We all remember what happened last time.\u00a0 This has all, somehow, made us experts.\u00a0 When the season begins, the government and the media remind us to make our plans.\u00a0 Buy some maps.\u00a0 Update your phone numbers.\u00a0 Gather all the right containers.\u00a0 We all know better.\u00a0 They\u2019re not the experts.\u00a0 It\u2019s us, the ones on the ground.\u00a0 We\u2019ll do as we see fit.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
When a storm physically enters the Gulf, it starts a simultaneous churning approach through our minds, starting at the back and boring towards the center as the days go on.\u00a0 We can\u2019t help talking about it, we must talk about it: it\u2019s there in the corner of the television screen in its own little box, spinning off bright colors.\u00a0 We all point at the screen indicating where it could go, where it will go.\u00a0 We\u2019re all experts now, civilian advisors.\u00a0 All the other weather patterns we\u2019ve survived have given us wisdom.\u00a0 We can draw comparisons to other storms, other trajectories, as if anything about this is predictable.\u00a0 We challenge the weathermen who say it is too early to tell.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not a time for hospitality.\u00a0 We can\u2019t wish the storm away, but we can wish it on someone else.\u00a0 Let Mobile have their turn.\u00a0 Let it bounce off Cuba, take a sharp curve for Florida.\u00a0 We can\u2019t disguise our joy when the storms re-navigate, when the latest charts show, yes, we are outside of the cone of uncertainty.\u00a0 We have nothing against the Texas coast; we\u2019ll be happy to help out afterward.\u00a0 We just can\u2019t take it again.\u00a0 We\u2019re not ready.<\/p>\n
And we almost made it through another season.\u00a0 Made it through three months of the four-month marathon.\u00a0 But when Gustav arrived, and passed the threshold of our worried skulls, most of us know, somehow, where he\u2019s headed.\u00a0 As if we were activated magnets, as if our lease on hope had just run out.\u00a0 It\u2019s time to start preparing.<\/p>\n
Many of us are overeager, leaving three or four days early.\u00a0 Laughed at and scoffed at, but resolute that it\u2019s the right thing to do, that it will be so much more convenient.\u00a0 That the shame on the outside chance the storm completely misses or even dissipates will be easy to bear.\u00a0 The next day those of us left are a little uneasy, wondering if maybe we should have just made an improvised vacation out of it as well.\u00a0 The ones who left are already kicking their legs in the pool in Destin or trying to overpower the strange scented air of guest bedrooms by unpacking their clothes in Monroe.\u00a0 Maybe they were right.\u00a0 The state police are preparing for contraflow along the interstate, tossing orange construction markers and cones down off the trucks to the side of the road.\u00a0 That makes us nervous.\u00a0 We make phone calls, find out the status of our friends and family northward.<\/p>\n
Still, it\u2019s hard to say whether we will stay or go.\u00a0 How strong will Gustav get?\u00a0 How fast will he swallow up the heat of the Gulf, how wide will is spinning arms spread?\u00a0 This could be something we can ride out, like in the old days, before Katrina taught us an indelible fear.\u00a0 Those of us with the means to leave under our own power, with some savings or cushiony credit limits are schizophrenic, pulled between the temptation to survive, to beat the inevitable traffic and the voices that speak a thousand scenarios, reasons to stay behind.\u00a0 The belief that a little old-fashioned courage and levity will allow you to protect your home, your block, your city.<\/p>\n
But those of us without jobs, without money, without any new earthworks, walls, or pumps in our neighborhoods have a tougher choice to make.\u00a0 Stay and hope for the best or register with the government and get a spot on one of the hundreds of buses they\u2019ve commissioned from out of state.\u00a0 The media is begging the poor to call and register.\u00a0 They remind them of what it will be like after a storm again if the power goes out, if the waters encroach again.\u00a0 Your elderly will die.\u00a0 There will be no medicine.\u00a0 Register, please, now.\u00a0 Get a spot on the bus.\u00a0 No one will be turned away.\u00a0 The phone lines are jammed all day.\u00a0 The call center doubles its staff, then triples it.\u00a0 No one has all the answers, just best guesses.\u00a0 But we want to know, we need the details before we make up our minds: where are the buses going?\u00a0 What can I bring with me?\u00a0 Will there be food?\u00a0 Will there be protection?\u00a0 We can remember being herded before, timidly, confusingly, pointed in several directions at once.\u00a0 We can already feel the itchiness of the long lines.\u00a0 We have never forgotten the terrified queasiness of being shut into the plane, taking off, and not being told a destination.\u00a0 Hours on the planes, a moving waiting room, no indications.\u00a0 Disembarking in Denver, in Indiana, in Phoenix.\u00a0 Moved like cargo.\u00a0 We don\u2019t want to go through all that again unless there are assurances.\u00a0 Don\u2019t worry, they tell us.\u00a0 We have signed contracts this time.\u00a0 Trust in the profit motive.\u00a0 Things will go much smoother with money on the line.<\/p>\n
The new Home Depot in the middle of the city that has supplied so many with the tools and materials to rebuild their homes makes an agile business turn, orders in truckloads of generators, gas cans, and tarps.\u00a0 Sandbags and stacks of plywood are sold right from the parking lot.\u00a0 It\u2019s still so hot; we work in the late summer twilight.\u00a0 The noise of our neighbors hammering during dinnertime, the rattle of collapsible ladders.\u00a0 We make groceries.\u00a0 We still haven\u2019t decided whether we are staying or going, but either way we\u2019ll need durable food.\u00a0 Cans of chili, boxes of Pop-tarts, chips and candy bars.\u00a0 The stores are so busy the carts make their own traffic jams down the aisles.\u00a0 An eight-foot pallet of cartons of bottled water is being dismantled.\u00a0 Children follow behind their mothers, no room for them in the carts.\u00a0 The kids carry gallon jugs of water or boxes of cereal and whine.\u00a0 Some families have two carts, one for food, one for booze.\u00a0 Cases and cases of beer, handles of vodka, and let me get eight bags of ice.\u00a0 When that runs out we\u2019ll drink it all hot.\u00a0 There are lines again at the gas stations.\u00a0 We need fuel for our cars, fuel for our generators, fuel maybe for currency.\u00a0 Cartons of cigarettes.\u00a0 And even acts of God don\u2019t stop the Powerball.<\/p>\n
We are all of us chattering, taking advantage of the surge of crowds, the busy-ness, the long lines.\u00a0 We speculate about what Category the storm will be when it hits.\u00a0 We pester everyone around us, asking what they are going to do, trying to find some kind of consensus we can join.\u00a0 We can\u2019t stop talking about it, where we will go, mistakes we will avoid this time around, making promises and assurances if we are the brave ones who will stay.\u00a0 We say, Here\u2019s my e-mail.\u00a0 I\u2019ll go by your house, yeah, yeah.\u00a0 We shrug our shoulders, Don\u2019t worry about it.<\/p>\n
Some of us can\u2019t help but go out after the stressful days.\u00a0 We need to meet up with our friends at the bar or sit\u2014maybe one last time\u2014down to dinner at our favorite restaurants, confused about where to look with the streetside windows covered over by plywood.\u00a0 We are attracted to this small part of the adventure, raising glasses in the darkened rooms like Parisians who know that the tanks will arrive tomorrow, like Londoners chancing a bombing raid.\u00a0 We can always risk a little for the nightlife.<\/p>\n
We say goodbye to those who have made up their minds, watch them join the steady current up the avenues.\u00a0 Call us when you get there.\u00a0 We feel a little jealous.\u00a0 Some of us still have to work in the morning.<\/p>\n
The next day it\u2019s do or die time, for the lower parishes at least.\u00a0 There is a mandatory evacuation call for the areas south of the city, the coastal people, the barrier population.\u00a0 Helicopters make runs to the oil rigs and bring back all the divers, welders, and pump-men.\u00a0 They\u2019re all coming past us, through us, clogging the highways, all the small towns converging into a convoy: Cutoff, Arabi, Houma, Grand Isle.\u00a0 We know we\u2019ll be next, probably, even if Gustav is still another two days away.\u00a0 This storm\u2019s a slow giant.\u00a0 We\u2019re getting weary of it a little, refreshing the webpages, watching the track move by millimeters on the screen.<\/p>\n
We start to pack.\u00a0 How do we decide what to take?\u00a0 We know from experience that anything left behind could be drowned, so we favor the nostalgic and irreplaceable over the expensive.\u00a0 We know from experience that everything mundane can be replaced, that it can almost be enjoyable picking out new dishes and bedsheets\u2014if you\u2019ve got the money.\u00a0 The children want all their toys.\u00a0 We force them to pick favorites.\u00a0 Everybody gets four changes of clothes.\u00a0 Anything more would be greedy.\u00a0 And we must each have our pillows, our charms, our letters.\u00a0 We collect all the documents, the titles and passports and insurance papers.\u00a0 Some of us bitterly pack up a box full of Road Home documents: some of us are still in a battle for money promised us from three years ago from the state entity created to aid the victims of insurance shortfalls.\u00a0 We won\u2019t chance losing the proof of our arguments, the written record of every inch we\u2019ve gained towards compensation.\u00a0 The things we will miss but just can\u2019t take with us get put up in the attic or lined up on the top shelf of our closets.<\/p>\n
We push the furniture away from the windows, exposing months of dust.\u00a0 We empty the icebox, defrost the fridge.\u00a0 Some of us forget to do these things and will come home to a wet floor.\u00a0 We throw away good food, knowing it will spoil when the power goes out.\u00a0 We don\u2019t care: we remember the wars we fought with mold.\u00a0 We try to pre-mitigate.<\/p>\n
Finally, we pray.<\/p>\n
We go to the last mass before the priests must close the doors and lock up the churches.\u00a0 We get together in fellowship halls, making last-minute arrangements, offering last-minute aid.\u00a0 We sing to our different versions of God and ask for different versions of strength.\u00a0 Some of us beg for mercy or a miracle.\u00a0 Some of us are more resigned and beg only for guidance.\u00a0 Some of us don\u2019t agree with God or even think that he exists, but we feel a little envious of the invisible buffer that believers have between life and their hearts.\u00a0 We could all use a little divine backup in some form or another.\u00a0 This weekend is going to test us, going peel away all the layers of normality we\u2019ve recovered since Katrina.\u00a0 So we feel the need to pray even if it\u2019s just empty murmurs against humid air.<\/p>\n
Tonight we light candles against an enormous wind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We all remember what happened last time.\u00a0 This has all, somehow, made us experts.\u00a0 When the season begins, the government and the media remind us to make our plans.\u00a0 Buy some maps.\u00a0 Update your phone numbers.\u00a0 Gather all the right …<\/p>\n