I want to share this because it’s real; not glamorized or sanitized … and because Jason is one of the most compassionate, talented, and heart-centered person I’ve ever met … and because Jason’s words, his experience, this ability he has to express all this ... has touched my heart, and I think will touch others as well. ~ Deb
~~~~~
November 11, 2005
I'm finally back in the suburbs of New Orleans with my mother. Its been a heck of a 3 months, I have to tell you. It's been hard.
I'm currently living with my mother. My mother's house had roof damage, and water from the roof came in. (along with black mold). Hurricane Rita (the second of these damned hurricanes ) had me scrambling to put up those blue tarpaulins.....2 hours on the roof in 100 degree heat.
But like [a mutual friend of ours] said, my cat is safe and sound thankfully. In the long run it was probably better that we didn't take her....two of my friends had their pets to die in the evacuation. One of my friends had her grandmother die. Thankfully, my mother's next door neighbors came back (illegally) and took care of her until we could return.
My school , however, was completely destroyed. I had met up with a parent of a student of mine who is a police officer in the grocery the other day. He came up to me and tapped me on the shoulder. He had gotten permission to go there in New Orleans east to view the area and said that it was pretty bad at the school. Of course, every single one of my students has lost their home.
I'm not sure what's going to happen now. I don't think they'll ever be able to reopen. All I know is that I'm not being paid. (and won't ever be....and now I have no insurance either...not that there are any hospitals left down here. anyway anymore).
We did get food stamps, however. They let you buy all the junk you want....soda, candy etc....for some bizarre reason you can't buy any cleaning supplies of paper products. I can't imagine why.
The biggest hardship at the moment is finding doctors. It's nearly impossible. My mother's not doing well...she can't walk again so it's been a trial getting around the state (we've had to move 7 times!) with a wheel chair. She's not been able to get to her doctors for a month....and there have been a lot of problems with her health lately.
In the first days of being back here, even the suburbs of NO were crazy. Lots of people are back here, but very few services. Even now, there's still no mail, still very few gas stations open. It had been a month and miles of rotting meat and debris were still sitting on the sidewalk. It's indescribably disgusting.
There were only 2 groceries open here. I went to the grocery the and waited for an hour in line just to check out. It was insane in there....a literal mob scene. I'd gone days ago, but it was even worse then....the smell of rotting meat was horrible....there was a literal mob (like something out of the French Revolution). My mother spent the whole time in the bathroom vomiting. Then we just went home and at crackers. They're literally running out of food. The place was stripped.
The other day, I went back to my own home, illegally. They said on the 5th we'd be able to go in for a day. A friend of mine who lives right near me, went back to find her place destroyed. They're going to have to level the neighborhood and dig 18 inches because of a pesticide spill she tells me.
The last I had read of my neighborhood was an urgent plea in the Times Picayune (our local Newspaper) to rescue two adults and two children from a rooftop...who were "watching the bodies of their neighbors float by"
That's a direct quote....I can remember it verbatim.
So, I've spent the better part of last week or so trying to salvage what I could of my belongings, rummaging through the garbage.
I got there to find complete devastation. You know, a month or so ago, the neighborhood was beautiful........azaleas and crepe myrtles and oaks and palms...wild parrots flying about. Now, however....well...
Now nearly every door around has been knocked in by the people who had to come and search. My front door was on the floor. It had disintegrated from floating in the sewerage in the front room. My wooden floor had curled up and warped...it was hard to even walk on...some of the floorboards had floated around like matchsticks. There was still some sort of sludge in the hall. All my shoes had floated out of the closet and were strewn all over the house as had all my books and papers.
The worst of it is the mold....there is mold everywhere. It's been festering in the heat all this time, you know?
My furniture, the wood furniture, had just disintegrated....my book cases made of fiberboard had just melted into a big puddle, slumped onto the floor....all my childhood books....it really is the sentimental stuff that gets to you most, you know?.... all the books I had cherished from my childhood...gifts...were a big mass of wet paper and mold. My checks and documents, important papers and files and banking stuff was one big mass of papier mache dipped in sewerage. I live on the bottom floor of a two story building, but water had even come through the ceiling. Part of the ceiling was in my bed. The kitchen ceiling looked about to collapse too. I could see a watermark on my computer.
All the paintings that I'd done were destroyed, warped and covered in mold. All my letters and journals and short stories and a novel.....cards and gifts too...destroyed.
All of my clothes are destroyed....they were all wet and with a half an inch thick coating of mold. I touched a leather coat to find about an 8th of an inch of greenish mold. The smell is sickening. That's true of everything. You can't get rid of it with anything it seems. There was at least 6 feet of water there it seems.
And, as they say, "to add insult to injury"...it seems I had been "looted" as well. I don't know if that's even the appropriate term. I mean it's not that I had anything there of worth...but I got there to find that others had been there before me.
I didn't have anything salvageable to loot except a watch my mother had given to me for Christmas and a bit of other jewelry that belonged to my mother....and some liquor.
It's not that I didn't know that it was going to be like this....but even when you know it, it doesn't quite register with you, until you see it for yourself. It was good to go.
I couldn't get a Uhaul, because none of the places are open. I couldn't get a storage space, because no place is open. By the 5th, I was able to find someone to help me move some stuff....my father ...only to find all my stuff tossed out into the street by my landlord (with everyone else's stuff) He was already stripping the place. I was horrified. Just when you think it can't get worse it seems to. What hadn't been destroyed by the flood was now destroyed by the throwing out.
A few weeks ago, I tried applying with a service that supposedly helps you find teaching jobs...but of course they require letters of recommendation and transcripts. My transcripts are possibly destroyed......and certainly not available now anyway. I have no way to contact my boss.....and possibly never will again....and the references I might have can't be contacted either. These are little things, I know, but even the simplest things in life are so very complicated now, you know?
Argh
Ok, enough of my complaining...
In good news, the weather is gorgeous right now...really is very pretty. Ironically pretty. It's actually very beautiful, in the few parts of the city now that have escaped the floods.
all the best,
jason
[Deb sidenote: at this point, in my reply, I asked if I could post his experience here at S8 and he replied today, November 15 yes, along with an additional update]
Yeah, it's been difficult.. But honestly, I am very lucky all things considered. I really am.
I don't have to look far to see how lucky I was.
Things are better here in a lot of ways...but getting worse in many others.
What gets to me is that most of this is completely man made. You know what I mean?
The hurricane did not really hurt us here in NO....it was the incompetance and fraud of a whole lot of people...like the Army Corp of Engineers who built levees that they *knew* were structurally unsound. ....and Congress who cut funding for years and years despite the warnings to our levee systems.....and the President who lied about helping us and is now reneging on those promises right now....and many others.
Thank God for the ordinary citizens out there or nothing would get done. FEMA is a sad joke. God help the next city in the US that is in a disaster.
I heard not long ago that approximately 40 percent of the state is unemployed. 90,0000 small businesses are expected to go under in the next few months. There is no housing in NO and what there is... is now out of reach for anyone but the very rich. 80 percent of the city is uninhabitable and still without power, gas, or water. Still, people here are resiliant. We don't give up that easily.
But enough of my ranting.
The ironic thing about all of this, is that the tourist areas of NO are more or less perfectly intact. If you never left the area along the river you might not know anything was wrong (well, except for the soldiers riding around constantly ) It really is quite nice in some regards downtown....less traffic....friendly people.....the azaleas have been forced into bloom by the hurricane....and no meter maids!
(cutting)
I'm flattered by your wanting to share what I wrote to you. I bit horrified since I didn't proofread it, Yikes....but yeah, please do whatever you want.
much love,
jason
