I suppose I should have expected such a statement two weeks after this major story broke and just days after thousands in New Orleans were finally, finally, finally rescued. It’s just the way human beings are. As grownups, we are much like children, who can’t sit still and can’t pay attention to one thing for very long.
When that comment was made, I wondered if the person just didn’t care anymore about the unfolding drama on the Gulf Coast. Perhaps they were just tired of hearing about the drama and were ready to move on to the next thing. The problem could also lay with the very profession that I have embraced and endured for more than 20 years.
I admit that I finally tore myself away from CNN out of a desparate need to stop feeling so angry, helpless, afraid and shocked. But when the second hurricane came through last week, I watched the cable news giant for hours straight. I needed to know that my sister and her family in Houston were okay.
They may have to replace their fence, but they are blessed. However, my old body is still making me pay for staying up almost long enough to see the sunrise.
Then, last week, I spoke to a woman whose voice reached through the phone with such exhaustion, I could feel it. She and 15 other family members have been here since they escaped New Orleans and Katrina. They are all staying in one house, looking for homes, jobs and hope.
At least one family in the group has decided to stay in St. Louis and, as the mother put it, “never return to New Orleans.”
How can some be Katrina’d-Out, when hundreds of thousands like this woman and her husband and three children have yet to replace all that was lost?
They both had good jobs and a home and two vehicles, and it’s all gone. They have received assistance, but only enough to last a few weeks. Landlords won’t rent to them because the family is too big; others won’t rent to them because they need proof of a job, even though there are agencies willing to pay the deposit and a couple of months rent. Far too many are still getting mixed messages from the federal agency that is supposed to be there at times such as this.
I don’t know about you, but I still need to know what went wrong, along with who said what and when. I also want to know what is being done, locally, to ensure that county and state agencies are really ready. I’m not Katrina’d-out. I’m just getting started.