WAYT: Remembering Katrina

It was seven years ago that Hurricane Katrina changed the United States.  For me back then, my life was very different.  (I’m sure we all viewed the world differently before Katrina.) 

I was sitting on my couch in my rented apartment, next to the Long John Silver’s in Jacksonville, Illinois.  My roommate was at work and if memory serves, I was just getting started on my first homework assignments for my senior year of college. 

From my living room window, I could see a gas station.  I watched the price per gallon tick higher and higher as the streets of New Orleans flooded and trapped the people on their rooftops and sent them fleeing to the Superdome. 

I went to New Orleans once.  It was my first vacation without my mom and my first college spring break.  I loved it there.  I’m convinced that, in a previous life, I was a southerner.  There is something about every state in the southern US that I’ve visited that makes me feel like I’m at home.  But New Orleans, with its creepy and eclectic vibe, was a unique experience for me.  Even after only few short days there, I could feel the imprint that the city left on me. 

I was sad for the city, seeing it destroyed the way that it was, but I was even more saddened in the days that followed the storm, as we all learned through the lens of a TV camera what it felt like for those New Orleans residents to be all alone in a huge, bleeding and gasping horde.  Beyond New Orleans, the response was just as ugly.  We weren’t prepared and we didn’t do enough.  In fairness, I’m not sure we could have ever been fully prepared…

What I’m thinking, as Hurricane Isaac rolls in to test the city once again, is that I hope we’ll do better this time.  I hope the levees and flood walls are stronger, I hope the people are smarter and I hope that we are ready to support New Orleans and all of those who will be affected by Isaac. 

Back in 2005, the help was weak to say the least.  We shouldn’t only do better now because we owe them better – we should do better because we know how.  By now, every government investigation and every TV pundit has called us out.  Our way to a more successful response is clear. 

It’s tragic that we’re getting a second chance to do right by the Gulf Coast residents in a time of extreme crisis.  We can’t get our innocence back – we can’t pretend that Katrina didn’t show our dark side.  But that pesky Golden Rule applies here: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  Maybe the first time around, we forgot about that.  As the necessary response grew and the costs climbed, maybe people got worried about the nickels and dimes.  And that’s an important consideration, especially now as the US is struggling in a seemingly never-ending recession. 

But you can’t put a price on what the response to the crisis means.  Katrina was already ugly – destruction everywhere, rampant despair – but then we added the sub par response to it and everything was so much worse.  Isaac needs a better PR face, to be sure, but I sincerely hope that wasn’t the only lesson we’ve learned in seven years. 

It’s worth it to pick up the pieces from all of these storms.  I know that New Orleans and every town around it is worth the effort.  And if you’ve never been to the Gulf Coast before, don’t let these storms keep you away.  No matter what, the South is always welcoming, and they’ll carry on no matter what Mother Nature dumps on them.  But the least we can do is commit to doing better, that’s all I’m asking for.