Andrew taught me the long arm of racism. At the age of 12, I learned that vacancy signs and announcements that this hotel welcomed all hurricane evacuees did not include people with my skin color and adults with foreign accents. Mississippi made it very clear we could not stay. It took over 18 stormy hours to find refuge in Memphis.
Katrina embodied the tragedy of manmade disasters. As politicians and public figures pointed fingers over who was at fault, 80% of New Orleans continued to drown. Once the floodwaters started to recede, so too went the public education and healthcare sectors in the city. Along with the hopes and dreams of its residents. It contained a different person. Someone who isn’t now left with just her cat, car and some clothes. Someone who wasn’t perpetually asked “why rebuild? Why not start fresh somewhere safer?”
Where is safer? Where is free from natural disasters? Where are the politicians not more a hinderance than a benefit at your greatest hour of need?
Rita taught me the answer to those questions was “nowhere.” Houston was no safer than New Orleans. So we headed home.
Zeta showed me that hurricanes are the fans the Earth generates to cool itself off. Nothing personal. Just trying to stay fresh. It’s humans that’s the true tribulation.
Ida did its best to destroy our homes and communities. Some parts of the metro area looking worse than it did after Katrina. FEMA, insurance and contractors demonstrating their position in the 8th layer of hell. The invention of a new word: hurridemic. People joke about the hurricane taking away the sanity that remained from the pandemic.
Unlike Katrina, the sadness in the air after that storm has transformed to anger and simmering rage.
We are not ok.
-May Wen