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miss_adventure ([personal profile] miss_adventure) wrote2005-08-31 12:46 am
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When the Levee Breaks

I'm a NOLA ex-pat. Ran screaming from the place, though I still feel fondly towards that hot, swampy, vile-smelling town that just oozes history and attitude: NOLA is like an ex-significant other with whom I remained on good terms with after the break-up. Maybe we're not a couple anymore and I think it's deeply flawed, but I'd never wish pain on that city. NYC could learn a thing or two about eating its young from New Orleans, but sometimes that steaming bowl of drunken tourists and odor could be unexpectedly beautiful. The fog would roll down the Mississippi at nightfall, a breeze would pick up, the muggers could be seen lurking in the dark, there was music everywhere, and it was possible to forget that earlier that day I had slogged five miles home, waist-deep in filthy water the entire time because a tropical storm had stalled over Texas and I was living several feet below sea level.

It boggles the mind that the Journey Steps and streetcars, the Clover Grill and Port of Call and Dragon's Den, Audubon Park and its spanish moss-covered live oaks and those bizarre damn bar/laundromats are all under water and that the emergency management people are talking about forced evacuations of the remainders, looters taking hostages, and years of recovery if they don't just abandon the Crescent City altogether...and the water is still rising because the pumping stations failed and the levees are breached. Interstate 10 is flooded and the Pontchartrain Causeway is destroyed and the West Bank is in equally bad shape, so the only way out is by air or by water. Wasn't there a bad 80s sci-fi movie about this, albeit set in a different city?

Until a couple of days ago, New Orleans was a grand lady fallen on hard times. Maybe she had to sell the family heirlooms and her house was falling down around her, but she could still pull out all the stops when she hosted a banquet. Now the poor old dame would be better off if she were living out of a shopping cart.

Here's hoping the NOLA people are safe: [livejournal.com profile] micahra and her critters, Robin and his mini-tribe, Bobby and her battered truck and oil-spewing bikes, and all the rest. Someday we'll meet again over beignets, pralines, and chicory coffee, even if we have to sit in a boat to do it.

[identity profile] rhiannasilel.livejournal.com 2005-08-31 07:01 am (UTC)(link)
I never lived in NO, but at one point I applied to go to UNO (even got a scholarship) but circumstances beyond my control kept me in Baltimore. I've always had a love for that city and there's something remarkable about the way that you can almost breathe the magick in the air as soon as you step out of the car.

I only hope that at least some of it remains after the town is rebuilt and a part of me is seeing this as the last of the magick leaving the United States. I don't know why, but it's been floating through my head since I first read about Katrina being the long talked about hurricane that would finally sink the city.

[identity profile] pirate184.livejournal.com 2005-08-31 12:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Ah, the wonderful Clover Grill, which brags that its wonderful burgers are all cooked under "real American hubcaps". God, you are making me hungry just mentioning the place.

I love N.O., probably because I've never lived there. Don't worry, she'll be back, probably a little bit better than before.

[identity profile] gothangelnikki.livejournal.com 2005-08-31 01:27 pm (UTC)(link)
This has been the storm i knew would come someday and the sad thing is there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. Living here in Houston most of my life i know how bad these storms can be yet we have been really lucky because the last hurricane to hit us was in 1983 and it also worries me that people here would not leave if something like this was about to hit us ... i know i would get out no mattter what. It just breaks my heart everytime i see this one man talk about how he was trying to hold on to his wife but could not .... my thoughts and prayers are with everyone there of has had their life touched by this hurricane.

[identity profile] tex-arcana.livejournal.com 2005-08-31 09:52 pm (UTC)(link)

Well said.

If only the people ransacking and looting the city right now had half your appreciation for it. The last time I checked, OfficeMax did not carry food or anything that remotely qualifies as a flotation device.

[identity profile] the-heathen.livejournal.com 2005-09-01 02:24 am (UTC)(link)
This is a great entry!

I've always wanted to go to New Orleans. My mom loves it, and I love all the stories about it and the voooodoooooo!

Life just keeps getting "better" and "better." Hmm.
ivy: (polite raven)

[personal profile] ivy 2005-09-01 07:32 am (UTC)(link)
Never lived in New Orleans itself, just near it. Pascagoula's pretty flattened, though, as expected. Can a Mississippi gal join your beignet party? [rueful grin]

[identity profile] kambriel.livejournal.com 2005-09-07 06:09 am (UTC)(link)
This is such a beautiful post... Like the city itself, you have woven all the highs and lows into a tapestry that in the end is uniquely "New Orleans". I think the city may be taken back into it's history, but the heart remains, and that aura can not be washed away by a storm.

(Anonymous) 2005-09-09 10:09 am (UTC)(link)
Hello,

I don't know you from Eve, but I just wanted to let you know that the Pontchartrain Causeway was not destroyed (as reported on some national news). It is fine, and should be open to civilian traffic once the rescue effort is over & the place is drained.....

[identity profile] ibejedi.livejournal.com 2005-09-18 09:00 am (UTC)(link)
Hi found your post through lawenforcement...and I too found your description of NO quite eloquent...never been there but i almost think I have been after reading this :) do you mind if i mark you as a friend...you seem really interesting - i'm new to this so i don't have too many yet!

appropriate analogies

[identity profile] macavite.livejournal.com 2005-10-17 06:05 am (UTC)(link)
. . . . very nice use of the "grand lady fallen on hard times", thanks.

[identity profile] colt-forty-5.livejournal.com 2005-12-06 06:33 am (UTC)(link)
Hey there... just surfing around and keep seeing your name pop up in LE communities. NYPD it looks like. Cool.. I work for a PD in Montana. Everyone here is mounted patrol.... (j/k) Thought I'd add you. Hope you don't mind.