Ten Years After…and Don’t Call it Katrina

Ten years ago, 80 percent of New Orleans--a city I love--was underwater. Most media covered it as an unavoidable catastrophe: the storm surge overpowered the levees, and who could possibly have expected this? So we thought it was a natural disaster, and we blamed the resulting devastation on Hurricane Katrina.

Television brought us heartbreaking images and stories—elderly residents abandoned to drown in a flooded-out nursing home, families making their way through foul waist-high water, thousands stranded on rooftops and bridges and in the Superdome and at the convention center, baking and some dying in the hot sun. (I've avoided using the most shocking images here.)

The story was still unfolding two days later when my husband Peter and I went to see New Orleans’ own Dr. John at a local jazz club. We had seen him several times before, but this time he was heartbroken, and angry. He was still trying to locate friends amid the chaos. And he was giving interviews with a message: Don’t blame Katrina, blame the people who knew for years that the levees were falling apart. The Army Corps of Engineers and the city’s own government knew that the levees couldn’t hold against a truly strong storm, and they let it happen. Dr. John performed a brand-new song about lies and betrayal, and eventually he produced an album full of protest songs,“City that Care Forgot.”

Thousands of homes were uninhabitable because of water damage, toxic mold, and lack of utilities. We heard that FEMA would bring in emergency trailers. There was a supply of trailers available nearby—in Mississippi, as I recall. They were locally built, so if FEMA used them and ordered more, they would be boosting a regional economy also disrupted by hurricane damage. Instead, FEMA held out for trailers that would be built in Alaska and transported to Louisiana. When I heard that, it dawned on me: They are stalling so their friends can get into position to profit from this. Just as Halliburton got excessive no-bid contracts in Iraq, a fleet of out-of-town contractors would profit from exceedingly favorable treatment in the cleanup and redevelopment of New Orleans.

Years passed before the stories came out about how greed and corruption did, in fact, prolong the suffering of people trying to recover from the storm, especially the poor and non-white. Rebuilding the poorest and most damaged parts of town took a back seat as developers, investors, and government officials focused instead on more profitable business and tourism projects. City officials pocketed payoffs and traded favors; former Mayor Ray Nagin was sent to prison. Tens of thousands of residents who had fled the city did not return, largely because they no longer had jobs or places to live. In the process, the city lost a perceptible share of its distinctive multiethnic culture.

Peter and I had visited N’Awlins three or four times before the flood. He fondly recalls a locally born cabby who briefed him on his first visit, including where to go, what to eat, and to be sure to order your drink in a go-cup so you can take it out on the street. When we took an interest in crawfish etouffe, wait staff at every restaurant could explain the recipe and technique that made theirs unique.

When we visited this past April, our cab drivers were seldom New Orleans natives; during Easter Week a nice young man from Jordan asked whether we could explain the Good Friday tradition. The wait staff at one Cajun-Creole restaurant was entirely Latino and at another entirely southeast Asian, seemingly imported from elsewhere when a restaurant reopened or changed hands. They provided competent service, but they didn’t know beans about rice and beans. Something similar must have happened in the kitchens; traditional New Orleans food was simply not quite as rich and tasty as it should have been. The problem is not the addition of new ethnicities; it is the decreased presence of those who, like generations before them, shaped the remarkable culture unique to New Orleans.

Of all the expressions of New Orleans culture, music seems to have survived best. Some of the city’s most successful musicians (the Marsalis family, Harry Conick Jr., Dr. John and others) banded together to support the many musicians who were wiped out, and often forced to flee, by the flood. They raised money, built a musician’s village through Habitat for Humanity, established a music school for city children, and kept on playing. New Orleans music is not just an art form, not just a tourist attraction, it is vital part of life. The spirit of second-line parades and “Indian” parades, together with New Orleans jazz, blues, zydeco, and the rest, give a sense of the culture and strength that brought the city’s people through the flood and its aftermath.

In case you’re interested, a remarkable HBO series called Treme gives a fascinating picture of post-flood life in New Orleans. Well researched, well written, and cast with wonderful actors, it humanizes the issues and spotlights the city’s music with live performances from a wide range of the best musicians. It’s available on Blu-Ray. I can promise that watching it will be much more fascinating, enlightening, surprising, disturbing, and ultimately inspiring than the feel-good ten-years-after pieces we’ve been seeing in the media the past couple of weeks.

Summer time, and the living is easy...

...or so it seems. Now that Peter and I are down to one full-time job (his), a handful of responsibilities for the carousel (his and mine), and fewer daycare responsibilities, we have more disposable time on our hands. We've set out to use at least some of it wisely.

Cousins at the rodeo

We are making it a point to spend good time together, in ways that help us rediscover who we are besides grandparents. Peter used to comment that all our conversations related to the grandkids. They filled our lives and our home and our hearts and our heads. They still do, and believe me, we are happy about that. But it's good to enjoy our alone time, too.

After being with their Montana relatives a little more than three weeks, the kids have come for three play dates in six days, and we're all delighted to be together. But our relationship seems...fresher.

Bison just outside the car window!

As usual, the kids have lots to tell about their adventures - cousins, ballet camp, water fun, bison, black bears, a wooly mammoth excavation, and so much more. But guess what? This time we actually have a few things to tell about what we did while they were away.

And what DID we do while they were away? Among other things, we went to two concerts in ten days--and that's a lot for us. There was the Dylan concert, which was fun although, to tell the truth, it had the problems inherent in any Dylan concert: his voice isn't getting any better with age, it's tough to understand the words, and he rearranges songs so much that often you can barely recognize the old favorites. In fact, he takes off down musical side roads even during the performance and the band can't follow, so things get messy. But you know, Dylan fans will just keep showing up anyway.

Dr. John concert at the Minnesota Zoo

Last Friday we saw Dr. John perform at the Minnesota Zoo. A master of blues, rock, and the rich music of New Orleans, he is a long-time favorite in our house.  The concert was everything we could have hoped for. High energy, tight arrangements, and a band whose members are talented individually and together. It was another gorgeous evening; there were even ducks swimming on the pond just behind the stage. We went with friends whose daughter Irene was regularly serenaded as a child with Dr. John's version of Leadbelly's "Good Night Irene." It was Irene's birthday, and her dad had reached out to request that the song be included in the concert. We'll never know whether they would have played it anyway, but it gave our little group a special highlight for the night.

Just to bring things full circle...Dr. John was a big hit with Augie. When he was not quite two, I recorded his enthusiastic impression of Dr. John playing and singing the Pinetop Boogie. When Augie can stay up a little later we hope we can take him to a concert. We, and Dr. John, need to stay healthy long enough for that to happen! Meanwhile, here's a kid who loved the piano, and will again.