One year ago today, in fact one year ago to this very minute, the water was rising in my backyard and getting ready to enter my home as a terrible storm approached. My wife and I watched as the dark clouds circled in the wide expanse of the sky, as the rain fell progressively harder, and as the winds picked up and swayed the trees. Even when the electricity went out... about now a year ago today, we stayed calm, hoping for the best, and assuming that help would be here if the unthinkable happened.
The worst came soon enough. The rising waters poured into our living room and kitchen, forcing us to move upstairs, soon followed by 90 mph gusts that rattled the entire structure of our home. By the time it was through two feet of water flooded our home, boats run by firemen were coming down the middle our street rescuing those in need, debris was everywhere, and hundreds of houses throughout our neighborhood were in ruins.
I look out at the water now, the quiet little bayou in my backyard, and try to remember what the water was like a year ago today, surging upward to a height 15 foot higher than it is now, aggressively seeking to flood everything in sight. Only with forced recollection of that day can I do it, for otherwise I would say such a force of nature could never happen. But it did happen, and it happened to me and my family, and to thousands of others.
But more than our own fate--which hardly matters in the whole debacle of Katrina since thousands of others lost so much more than we---I remember those who I met who lost everything. I remember the poor but kind folks I met from Waveland Mississippi who had lost their homes and slept in the open space of the church rec room month after month, trying to maintain their patience and dignity, and to whom my wife brought donated food, clothing, and good cheer day after day. I remember the pastor of the church and his wife who gave everything to those in need, and how desperate they became for relief from their endless duties and the rising frustration. I remember the pathetic interactions we had with FEMA, and their dithering incompetent ways. I remember how proud I was of my wife who decided not to mess around with those in the local FEMA office when they gave her endless runarounds day after day and who, instead, called Washington D.C. directly to finally mobilize action for us to get a FEMA trailer. I remember the poor elderly lady from Pascagoula, with whom I struck up a conversation on the plane as we lifted off the runway from Mobile a week after the hurricane--who answered my simple question about her destination with tears saying "I've lived in Pascagoula all my life, raised my family there, but am now leaving forever, since I lost everything."
And when I drive down highway 90 these days along the coast, through Biloxi, Gulfport and all the devastation, ultimately making my way to New Orleans--I remember most of all what it was like to be an American before we had a government that used "compassionate conservatism" not as a moral obligation but rather as a political slogan and a deceptive ruse to be used for cover or political gain. There was a time, I think to myself when I view the destruction and desolation down here--when the government of the United States stood for so much more, and cared for those in need, and stood for the generosity that embodies America.
I remember a year ago today, and what came after. The resilient people of the Gulf Coast will survive, and ultimately flourish through perserverence and hard work. But, like me, they won't easily forget that so many abandoned them in a time of their greatest need. For our part, we must never let the world forget how and why it happened that the government of the United States of America, rather than give desperate Americans the help they deserved, instead saw no opportunity for profit and turned its back then to those in need, and continues to do so now.