Sunday, January 01, 2006
Everything's changed: After Katrina, nothing is the same
Tom Planchet / WWLTV.com
Online at: http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/WWL010106tpeverything.34cd9384.html
WWL-TV studios are being evacuated:
When I first heard those words Tuesday morning – the day after Katrina, I realized that things might never be the same.
As I recall, though my memory of everything that happened is about as foggy as New Orleans was Saturday night, our job in Baton Rouge was over. The makeshift newsroom on the LSU campus was to pack up and head back on Tuesday with our base of operations returning to Rampart Street.
The hardy souls who had braved the night in the Hyatt Hotel were ready to resume WWL-TV’s operations and we would soon join them.
In the immediate wake of the storm, the words I had heard most were “dodged a bullet,” and “could have been worse.”
All of the reports weren’t in of course, Slidell, Biloxi, Plaquemines and St. Bernard – we knew they were bad, we just didn’t know how bad.
But New Orleans, the center of commerce for the region was “good to go,” ready to roll up its sleeves and become the center for rebuilding.
That’s when the word came to Baton Rouge. WWL-TV is evacuating, water is rising, you guys need to continue to run the show for now.
It wasn’t until five weeks later that WWL-TV returned to our operations on Rampart Street full-time.
LSU, then WLPB were our homes and the hosts were incredibly gracious.
New words were now being used – some would be come to be used in vain, many were preceded or followed by obscenities – FEMA, blue-roof, normalcy, forbearance, evacuee, refugee, survivor, limited menu, sheet piles, breach.
The canvass for much frustration was the normally harmless but now lethal white refrigerator and the poet in everyone became readily apparent.
Looking back now, it doesn’t seem real, but it hits home everytime I drive through Lakeview, or the Ninth Ward, or Gentilly. Home after home, block after block of grey, mud-covered homes with debris piled in front. No children running around, no old men playing checkers, no neighborhood gossips talking about everyone else’s business.
You have to plan each trip. You can’t just pull over at the closest neighborhood po-boy shop to get something to eat. The odds are it isn’t open and if it is, you can expect a long wait.
I believe it was the Times-Picayune’s Chris Rose who said we didn’t have a September here in New Orleans. I don’t recall October, November or December either. Was there a Halloween? For the first time in 15 years I didn’t celebrate it with my oldest daughter.
Everything was muted…and it seems now everything is on hold.
Rebuild, don’t rebuild; Move or stay? Raise your home or roll the dice?
Many want to return. Perhaps moreso than in any other metropolitan area, people want to return. If this wasn’t New Orleans, I doubt it would have survived. The city has a pull on people, yet many just can’t bear trying to rebuild and fearing this will happen again.
For some the memories are already beginning to fade, but even my 12-year-old daughter summed up the anxiety next hurricane season is likely to bring.
We were driving through the neighborhood where I grew up – an especially hard hit area near the London Avenue Canal breach.
My street, Chamberlain Drive, had about 8-10 feet of rushing water run through it. We saw one home out of about 30 on my old block with a FEMA trailer in front of it. One home that appeared ready to move on and move back.
I commented to my daughters that many people wouldn’t return for fear that they would spend so much time, money and energy rebuilding and then worrying that this would happen again next year.
My 12-year-old blurted out with a hint of fear in her voice, something she hadn’t previously considered, “You mean this is going to happen again next year?”
Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell her no.
