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Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management Crisis and Emergency Management Newsletter Website |
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December
2005
Volume 9 - Number
3 |
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As I sat in a DC bar in mid-October enjoying a glass of wine at happy hour prices, I knew the time had come. Two stools down, a woman with perfectly coiffed hair snorted at the post-Katrina CNN coverage playing on the television above the bar. “Oh God, this again. Isn’t this over yet?” She said to her friend. That’s when I knew that Katrina’s moment in the spotlight had come to an end. Technically I am a hurricane Katrina survivor. I packed up my car with no money and a few belongings. I spent 15 hours in traffic evacuating to a friend of a friend’s house. I obsessively watched the news as my city was destroyed. I cried because I couldn’t go home. I slept on floors and couches in seven states. I spent weeks tracking down my friends and co-workers. I got my FEMA check. Although I experienced cycles of grief and depression, ultimately I came out of the experience unscathed. I didn’t lose any belongings and everyone I love is safe. I consider myself a “survivor.” The real status of survivor goes to people like my friend Liz who evacuated with 18 family members and stayed with 30 people in a three bedroom house in Houston. She lost everything. Most people she knows lost everything. On the Thursday after the levees broke, her friend was airlifted from the roof of the office building where he worked as a security guard during the storm. As her neighbors were stranded on their roof, they text messaged the names of dead friends as they floated past. These are people with real survivor credentials. In the immediate weeks after the storm, there was a feeling of fame associated with being a survivor. No matter how mundane, people wanted to know your story. They also wanted to give you stuff: hugs, clothes, food, money. The Red Cross and other aid organizations had to turn away volunteers because so many people were eager to help. Even Netflix and Cingular noticed when you lived in the zip code of “an affected area” and offered their “sincerest condolences” with discounted charges. As the weeks wore on, the spotlight faded and people became less interested. The once fascinating survivors became passé and burdensome. At a dinner party, the woman who insisted on making a toast in my honor four weeks previous couldn’t quite seem to place me. Once she did, she said to me: “Are you still around? I thought you would have gone back there by now.” As news of the FEMA checks and Red Cross debit cards spread, some even got hostile. As a general rule, people tend to be less sympathetic when you get a check and they don’t, regardless of the circumstances. Overnight we were converted into mooches living on the government’s dime. Katrina is indeed over for the woman in the bar, the toast master, and for most of the American people. I don’t mind being out of fashion but I do worry about the real survivors. New Orleans is far from recovered and thousands of peoples’ lives are still disrupted. This is a crucial time in the rebuilding process and without the spotlight shinning, it is too easy to forget about people like Liz. |