature turned into the savageness of unrest and criminal neglect. In the course of a lifetime, we are confronted by personal tragedies, even social tragedies, to which we respond “My life will never be the same. I don’t know how I can go on.” Death of loved ones, divorce, even the enormity of events like 9-11. But even as early as Monday morning, when the national news began to release image after image of places that I know and love fallen, under water, the lives of so many washed away—whole towns wiped from the continent—I felt humbled, tragically naïve, to have ever believed that any sorrow that I have suffered, either personally or sympathetically, could ever have made me feel like it would be difficult to “go on.”

And in the past days, it has gotten worse. My gut response was to the power of nature. I am now—we all are now—confronted with so much more to process. We’ve seen true evil. We’ve seen incompetence and neglect that is unfathomable. We have seen preventable suffering and death and despair that goes beyond our ability to comprehend.

Hopefully within the next day or two I’ll be able to start this blog properly—to use it to disseminate information about my plans, about the status of my school, about what people can do to help those who need help. Right now I have absolutely none of that information. We are safe in Tampa, displaced but not homeless in anything but the sentimental sense of the word. Heartbroken but so lucky. Grateful for the love and kindness of our friends and family. And despairing with helplessness and uselessness.