Monday, September 14, 2009

Memoir Introduction

The warning signs were all over. The news,,, Even those not in the direct cone of impact were told on the news to board up & evacuate. While many adhered to the preparations, many residents in New Orleans didn't have sufficient means to leaving due to an attitude of ignorance to nature, not owning a car or having a place to go, and immobility of traffic and thus had to weather the storm out. Claimed to be the deadliest natural disaster in American history, hurricane Katrina , at the time a category 5, was on a one way path to the Mardi Gras. capital of the world; New Orleans, Louisiana hitting it as a category 3. For the first time in its history, the city's famous downtown Bourbon Street stood as lifeless as a ghost town. No music, no lights, no smell of beer and Cajun grilled food, no life, nothing except a wall of darkness approaching the southern tip of such a lively place by the Gulf. As if it were the clam before the storm, an all to quiet stillness approached as the last few minutes of sunshine ended its reign of the sky above. Just as the strike of an awe inspiring thunderous roar from a cloud black as night made its way through the ears of thousands, the streetlights flickered off & on and traffic lights began to swing as if a child being pushed on a swing set were about to go to high for his own good. With most people waiting out Katrina in shelters, school gymnasiums, and stadiums, the first blanket of rain pounded against the walls like a million knocks on the door from nature as if it were expressing its fury for all to listen. Anxious residents tuned in religiously to hand held radios & TV's for updates from the National Weather Center. Considering the below sea level of the city, the fact that its only protection of flooding from seawater was a series of levees long overdue for maintenance and even replacement, for that matter, and a strategic location off the warm waters of the Gulf which fed the power of this monstrous hurricane all set up an equation for a disastrous day of reckoning. Hurricane Katrina stood as testament to our country's vulnerability to mother nature and arising climate changes devastating potential.

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