The TV is Depressing Me

It’s heartwrenching to watch the coverage of New Orleans. It’s incomprehensible to see familiar images of buildings or street signs that are now destroyed. Growing up, Mom usually made a trip back to Baton Rouge during August right before school started, and we always spent a day or two walking around the Quarter and visiting plantation houses.

It’s difficult to see the devastation of areas where my family lives. My aunt and uncle live in Harahan, and by all reports, everything is destroyed there (there are conflicting reports via blogs). My great aunt and uncle live in Metairie, and that area looks pretty rough. I just keep thinking about driving around the city with my grandparents and how all those homes and families are now gone.

I called my dad a little while ago to give him an update. As a New Orleans native, he couldn’t understand the destruction without seeing the images. The bridges are down, the Causeway damaged, only one radio station working, and martial law declared in the streets. How can this be the same city where I made fun of Lorè “hula-hooping” to “Like a Virgin” in the Cat’s Meow, experiencing my first Hurricane at Pat O’Briens, or people-watching in Jackson Square while eating a beignet from Cafè du Monde?

I hate sounding melodramatic, but New Orleans is truly one of my favorite places on earth. So many of my family’s roots are centered there. Much of my family is buried in cemetaries near the Quarter. I’ve grown up hearing stories about the city from my great-grandmother, who spoke mostly French, on down to my parents. The good news is, the city will recover, although it might take several months, and there will definitely be a party to celebrate it.

Below is a post from a New Orleans blogger, who evacuated to Florida.

from the coverage on tv, new orleans is lost. they keep saying we were “spared the worst” and “dodged the bullet” - but I’ve seen photos of every neighborhood in the new orleans area - lakeview, metairie, kenner, uptown, marigny, cbd warehouse district - and I tell you what, typing those names makes me feel like I’m talking about extinct animals, because may never be neighborhoods again, except in our memories.

the devastation appears to be nearly complete. my rather dire predictions a few posts below are likely very accurate, or else it’s worse. I suppose we could’ve flooded higher, but for re-building purposes, the difference between 6 feet and 12 feet of water standing in your house for a week is negligible -gotta tear it down and start over anyway.

which is the other thing - who’s going to start over in new orleans?
how? where do you live while your house (and everyone else’s) is being rebuilt? with what money? if your home is relatively okay, what good does it do to live in a city with no businesses, no economy, no amenities, no nightlife, no longer beautiful? a city of ghosts and construction crews attempting to recreate the past?

I’m relatively sure that I have no job to go back to myself - the neighborhood around my office looks bad, and even if the office is okay, most of our clients are destroyed, and those that aren’t won’t be doing much advertising in the forseeable future.

I love new orleans, I always will. I will go back and suffer through the aftermath as soon as I can get back into town - which may be weeks - and do what I can to help with what grim things need doing. and then, I think I will probably leave it behind; get that fleur-de-lis tattooed on my arm, and begin again somewhere else. my beloved city is irreparably damaged; if it does come back, it won’t be even remotely the same.

Other NOLA bloggers, Looka. NOLA View, On Tender Hooks…, and the_velvet_rut.