AS I SEE IT...

Day 4 After Hurricane Katrina:

Thursday
11:15 pm
September 1st, 2005

Day 4 after Katrina:

The electricity is out for the first time after being restored since Hurricane Katrina made landfall in the early morning hours on Monday. The deathly quietness of being cast suddenly into complete silence and darkness startled me awake from a sound and cool slumber.

I’ve been luckier than most. I arrived at the hotel in Houston, Texas at 2:30 am Monday morning. I’ve seen more of the devastation in New Orleans, Louisiana and along the Gulf Coast than the majority of the people here in Houma, Thibodaux, New Orleans. Television is a luxury that nobody is worried about for the present. Internet access is just as elusive. Landline based phone service, as well as cellular phone service is sporadic at best sometimes. The best local information is garnered from listening to local radio stations, and if you have never listened to local coonass radio... it is mindboggling.

There has been an 8 pm curfew for the last few nights. I hesitate to mention that a curfew has been imposed since the refugees started arriving from the New Orleans area, since I don’t want it to read like I think it is their fault.

Houma has not been the sleepy, little bayou town it once was for many years now, but it is obvious that our population has grown dramatically literally overnight. I’ve been in Louisiana for every hurricane since Betsy, and I’ve never seen the likes of what is going on now.

I visited three grocery stores today, and was shocked by empty shelves and display cases, yet I was awed by what was still available. There was not a banana in sight, but plenty of apples, oranges, and plums. No bread. No milk. No eggs. Onions and potatoes were getting scarce, but the store employees were continually restocking the shelves. Day by day it is getting better, but for a while it was quite scary.

Amazingly we have had mail service the last two days. Our mail is normally routed out of New Orleans, but the junk mail is still getting through - Unbelievable, but true.

The stress and strain is apparent on every face I passed in the stores. One particularly worker caught my eye. She looked not so much tired as sad. I felt compelled to speak to her, so as I passed I simply thanked her for being at work. I am glad to report that little simple consideration was all it took to put a smile on her face. She thanked me as sincerely as I thanked her.

Every gas station had lines of cars needing fuel. There seems to be a growing sense of concern by many that fuel is growing scarce. The price of gas has increased by nearly forty cents a gallon in less than a week.

Until this afternoon the poorest of the poor could not access their state issued food stamps. Food stamps are now issued electronically, and are accessed via a plastic credit card. Telephone service is required to access electronically issued food stamps. Every grocery store had large hand printed signs that read, “Cash or checks only”.

I called South Louisiana Electric (SLECA) just before I started writing this. The phone rang, and Theresa answered as she usually does every day of any given week. I know Theresa could hear the laughter in my voice as I asked, “Don’t you usually work during the day?” To which she replied, without missing a beat, “Nights too, now!”

Yes, in many ways Houma still has the qualities of a small sleepy town, and one of those small town qualities is evidenced by the fact that people, like me and Theresa, can still recognize each others voice in the middle of the night, some four days after a devastating hurricane.

The electricity is back on now. It is 12:17 am Friday morning, September 2nd, 2005.

I am sitting here typing this, and thinking about my brothers, who I have not heard from since before the storm. I have to believe that both are making out just fine, found shelter, and will contact me as soon as they are able. I am feeling so blessed. My home is intact; my very pregnant daughter is sleeping just down the hall. My youngest son is sleeping in the next room. My oldest son is at the hospital with Amy and their newborn baby boy, Hayden Daniel Falgout. We have food, water, electricity, and shelter. My middle son called from Iraq yesterday, and I actually had to convince him that we were all just fine as he had been trying to call for days, and he has been watching the news in Iraq about what’s going on here, just like I watch the news programs here about what is going on over there.

It’s difficult to go back to sleep to night now that I have started thinking about the many people who have lost so much. Whether homeowners or not, they’ve lost their way of life. They’ve lost their jobs. They’ve lost family and friends. They’ve lost their familiar surrounding. Tens of thousands are being bused and trucked from New Orleans and the surrounding areas.

Yes, tonight I am feeling blessed and lucky, but that does not keep me from feeling sad and inadequate in the face of all this devastation. It could all too easily have happened here. It could be my family depending on the kindness and generosity of strangers.