Voices from the Storm
Number 3

 

June 1 marks the opening of the 2006 hurricane season. Our thoughts will be with those of you who in harm's way, and we'll remember the experiences you have shared with us.
Stay safe!

Hurricane Thoughts
by Bonnie M. Benson

Hurricane thoughts

the drainpipe lies under the hedge
ripped off the wall
by hurricane fingers and slapping rain
rested, it flexes its bolts
and eyes the empty holes
yearning to drink from the beckoning eave

***

after the hurricane
my Puerto-Rican neighbors were the first
to fire up their grill
with amazing speed
they gathered and bagged debris
their patio cleared
while others still wandered dazed
through uprooted trees, cracked sidewalks
and shards of shingles
perhaps that island living
trains them differently
to celebrate near death
with gratitude and food

***

wounded trees litter the landscape
branches broken off at odd angles
trunks split
stumps erupting from the ground
yet grass returns
as it always does

there's something primal
about those tiny green shoots
with their long roots and tiny tufts
green icebergs covering the ground
that push up through dirt, rock, concrete
thrusting towards light
hungry for sun

---

The Island of Turning Back
by Wolff Bowden

She swam without the ordinary, oceanic fears: flailing breaths,
sharks in suits of mercury, mime's faces screaming out of foam, blood ribboning
from the lips of pirates lost beneath the work of waves.
She swam without thinking of salt stripping her hair, without considering
the buoyancy of breasts or the heaviness of waterlogged bones.

She swam on one side of her body, in the density of hydrogen's love
for oxygen, one ear tuned to squirrelfish, the other to the sun's warm whisper.

Wind beseeched the sea. She swam for what seemed a century.
The moon began to ask the stars if they knew her name,
as if she was a constant thing, as if she were one of them.

And there was no ark, no architect, just the swell of green
along the coastline, the ballads of sand, the shadows
of no one in particular. The land of wandering.

At last, her feet began to touch down on small stones;
her flesh felt its gravity again. With one foot on the shore
and one still wreathed in water, she looked over her shoulder at the hurricane.

He watched her like a lover who believed he could grow small.
Her indecision held back his blackness: She could not choose
between swimming and walking home.

This hesitation became their lives.

So that she would never again sleep in the bed her father built with his bronze hands.
So that she would never feel her skin go dry again.
So that he would always keep his weeping distance from the shore.

Hurricane Frances
by Wolff Bowden

All she wanted was sex. Imagine it from her perspective.
Our state, hanging flaccid in the blue boxers of the Atlantic.
She, roughly eighteen in hurricane years, her pale hair disheveled by desire,
her bold eye fixed on the sleeping manhood of America.

We knew she was coming; we were prepared.
We hoped her lust might turn to love, that she might reach our doorsteps
and go gentle on us, but just in case she didn't, in case she really
wanted to fuck, we bought category four contraception:
steel shutters, sandbags, condoms, even spermicidal plywood.

We bought gallons of water, as if she wasn't bringing enough, so after
she leaves us, as every lover does, we'll have something pure to drink,
something she hasn't touched, because after she hits, her memory will remain
too vivid. It will hurt to hear her name because she came and came
then left us, like a nymphomaniac of weather, a one-night stand of wind and water.

Leaving us spent and powerless, drenched in sweat and lonelier than before,
with trees uprooted from the dark groves of our hearts, with every fence unzipped
by her howling fingers, every stability undermined by her thighs, as slick as time.

Imagine a lover who tears the roof off your world. Who gets so wet
you'd swear that you were drowning in her arms. Who pounds and pounds
your bones until you can no longer differentiate between an orgasm and a torrent.

Imagine our heartbreak when we realize she could kill us and not care.
She doesn't need a sex disease, she can snap our spines right here.
She could blow us a kiss with the fist of an oak tree inside it.

We wanted her to love us, but she didn't. We wanted to believe in something
greater than storms and peninsulas colliding through all the nights of our lives.

We're glad she's gone now, though we're devastated.
We learned something important, though we're not sure how to say it.
Or maybe we're just holding our words, until she's out of the state,
until she plows through Alabama fucking everyone along the way.

---

First Hand Account of Lakeview By Canoe
by Troy A. Gilbert

The neighborhood that I've lived in for fifteen years is under water. A lot of water.

My father and I took a ride out to the Lakefront on September 8,2005, I had been the day before and he had to see the neighborhood that he grew up in first hand. He needed to see it for himself.

We made the circuitous journey through marinas and condos until we reached the intersection of West End and Robert E. Lee. There were two soldiers from Massachusetts and a search and rescue guy from Oakland, CA. The guy from Oakland had been in the city since the first Tuesday after the storm. He told us that they were still even now picking up survivors from the Lakefront — but that phase was winding down. Today alone they had pulled out six bodies... from Lakeview.

As we walked around, we discovered a canoe. So we went canoeing. Our house is down on Catina near Harrison, about 10 or so blocks. We started out paddling through the Robert's (pronounced Roe-bears) Grocery parking lot, passing between around seven or eight cars left in the lot. The water was up to the windows and they were parked on the raised divisions between the rows.

The water is disgusting. It stinks. It's soupy. Their are different colors in it. The freakiest was the areas where it was clay grey on top, but when the paddle would disturb it, a black plume of nastiness would fight its way to the top only to be forced back under by the grey. Other parts were more typical of Lake water, but it was all foul.

Remember that our family has four generations in Lakeview — we love that neighborhood and acted in NO way disrespectfully — As we paddled down our street, the truly bizarre nature of this new world was hitting us in the face.

Oddly enough, in many ways, it was kind of beautiful. We were paddling through the canopies of majestic oaks, their reflections still in the water until we passed. The only problem was the rooftops and second stories. Seriously your mind has a hard time grasping what it's witnessing. For moments it would appear that we were simply paddling down a bayou or an engorged river. I even started having memories of the last time I had paddled around with my Dad on a trip in North Louisiana when I was 10 or so.

Those memories would crash though the second we would snag on something, and after a moment, realize it was the roof of a van, or someone's grandmothers antique chair.

There were several boats around, floating. We saw at least three jetskiis bobbing around. Even a Hobie Cat. And garbage, lots of crazy floaty stuff, DVD's, gas cans, little keep-safe type boxes, books — I was hard pressed not to pick one or two of those up in order to check out the title, looking for some mystical message. I dared not. The water is ill.

On several occasions, our expedition got thrown off by enormous downed trees blocking our path, and twice we had a blackhawk hover over us making sure we weren't in need of saving or in need of being shot for looting. Without the helicopters, it was dead quiet, other than the sound of birds who will probably all die from drinking this water.

As we finally approached our house, I expected for both of us to break down... but I think we're all past that now down here. We've hardened I think, or maybe are still not comprehending what we're seeing. The permanence of it. The massiveness of it.

We paddled straight up to the front porch, and just sat for a few minutes. My grandmother's antique brass planter that we use as a mailbox sat next to the door quietly, lapped by water. The window immediately to my left looks into my three month old Godchild's room. All the clothes for him until he's three, all of his stuffed animals and future toys, his antique crib sat right there through that window. I didn't look in. I couldn't.

We paddled our way through to the backyard. A large woodsy area where I've had countless crawfish boils. Crazy beer drinking parties. Barbecues. Or simply just sat and read the Sunday paper over coffee. The brand new porch that was finished three weeks ago sat and looked back at us. The only damage on the entire house from the actual hurricane was one torn screen on that porch. One torn screen. ONE TORN SCREEN.

This house that we've lost. This home that has sheltered four generations of my family has been lost due to a levee breach.

I thought of many things while paddling back to higher ground... I worried for the grand oaks and pines, our mature urban forest, how long can they survive with their trunks covered by 14 feet of water? How toxic is this water? Will the EPA demand it all be bulldozed? After the water recedes, will any family be allowed to return and collect their silver, their heirlooms that could be salvaged? How many dead had we paddled by in those short ten blocks? Would we ever see any of our neighbors again?

After returning back onto Lake Marina Ave., we spoke with several groups of soldiers, most from Massachusetts and all young. They treated us with the utmost respect. They were kind. They were watching out for our safety and the safety of our homes. They were all heros.

When I shook the hand of one soldier, probably 20 years old, and thanked him — he replied to me... "We're honored to be here."

As we walked back on the levee towards the Jeep, Dick Cheney's helicopter was landing. On the top of the levee journalists and reporters were starting to line up for his photo-op. My Dad and I didn't even have to ask each other if we wanted to stay and watch.

---

Katrina
by Fritz Esker

The car I'm riding in inches forward along narrow River Rd. Shawn, a friend and co- worker, has graciously offered to sneak me into the city in his vehicle (mine has been totaled by Katrina). It is late September, and only official personnel, business owners, and residents of two specific zip codes, neither of which I am a resident of, are supposed to be allowed past the military checkpoints. My goal is to retrieve as many of my valuables as possible. I lived near the Fairgrounds, home to Jazz Fest, in the Mid-City section of New Orleans. Based on reports I have heard, the water in my neighborhood was only a couple of feet high, and since I lived in a second-floor apartment, I am very hopeful.

Finally, we reach the checkpoint. I smile and stammer, explaining to the National Guardsman that I am a freelance journalist who desperately needs his computer to continue working, which is, technically, the truth. The National Guardsman sneers knowingly and drawls in a thick country accent, "Y'all can go through, but y'all better have a good story, ‘cause if the cops catch y'all, they'll throw y'all out."

We thank him and proceed into the neighborhood of Uptown, where I promised a friend I would check on the exterior of her place. After hopskotching through downed tree limbs and snapping a few digital pictures, I climb back inside the car and we drive towards my neighborhood. As the street dips below a large overpass, we drive around road closed signs, as well as a stranded boat in the middle of the road.

Reaching my apartment, I dash up the ugly turquoise steps leading to my door. Ominously, there is a spray-painted call sign next to my door, indicating that my apartment had been searched for dead bodies. Unlocking the door, I see that the ceiling has collapsed over about 2/3 of my apartment.

"Oh, no," is all I can weakly muster.

During the storm, the attic shutters were torn from the building. The rain that came in through that space was apparently enough to bring down most of my ceiling. I feel like a sucker for allowing myself to hope that my apartment would be okay. Almost everything in my office and bedroom is covered in wet drywall, giving many of my belongings the texture of gooey paper-maiche. Black and white mold stretches to the ceiling. Shawn keeps asking me if I'm okay. My hands shake, but I lie and tell him I'm okay. He goes about putting some of my salvageable belongings (mostly from my living room) into bags to take back.

Seeing my home destroyed is heartbreaking on many levels. The obvious one is seeing possessions of mine that have sentimental value, such as pictures with me and friends and a signed Christmas card with a picture attached from some of my favorite students, destroyed. Even the mundane stuff is heartbreaking, though. The empty water bottles, the old movie ticket stubs, the Creative Writing textbook, these are the little things that made up my life. It reminds me that I did indeed have a life before Katrina, and that life is gone forever. I am not dead, but going through my ruined possessions is akin to going through a loved one's personal effects before a funeral, except the funeral is my own. Even more mind-boggling to me is the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of people who have it worse than I do, people who have lost loved ones or everything they own (at least my living room was relatively unscathed). However, this is no comfort to me. It merely adds guilt and shame to the sickening mix of grief, agony, and despair I already feel. I decide not to linger at my former home. We grab what we can, and leave. Shawn talks, trying to keep my spirits up, but I barely hear a word he says.

Shortly thereafter, I leave New Orleans and spend nearly a month in Austin with childhood friends. On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Jerry, a native New Orleanian who has lived in Austin for five years, calls me. He is in town for the holidays and he wants to see the hardest hit areas for himself, areas like the 9th Ward, New Orleans East, and St. Bernard Parish. Even though I agree to go, I am afraid to. I am afraid that seeing the devastation will simply sink me back into despair. As we drive down N. Claiborne Avenue into the 9th Ward, the destruction is horrific indeed. However, I see black people and white people hard at work. I see a community distribution center handing out tools and supplies to people. Across the Industrial Canal in St. Bernard Parish, I see similar things. At these moments, I feel so proud to share a city with these people. No matter what happens, no matter how many people tell us New Orleans should not be rebuilt and the government should not assist any efforts, I know that these people will do it, with or without the help of our government. I want to get out of the car and hug every one of them.

The journey is not all hope, however. Everywhere, there are reminders of Katrina's viciousness. Cars and trucks tossed aside like toys. In one St. Bernard subdivision, Jerry and I puzzle over the lack of a water line on any of the battered homes. It then dawns on us that there are no water lines because the water rose past their roofs. Saddest of all is New Orleans East, a neighborhood mostly populated by working-class black people before Katrina. While the 9th Ward and St. Bernard bustles with activity, New Orleans East resembles a ghost town. No one working on the homes, no FEMA workers, not a soul in sight. Just devastation and loss as far as the eye can see.

As we return to City Park (where Jerry and I met up), I hope for more residents to return to the city. God knows we need them. My sentiment is best summed up by a ruined refrigerator we pass under the majestic oaks of Esplanade Avenue. On it, a fleur de lis (the symbol of New Orleans) is painted. Under the fleur de lis, in block letters, are the words: PLEASE COME HOME.

---

Roofing in Belize
by Wolff Bowden

After the 67th Hurricane this century,
we began at last to understand the missionaries
who told us the good book would save us
from the lash of eternal hellfire, the sour mango taste of poverty.

Even if we had money, there were no shingles in the city
The Prime Minister glued them over pot-holes
so he could win his re-election.
They crumbled to coffee grounds within a week.

Uncle Myron, the police officer, through his thin window at the station
watched a single flying shingle decapitate a looter in one second.

In the eye of the storm we took shelter in
the concrete block church on Hecker road.
The missionaries had fled for America seven days before,
a timespan they said was enough for God
to build a whole new world.

So many iguanas died, we crunched
their bones on our walk home, carrying
boxes of Bibles on our shoulders, singing creole songs.

What was left of our roof was leaking
on the bedsheets on the babies, so
we dunked the Bibles in creosote and
laid them down like shingles.

Our roof looked like the heavens:
pitch black, sparkling here and there.
Two hundred Bibles crucified
by constellations of roofing nails.

---

The Chaos Before the Storm Hurricane Rita
by Lin Moore

Smack! Pow! Fists flying, connecting, ripping each other's clothes and flesh. Blood spatters in the gasoline line. Station closes no gas won't have any. Boom! another gas station, now a bullet crashes through the air. Lucky one has gotten the last of the gas, the unlucky screaming and shooting. I fight and claw for a loaf of bread 20 people diving for it but I was victorious in the end. Crash! A car in the traffic jam gets too mad and slams into the car ahead of him. On another freeway, elderly people burn because a bus driver didn't care he just wanted to get out. Another car bites the dust whoosh! smoke pours out as they pull over to the shoulder and curse. It is 100 degree heat as traffic is standing still. It is a sea of sounds — people moaning, cursing, screaming, babies crying, ars exploding — and smells — urine, defecating, steaming, smoking, frying metal and humans, immobilized by desperation to leave.

My daughter asks if this is the end of the world, I really don't have an answer. No, I don't WANT to know the answer. We are reduced to animals bent on survival. Welcome the chaos before the storm, Hurricane Rita is still one day away.

Forecasting death if we stay but we have no choice what takes 15 minutes now takes three hours back to the house. Frantically running for any plywood we could find. We even nail boards to the roof. It had become a ghost town outside. No mail delivered, people desperate for the dailies of life find nothing . We hunker down the day of the storm waiting and hoping our house would stand while plastic bagging all the memories that couldn't be replaced.

Slam! the wind screams like a crazed demon near sundown, we think the world is on fire when power lines rip. Sparks fly in the night as the devil wind screams . Crack! the tree split down the middle by lightning from the storm. Screaming we are terrified when the lights go out sparks fly outside. Our tree will grow and shingles can be replaced on the roof.

But Rita goes east of us and we are okay, our hearts go out to the people that got the worst.

---

After Katrina, The Tears of Diaspora
by Stan C. Weeber

On the way to the Big Easy, I didn't know what to expect. Would it really be "the city with no people?" Others told me crime and violence were rampant. A few whispered that my every move would be monitored. I wondered, too, about how the people who came back were coping with the distress of their diaspora. Within a few hours, I would know.

I am a sociologist. My days are filled teaching students and studying human groups and their problems and prospects. Today, I was going to tell the story of the 200 college students from New Orleans who escaped Hurricane Katrina by evacuating to Lake Charles, only to be forced to evacuate a second time during Hurricane Rita. Their double evacuation was very unique if not unprecedented.

I was the only speaker not from New Orleans on a panel that consisted of sociologists and graduate students in sociology from Tulane University. The hurricane hit 7 months ago, but I can tell you in no uncertain terms that the pain of the diaspora was very fresh for everyone on the panel. The mood was subdued, even mournful.

Danielle Hidalgo was the first speaker and the one who had done the most work in organizing this panel on "sociological storytelling" after Katrina. Early in her presentation she began to cry as she related her story of watching the horrid images of the hurricane on TV and wondering what had become of her Tulane colleagues.

The tears of the diaspora continued with Kristen Barber who sobbed as she told how the most common things in life — like being able to withdraw money from a bank to pay bills — had been taken away by the storm, and how her efforts to continue graduate school in Florida were almost sabotaged by this experience of being stripped bare of the most taken for granted necessities.

Jessica Pardee cried as she spoke of how her sociology dissertation had been interrupted twice – once when the federal government shut down a housing project whose residents she had prepared to study, and then again by Katrina. Andrea Wilbon to her credit held together emotionally, and told a riveting tale of the overt racism that she experience as an African American after the storm.

Now it was my turn. Would I hold my emotions in check? Despite attending sociology conferences for 33 years, I wasn't sure. A cool exterior defied the internal turmoil as I pondered what exactly to say and how to say it.

I begin by telling how we were just getting to know the 200 evacuated students from New Orleans when the unthinkable happened. On September 21, the city of Lake Charles was ordered evacuated as Hurricane Rita approached. Two days later, Rita slammed into southwest Louisiana, and it would be 16 days before people could return and about three more weeks until school started again at McNeese State. School did resume, and after adding longer class periods and making other adjustments, graduation was held on December 23rd. A few of the New Orleans seniors graduated that night.

My emotions started to get the better of me as I described the day before the evacuation was ordered. The New Orleans students were noticeably absent. Having been through hell once, they were not waiting around to see their newest home be shattered by a hurricane. My voice cracked as I told of the New Orleans students that never returned to Lake Charles after Rita. I pledged that I would follow up with these students and would encourage them to continue their educations. Emotions now showing, I muttered a quick conclusion and bowed out to preserve time for the other speakers.

Tim Haney channeled his emotions in another way: he spoke of the bureaucratic nightmares facing New Orleanians upon their return. They faced surly bill collectors completely unsympathetic with their circumstances; insurance companies that would not pay for damages caused by the storm (the wind vs. water controversy); and FEMA trailers sitting unused in an Arkansas field. Tim was very critical of this situation and it was perfectly clear from his presentation that no human being in a civil society should ever have to endure such circumstances.

Jennifer Day complained of the "masculinization of space" after Katrina; how it had been invaded by Latino men who objectified her in a way she wasn't accustomed to. She strongly suspects in this more masculinized environment the rates of domestic violence increased after Katrina.

Dr. April Brayfield anchored the panel, her voice lowering and then stopping for a moment as she composed herself. In an intentionally nonlinear expression of her life after Katrina, she mused about her street, her neighbors, FEMA, and her school. Slides of her gutted out, moldly home and the attendant debris personalized the storm for everyone present.

About 60 people attended the session, all out of town sociologists attending the Southern Sociological Society who had been invited to come and get the locals' perspective on Katrina. I have never witnessed such an attentive audience, some crying while we spoke. One person praised our courage and encouraged us to put together a monograph of our stories.

I was never so glad to escape a panel session. I wandered the streets of the French Quarter aimlessly, noting that several of my favorite places had not reopened since the storm, and several others were being worked on. While it was not "the city without people," it was a place with few people. I wondered if it would ever get back to way it used to be.

Traveling back to Lake Charles, tears of diaspora rolled down my cheeks. I cried for Tulane and New Orleans, for the students doubly displaced by Katrina and Rita, and for myself. I had now seen the devastation of both storms, and where the unspeakable had started for my students. What my students had endured was now a part of me.

---

Tidal
by Stevie Jean Reed

Saraphine,
lived on Rampart Street.
Once big and laughing,
the way you think of Bacchus.
Salt and peppered fields
of corn rowed hair.
Purple gold and green.
Queen.
Rocking chair
thrown

into this gushing plague of gaps.
Ankles tow crests of buzzing forest,
roots upbraided. Crumpled watery chin
level with limbs. Hands
like warm stones.
A wide and black swamp of scales
and quills of old Crow.
The fresh ferment

of marsh holds tight
a swarm of song in its belly.
Blue,
below
and forward
a gray fluid sky
clapping fast over an open ear.
An ode to rest,
or?

Yet another ghost
to live beside.
Specter next in line to serve
and clear
and speak
only when spoken to.
Numb from avalanche,
no spell to wake my brother.

---