I went home today.
It's such a familiar phrase. Most everyone says it at some time during the day; hardly anyone really thinks about it. But I've been thinking about going home a lot lately, since I live in New Orleans.
I was filled with mixed emotions as I worked my way toward the city. My wife and I had left our apartment at 5am on the Sunday before Katrina hit southeast Louisiana and Mississippi Coast and driven to my bother-in law's home in the Woodlands, north of Houston.
There, my wife and I became glued to the computer screen and watched bad steaming video from the TV stations from New Orleans. First we felt relieved in that Katrina had not hit New Orleans dead-on, and it looked like the city had yet again dodged the ruin and disaster that a direct hit would cause to our hometown. Then we heard the first whisper of the dreaded words, levee break. Then came hours and days of confusion and media coverage of New Orleans and the human and environmental disaster that was unfolding.
So here it is 18 days later and I am trying to go home to my apartment. I do not know what I will find, the television images have been surreal to me and the image of New Orleans that they are showing the world is not the New Orleans that I know and love. New Orleans is not open to the general public yet so I am armed with a letter from Sierra Magazine stating that I am on "special assignment" to cover Katrina, because I have heard that the press has access to New Orleans.
The drive to New Orleans from Baton Rouge, where we are now staying in a friend's guestroom, is filled with images of storm destruction and downed trees. The damage seems to grow worse the closer to New Orleans I drive. I work my way to River Road because I have heard that is the easy way to get into town. I sit in the traffic at the check point, National Guardsmen and New Orleans Police officers are checking each car and truck and turning most around and not allowing them into the city. I worry that my letter will not get me in and I will not be able to see my apartment and my cats which we could not take with us.
It's my turn at the check point. My letter does not work. My feelings are going up and down the scale, but I think to try a different route. So I drive toward a different way into the city and …success!!! The National Guardsman reads the letter and lets me into New Orleans. Almost right away I see the level of the water that was in the street; I stop and take a picture of an SUV with a high-water line along its side. I worry about what I will find at my apartment. I drive slowly through streets that are usually full of people, cars and life. It's a ghost town, eerie. The high-water marks are clear on the houses and cars that I pass. I hope that the report that my street and apartment did not flood are true. I come closer to my apartment I see less signs of high water but more signs of fallen trees, I worry more; I turn the corner and see my apartment. No visible damage, I take a picture to show my wife.
SUV with high-water line along its side
picture of my apartment |
I then see DayGlo spray paint marking the front of the house. I wonder what they mean, later my wife tells me what she read in the Times-Picayune newspaper (online since the office was flooded).
The left side tells which group of people looked at my apartment USBP=United States Border Patrol. They checked our apartment on 9/11. NE=No Entry in the bottom part. The empty part on the right side is the space to note if there were any bodies or animals in the apartment. It was and is still a strange feeling I get when I see those marks on houses across Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama and now Texas and think about the number of homes and apartments that had numbers in the right segment of the markings.
- darryl.malek-wiley@sierraclub.org
US Border Patrol checked the aparment on 9/11, they found NE (No Entry) and no bodies or animals in the apartment.
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I plan to write more later about my visits to Chalmette and Lafitte. So little time and so much to do.
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Photos: Darryl Malek-Wiley/Sierra Club collection; all rights reserved.
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