My Black Orchids buddies finally got me to write one of these. Normally, I’d expect Darryl would be writing about Happy Cat Month, Johnny would be writing about High Holy Days, Dianne would be writing about Hispanic Heritage Month or the year’s Absolutely Final Tax Day, and JD would be claiming he’s too busy writing the next book. But let a little bit of reality creep in to our happy fictional world, and they say Chantal should write about it. Thanks, friends.
They said I should write about the hurricane, because I know all about them. You want me to spill my 30 years of PTSD from living in New Orleans, also known as Hurricane Central? Maybe everyone would like to hear how my family fled Hurricane Katrina, never to return to the house that had been in our family for generations because it wasn’t even standing after Katrina and Rita had their way with our town. Maybe people want to hear about how much fun it is to be a refugee in your own country, relocated to Houston, Texas, in the blink of an eye at age fifteen.
I didn’t think so.
Infrogmation of New Orleans, Creative Commons Attribution 2.5
Just take my word for it, the damage in the wake of Hurricane Helene is bad, really bad. People are moaning about the art museums under water, like they mourned New Orleans’ music and its venues, and I agree, that’s terrible, but don’t let it overshadow the invisible tragedies of people who lost houses of no importance to anyone but themselves. They might never recover. They might be dead, because they couldn’t afford to leave or had to work one last shift under threat of being fired. Death versus unemployment, always a tough choice when you’re living on the edge, especially when most can’t afford a $500 emergency. And I don’t know why so many hurricanes hit at the end of the month, when many people are waiting for that last check.
I’m just glad my dad was in the Navy and said the one thing he learned was respect for water. He always got us out of town as soon as a hurricane even glanced in our direction, no matter what the financial cost—and there were many skinny or nonexistent Christmases because we evacuated a few months earlier.
I need to go lie down and pet my cat.
Anyway, please give what you can to Helene’s victims. Next time weather might go wild in your area.
