Catania Hurricane Betsy hit New Orleans on September 9, 1965, days after I had begun my senior year in high school. Those were the old days when school didn’t start until after Labor Day. The night the hurricane came, our whole family stayed, along with others, in the city’s central business district on the 4th floor of the old California Company building on Loyola Avenue, a stone’s throw from the central library and not much more to City Hall. My brother and I had to sit in to play hands of bridge to help make up foursomes among the adults. Our house didn’t flood, but the streets had enough water that, when we returned, I could paddle my 14-foot pirogue around the neighborhood and up Paris Avenue. It took a week for the water to subside and power to return. Having a gas stove was a lifesaver, which is part of the reason I still hang onto one now.
Forty years later, August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina once again flooded and devastated the lower 9th ward, but the damage was worse, as more than 80% of the city took water as the levees broke. Twenty years later, it takes very little effort to still see the scars of the storm both in places like the L9, where maybe 40% of the population has returned, as well as in the population statistics, which still reflect the displacement. That time it didn’t take a week to return, but forty-five days before we were back home. Keeping the lessons of Betsy always close at hand, everyone in our family lived on higher ground, so despite leaks and new roofs, we were lucky. I lost a fishing camp and everything in it. A tree collapsed mi companera’s car. Our dog died the night of the storm. We were strewn all over the country, but we were safe and sound.
The most important lesson nature should teach us is: we can’t teach nature lessons. We can surely impact nature. We can make it worse in every way it seems. We can, and should, learn from it, but we can’t wish away another storm, maybe in another twenty years, and maybe next week. The only thing certain in New Orleans is that a storm will come again.
In New Orleans now, there are memorials. There are certificates and recognitions given to survivors and heroes of that time, including the recent acknowledge of leaders and organizers of ACORN this week for our work in saving the L9 and forcing and enabling the recovery. There will be editorials, movies, newscasts and more. People will visit in solidarity and curiosity.
Collectively, as a nation, what did we learn from Katrina and the last twenty years? More than 130 FEMA employees signed a letter to Congress saying essentially, “not much,” and that what we did learn, and corrected in FEMA response, is currently being undone by the Trump administration. More than 30 who signed their names were suspended indefinitely. Only months ago, Trump was set on dismantling FEMA entirely “after the hurricane season” and turning any governmental response to the states, many of them having nowhere near the necessary resources for preparation and response. He’s walked back that plan, at least we hope so, since we have to always make sure we align action and words.
The saddest note, and looming tragedy, is that we haven’t learned enough and done enough, even as climate change has made storms, rain, wind, and flooding worse along the coasts and rivers and increasingly inland. The lesson of Katrina might become that we forgot, and we adapted to changes in our lives. The lessons of Katrina should be that we learned and adapted to the changes of nature.