Quotidian Grace has some harrowing and heartbreaking stories of Katrina. The devastation is pretty hard even to fathom.
I admit that I don’t have any/many personal connections to New Orleans or the Mississippi coast. Growing up in Houston, I lived with the reality of hurricanes; one blew through when I was 11 and crushed a live oak tree onto our house. We lost power, but our neighbor still had electricity, so we ran extension cords from his place to ours. We played in the flooded street. Little things. Benign things.
My heart goes out to people who’ve lost homes and loved ones, and especially to those who are involuntarily stranded in areas hit by the hurricane… And assuming that this is the place where I get to be honest and real, I will say that I frankly don’t understand the mentality of people who willfully ignore mandatory evacuation orders. And I probably need to repent for my hard heart which says that those who ignored the order to evacuate, and who are now sitting on the roofs of their homes, should get picked up only after everyone who couldn’t evacuate gets picked up. Or perhaps they should be billed for the expense. (Lord have mercy upon me.)
A conservative Christian group is suggesting that Katrina is God’s punishment for New Orleans’s having 5 abortion clinics. Part of their evidence for this is the fact that the satellite photo of the storm hitting New Orleans apparently resembles a 6-week-old fetus. Mmm-kay.
NPR had an interview with a rescue worker, and I was amazed by his calm presence of mind. He and his teams are carefully, efficiently and methodically helping as many people as they can. And they are trying to triage based on severity of situation, number of people involved, etc. But surely he knows better than anyone that they will not reach everyone in time. Some people will live and some people may die based on his actions and those of his teams. And yet he presses on. He is my model for ministry, where there are always more needs and opportunities than there are hours in the day. And if this man can keep his head, and do the best he can each day, and find peace with that the best he can, then surely I can too, where the circumstances are much less dire.
20 Responses to “the waters will not overwhelm you”
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A wonderful post…so captures how I’m sure so many of us are feeing right now…
and that “Christian” group is nucking futs.
Sometimes I think we should start saying we are followers of Yeshua Messach Ish-ma-el (wouldn’t that be the Hebrew for ‘Jesus Christ Son of God’?), just to put some distance between “us” and “them” and then I remember we are all one in the Spirit and that a lot of people think of me as a “them”…and then I just get ticked off at my own arrogance and go write a prayer or something.
I don’t see the resemblance between the hurricane and a fetus, personally. It reminds me of the “image of the devil” that people saw emanating from the smoke of the burning Twin Towers on 9/11.
I think we need to stop using the word “conservative” to describe hate-mongering lunatics.
Yes, they are, er, in a class by themselves.
I’m also thinking today about what it would be like to leave one’s home, wondering whether one will ever see it again. What would we bring with us after packing up people and cats? Our computers, because they contain every picture we’ve personally taken of C. Our wedding photo album. And beyond those things, what then? I think we’d find it overwhelming. Some things are more precious to us than others, but so many things have memories attached to them that everything has significance. And nothing.
Maybe some jewelry–mainly for sentimental reasons. Letters R and I wrote to one another when we were dating. I just don’t even know. And of course, it’s just stuff.
Was it the mayor of Biloxi who said “This is our tsunami”? My goodness, it’s horrible what happened, and any loss of life is sad, but a death count in the dozens–even if it climbs to hundreds–next to a quarter of a million? That comment was… ill-advised.
Thanks for this perspective - helpful timing for me.
i guess you can find the image OF anything IN anything if you look hard enough. but to blame the hurricane ( a natural disaster ) on having abortion clinics in the area is insane. i’m pretty confident if God didn’t want abortion clinics in the first place She would have found some other way than to punish innocent people in the form of a hurricane.
correct me if i’m wrong.
The “this is our tsunami” comment was the headline for the local paper here. I haven’t read the paper yet; probably won’t get to it, but the headline jumped out at me and left me a bit embarassed by the arrogance that some American must think this devastation in any way resembles that of the tsunami in December.
Still, the damage is devastating. I share many of the same feelings as you…why didn’t people evacuate when they could, can’t imagine what it must be like to lose everything. And I’m wondering about St. Casserole and what she and her family will find when they get home. It’s all very sad.
Thanks for putting some words to this.
I shared your feeling, initially, about people who stubbornly didn’t evacuate, but I am hearing more and more stories about people who didn’t have the resources to do so. It seems to me that a Hurricane plan for a city like New Orleans needed to include some sort of evacuation system for lower-income people. Suppose you don’t have the money for a hotel? Or a credit card on which to charge an extended motel stay? Suppose you don’t have a station wagon with a tank big enough to take you 400 miles or so away from the storm? Suppose all your family is right there and you don’t have a relative in Memphis or Houston to go to? Quite a few people interviewed said they couldn’t leave their dog(s) behind, and I certainly resonate with that, too.
Not only was I bothered by the tsunami comparison, but I believe it was Haley Barbour who compared this to Hiroshima. That’s just wrong in so many ways.
Oh, I totally agree, Songbird. (With both posts; the Hiroshima thing is just patently offensive.) I’m talking about people who had the means to get out but didn’t because of some rugged individualistic impulse that says “This is just a bunch of hysteria; I can weather this, and the gummint isn’t going to tell me what to do.”
I have no idea how many people fall into that category, but having lived in the south I know these people exist; I heard some interviews yesterday to the tune of “I thought I could handle it; I was here for X,Y, and Z hurricanes.” And as far as I’m concerned they’re not so much victims as volunteers. My heart still goes out to them, because they took a gamble and lost, and now things look really grim; but on the other hand, meteorologists have gotten pretty darn good at this; sane, accurate information was available about how severe this one was going to be, and there are at least some people (perhaps the minority) who didn’t heed the warnings.
And I obviously don’t have the constitution to live in severe hurricane areas. I’d be fleeing at the first gust of wind.
“meteorologists have gotten pretty darn good at this; sane, accurate information was available”
Here in tornado alley, “sane” is a realtive term. Local metreorologists have a tendency to inflate how bad a storm system is. I should say it seems like they inflate, and generate anxiety and fear, in order to drum up ratings.
If tv weather reporting in the affected area was similar, I can understand how some might have been skeptical.
I have a good friend whose entire family lives in NO, save for her. Every member of her family is now homeless. This whole thing is so overwhelming.
I don’t doubt that the newsmedia sensationalize, but the newsmedia aren’t the ones who make the call on mandatory evacuation. I presume a federal agency does. The news stations slap a sensational logo on it, no doubt, but the fact remains that people were told to get out. In this case the hysteria was well-founded; it is a cruel irony to be sure.
But I’ve said enough about that; these poor folks are caught in a desperate situation. Any way you look at it, it’s just sad, sad, sad.
Whoops!
from Salon
As the folks at the Center for American Progress note, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report in early 2001 that identified the three catastrophes most likely to hit the United States: a terrorist attack on New York, an earthquake in San Francisco and a hurricane in New Orleans.
As of this week, FEMA is now two-for-three. That leads us to think that the residents of the city by the Bay might think about scoring some flashlights and bottled water just about now. But it also leads us to wonder what the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress did with the warning that FEMA provided.
Here’s what: They cut funding for flood and hurricane projects planned by the New Orleans district of the Army Corps of Engineers. According to one published report, the New Orleans district had $147 million to spend on such projects in 2001. In fiscal year 2005, which ends next month, the district will have had about $82 million, a drop of about 44 percent. As we reported earlier this week, the Bush administration proposed further cuts for the district for fiscal year 2006.
Is this article politicizing the tragedy, or is this another My Pet Goat moment? You decide.
Mr. Casserole posted an update on their family, thank goodness they are okay.
I heard someone from CDC on CNN (letters much?) saying that he envisions an enormous refugee camp north of Lake Pontchartrain. Too bad no one envisioned this need before a hurricane hit.
I agree with the frustration over those who did not evacuate out of arrogance - even nominated them for a boot to the head award. Of course, I also realize others could not get out for other reasons. The BTTH award is solely for those who were too arrogant to heed the warnings.
As far as Christians who are crazy, I thought the storm was God’s retribution on the casinos. The clouds looked like a huge slot machine to me and certainly those casinos took a beating… having nothing to do with their proximity to the water of course, only that they house evil.
I am still just overwhelmed by the entire thing. It is so big that it is even hard to imagine. Then I catch myself whining about something and think *My God, I really have no problems.*
Although the waters did not come to Houston, many many of the refugees are–including all those in the Superdome with no where else to go. Right now there is a lot of confusion about what is going on and how we can best help these people who are coming to us.
I have to admit that I’m not so bothered by the “this is our tsunami” quote because, in fact, it will take months and months and possibly years for these communities to rebuild. So many people lost homes and all of their possessions, as well as jobs and kids lost the ability to go to school. No, we did not lose hundreds of thousands of people, but the impact it has had on the living is incomprehensible.
After reading Jim Wallis’ post on Sojourners about 28% if New Orleans resident live below the poverty level (twice the national average) and reading what has been going on at LSU, and hearing that they had to stop evacuating the superdome (or whatever) because shots were fired…I’m realizing there is another world out there I cannot even imagine. The thing that makes me the saddest is that, in other disasters one of the things we have been able to hold onto is the kindness we offer one another. That is not the case in New Orleans today.
I got a new student today. Her name is Abbi. She and her family are now living in a Sheraton in Houston. Our school has enrolled about a dozen refugee children, and I’m sure we’ll get more. We were already overcrowded - I had three more kids than desks when school started.
I was so proud of my class. They welcomed Abbi with open arms. She came in this morning with red eyes and dark circles; she left this afternoon with a “friendship bag” full of symbols of friendship (gum to remind us that we should all stick together, a rubber band to remind us to hug each other, etc.) and a huge smile on her face.
I think the thing that is so shocking is how much the affected areas resemble conditions normally found outside of the U.S. People are literally dying in the streets because there is no food or medical attention avaiable. In addition to the devestation to homes, businesses, and infrastructure, there seem to be thousands of people trapped with no food or clean water and no way to get to places where supplies are plentiful. And it’s everywhere.
When Houston was hit with Tropical Storm Allison several years ago, the flooding did tremendous damage, especially to medical, educational, and cultural facilities in the city. But not all areas of Houston were affected in the same way; some places didn’t flood at all and had electricity the whole time.
This is a case of entire cities and towns being flattened, with no relief in between neighborhoods. I think that’s why people are comapring the devestation to the tsunami or Hiroshima (although comparison to a man-made disaster just isn’t appropriate.)
The theology of those who think catastrophes of this sort are punishments from God saddens me. They don’t know a loving, compassionate God; only an angry, vengeful one.