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And they are all Democrats.
Katrina victims vs Rita survivors
Just when radio and TV was gearing down on the crime that was directly related to Katrina and our heads were getting dizzy from the “refugee musical shelters” along with the environment that was shadowing our “less than ghetto” small town environments, when we were being shocked at the tales of car jackings around those shelters and muggings in the Walmart parking lot where our bags of groceries were being stolen out of our hands in broad daylight, and the less than complimentary feedback our volunteers were getting for not serving gourmet meals at these shelters, but rice and gravy dishes that our local community contributed out of the goodness of their hearts and their own pocket books, up comes another threat on our side of the state. Within three weeks we who were volunteering and offering Katrina victims our homes, time and money came under siege from Hurricane Rita.
I am from Cameron Parish. I have lived there all of my life. I have trapped in her marshes, I have “turtle hunted” on first dates, I have plucked ducks, frogged, gar-fished and made gumbo since before I can remember. I have an intimate knowledge of the character of the people that have so easily been forsaken. People that----although didn’t come from much, but worked hard for what they had and paid taxes with their hard-earned money have been overlooked and forgotten for bigger headliner news.
Why no headlines here when the devastation here far outweighs the tragedy in New Orleans?? Hurricane Rita hit southwest Louisiana harder than Katrina hit New Orleans. Our homes and businesses were not flooded, or looted they are GONE. Most of us have no rubble to sift through, no memories to try to salvage, no houses to repair. Almost everything that we have ever known and what our grand fathers and great grandfathers worked so hard to leave us—is gone---just gone. Even some of those same grandfathers, grandmothers, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters---sons and daughters remains cannot be found.
Do you see any of these people from southwest Louisiana on television blaming FEMA, George Bush or Governor Blanco for our losses? Do you see them living in and continuing to live in shelters all across the United States? Most of us are staying on someone’s couch or living room floor at night while doing everything we can to pick up the pieces of our lives that are now obsolete or helping others that need the help and can do something with what they have left. We don’t have time to stand in lines all day for FEMA or Red Cross for handouts – who has time for that when there is so much to do? not when our neighbors or other family members that still have walls and a roof need a helping hand to hold on to what was left to them.
The most valuable thing that our ancestors left to us cannot be washed away by a tidal surge or blown away by strong wind. It is what the people in our little part of Louisiana are made out of. They are not going through jewelry stores or appliance and department stores walking out with plasma-screen TVs and rolex watches---survival essentials, no doubt. They are not sitting on their thumbs in shelters full of excrement and vomit from their own children, waiting for some volunteer to clean up.
They are real people, like my brother and sister who lost EVERYTHING. My brother has a two-month old son that he and his wife have tried for over 10 years to conceive to provide for, but now has no home, no source of income, and no help from FEMA and have not heard from their insurance yet---over a month after. Where is he now? On top of my dad’s roof, re-shingling it before it sustains more damage. Where was he yesterday? On top of my other brother’s roof, where was he days after Rita hit? In my yard, with a chain saw. He and his friend Tony, days after the storm, with curfews, the military, no electricity, and no gas, no food or ice they were battling mosquitoes, snakes, bees and every other critter that rode the wave from the gulf to the intercoastal canal, cleaning away the debris from my home. Helping my 17 year old son put tarps on my roof and sleeping on my cement floors next to my dogs, the only place we could keep cool with one generator and a 110 window unit. No complaints, no tears, only encouragement.
When I would cry, seeing my chimney on the front lawn and the holes in my roof, when I would be overwhelmed with the immense task of putting my life and home back together for my three boys to have a place to live, he would say “Chin up girl. Suck it up, we’ll all get through this—we’re not going to let Rita beat us!!!” I wanted to give up. I am a single mother of 3 boys, at 39 sometimes cannot pull from my reserve strength to get up in the morning to the smell of rotted food from all of the refrigerator/freezers and the smell of mold and mildew in my home, to look at the new laid “snow” of insulation that has once again fallen from my attic from the holes in my ceiling from the water that entered and still enters my home where my chimney, the shingles and tar paper were ripped off my roof. The task is daunting. Then pull from my reserve energies to shovel the mud and funk out of my home and yard and pull the wet sheetrock off my walls while also trying to find a place to stay away from this place, somewhere that smells clean where I can wash and get clean and sleep without waking with a million mosquito bites all over my body. That task was impossible. No motel rooms closer than 300 miles away. No apartment building or rental properties anywhere close. Fighting, begging and pleading with insurance adjustors and agents for help who acted as if they were giving you a gift instead of what they are entitled to give as part of your policy that was paid for—Thank you. FEMA representatives that you waited for 8 hours to see-- that hand you a handbook on Disasters.
Through all this I would look into my brother’s crystal blue eyes and see hope, encouragement and endurance that would give me the strength to continue, to help me remember that it’s not just my world that had been torn apart. He was here helping not only me, but whoever would ask him for help, while his wife and new-born were in Mississippi, far away from where he wanted to be. I looked around at the people that were not waiting for Blu Roof or FEMA or anyone else to lend a helping hand. They were on top of their roofs, their neighbor’s roofs, the church roof, wielding chainsaws in hands that have never held them before, picking up pieces of debris that was once a cherished heirloom in someone’s attic, doing what ever they had to do to return life back into some semblance of normality. Taking care of themselves and each other with whatever means they had to do that with, and hoping for a better future.
My brother is a humble shrimper, makes his living, and gets his livelihood from the land and sea, like so many others like him from these southern Louisiana regions. This man was once called an “unskilled” worker by one of my former teachers in school. Him and most of the people like him in Cameron Parish and the surrounding Parishes now have to start from nothing and build something out of it----and are doing it—without complaint, without news coverage and a lot of them without help from our government and insurance.
Like I said before he was left with nothing-but he is a survivor, not a victim. He along with the rest of us will rise up through all this rubble and overcome this struggle, because of who he is, who we are, and what our ancestors have given to us that no hurricane or defective government or callused, complacent media can take away from us. A gift that he will be able to give to his two-month old son and grandchildren that will carry on from generation to generation, come hell or high water----Integrity, character, loyalty, hope, tenacity, never-say-die, no quitting attitude that this great country was created by.
Thanks Bruce- I only hope that I can instill in my boys and leave a little in every person that I meet just a little of the stuff I have seen in you and in the great people of our little piece of Louisiana. Like I said before I am from Cameron Parish, a Rita survivor---and wouldn’t want to be from anywhere else.
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