Fear in the Air
In Post-Katrina New Orleans, The Next Hurricane Already Has A Million Eyes
Hurricane season, which starts Thursday, looms large in the minds of Gulf Coast residents devastated by last year's storms. Above: A Gulf storm viewed from the Florida Panhandle.
(By Erik Von Weber -- Getty Images)
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Sunday, May 28, 2006
NEW ORLEANS Around here, evil has a name: Hurricane Season. And it has a start date: June 1.
Though it seems like only yesterday that Hurricane Katrina tore through the area -- causing widespread flooding that caused evacuation that caused displacement and chaos and tragedy -- this week it starts all over again. But the panic started weeks ago: "There is not a lot of time," newly reelected Mayor C. Ray Nagin said during one of the campaign debates. "Hurricane season's going to start June 1, and we need to be ready."
He added, "I think we are."
There are lots of New Orleanians who don't agree with the mayor. It's not that they have proof to the contrary; it's just that they don't feel prepared. It's that once-flooded, twice-shy feeling they can't shake. And since the hurricane season traditionally kicks off on June 1 and lasts through November, the ominousness of the possible can be overwhelming.
Sure, there is hurricane anxiety every year in the hearts of coastal dwellers, but this time in this place it's especially powerful and poignant. It's in the headlines, on the television and it affects the way New Orleanians look at the world around them: Will this levee break? Will that street flood? What are the plans for evacuation?
The first day of June looms like the Sword of Damocles over New Orleans. It's a doomsday date that preys on the city's psyche.
"I'm concerned about the levees," says Anita Morgan. She is standing on Tennessee Street in the Lower Ninth Ward just a few blocks from where the levees along the Industrial Canal failed. Morgan, 40, has brought her father, Oliver, back to see the flooded-out family home for the first time since the hurricane struck in August. "It's too soon for things to be back the way they're supposed to be."
A local legend, Oliver Morgan, 73, recorded the hit rock-and-roll song "Who Shot the La La?" in the early 1960s. Morgan used to sit on his porch and wave to passersby who shouted: "Who shot the La La?!"
Anita says, "That was my daddy's life. It's gone now." The porch looks like a pile of firewood.
The Morgans -- five generations' worth -- evacuated as Katrina approached. First they moved into a downtown hotel. Then they were told to leave as the water rose and they drove 22 hours to Atlanta. "I was gone for about seven months," Anita says. "I was terribly homesick. Atlanta is a very progressive city, but I just couldn't give up on New Orleans."
Her father, on the other hand, is living in a condo complex for senior citizens in Georgia. Back for a few days, he motions toward his collapsed wood frame house, which was moved 10 feet or so by floodwaters into his neighbor's driveway. There is not much to say: The house is beyond repair. The house that was next door is now in the middle of the street.
"I told my fiance, 'As soon as they say to evacuate, I'm gone,' " says Anita, who has moved to another neighborhood on higher ground. "We are more prepared this time. But if there's another hurricane as big as Katrina and we have to evacuate, we won't come back."
