Gustav Diary Part 1: Commentary

This is the first entry in my audio diary of Hurricane Gustav.

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August 30, 2008. Three years and one day after Hurricane Katrina turned my life upside down, and here I am, packing my bags again. Hurricane fever has gripped the entire New Orleans area, but especially St. Bernard Parish, where I live. As each hour ticks away, Hurricane Gustav draws nearer, and this place sinks deeper into madness.

The old timers say it’s nothing to worry about. They rode out Hurricanes Betsy and Camille and have been braving these storms since they were named things like Betsy and Camille. They say Katrina has just got everyone so worked up that we’re now panicking over a hurricane we wouldn’t otherwise have given much attention.

They’re partly right. But Katrina now has me jaded. Gone is the time hurricane parties, of sitting near the window sipping a cocktail and marveling at the wind and lightning. In its place, we now have panic and the sobering reality everything you’ve broken your back to build and rebuild can, in an instant, be washed away.

I spent the anniversary of Katrina in an inexplicable haze of red and orange satellite weather maps and the grinding and clinking of heavy machinery making last-minute fortifications to roads and levees. And despite ongoing bustle of the remembrance ceremonies and the chatter of local talk radio hosts jabbering about lessons learned from three years ago, I’ve been zombified in a stupor of disbelief.

This isn’t happening again. This can’t be happening again. If I close my eyes, it’ll all go away.

Just a few minutes ago, as I was driving home from my mother’s house, I heard perhaps the most fitting song for the occasion: Santa Monica by Everclear. It’s a song about escaping one life to try to build another. In the chorus, Art (alex AH kiss) Alexakis sings about living on the beach and swimming out to watch the world die from afar. That’s exactly how it feels every time a hurricane slithers into the Gulf of Mexico and city officials begin to issue evacuation orders. We get scattered across the country and then glue ourselves to the nearest TV to watch clips of the wind battering our houses, skyscrapers and everything else in sight.

It seems that mother nature is not through menacing the Gulf South. After Gustav, we might have to contend with Hannah. After Hannah, who knows?

I’ll be evacuating to Houston. I know it’s not quite out of Gustav’s path, but I don’t have a choice. I have family there willing to take me in. My mother’s company has already set up shop in Houston, so that’s where she’ll be going as well.

Maybe I’ll New Orleans permanently. Maybe I’ll meander my way to Chicago or Denver or some place like that. Someplace where I won’t have to uproot my existence once a year. Some place where I can buy a little house with a white picket fence for my wife and 2.5 children. Some place where I’ll finally have the chance to try my hand at the American dream.