Shelter from the Storm

Tornado Tuesday

On Tuesday, February 13, '07, tornadoes tore through Westwego and four areas of New Orleans including the Carrollton, Uptown, Gentilly, and Pontchartrain Park neighborhoods. An elderly woman died from the tornado that touched down in Pontchartrain Park. Hundreds of trees were downed, and over 100 homes were damaged including homes already rebuilt and homes in the process of being rebuilt. Overall, about 20,000 homes lost power due to the severe weather that occurred overnight on Tuesday. My neighborhood, which is a part of the Carrollton area, spent about 13 hours and 15 minutes without power from about 3:15 a.m., Tuesday, until about 4:30 p.m., Tuesday afternoon. I actually heard the transformers exploding as lightning lit the sky. I'm thankful the tornadoes didn't do more damage, and my heart and prayers go out to those who suffered damaged.

Honestly, Mother Nature, New Orleans does not need a reminder of how powerful your wrath can be.

Contrary to the completely negative image that some people hold of New Orleans, neighbors came together to help clean up debris and to help aid others whose homes or trailers were left damaged by the storm. Thank you to the firefighters and Red Cross, also, for their aid. FEMA representatives visited damaged homes and trailers, but could not do much else because they didn't have the permission of the federal government to go ahead and offer any kind of assistance to those affected by the tornadoes. So, not much has changed when it comes to how little the U. S. government seems to care about Louisiana.

Sometimes, I think I'm bitching too much about the levee breaches, and then I think so what if I am. And anyone who thinks I should shut up bitching, tell it to me when you've lost about 10 years of economic growth, your home, and just about everything you owned (not only material things you worked hard to get but also priceless items like collections of family photo albums that held emotional value) mostly because of shabby work done by an agency of the federal government.

I'm grateful for being a survivor, but I'm still angry. I just refuse to let my anger ruin my life. To borrow some lyrics from The Dixie Chicks:

Forgive, sounds good.
Forget, I'm not sure I could.
They say time heals everything,
But I'm still waiting

I'm not ready to make nice,
I'm not ready to back down,
I'm still mad as hell
And I don't have time
To go round and round and round...



I'm not ready to make nice, yet, with the Army Corps of Engineers.