Riding on the City of New Orleans

Yes. Lest you think I live in ZuluLand: I do know about New Orleans. I've scarcely slept since last week. Right now, 'bout running on empty, haven't slept for more than twenty four hours, and that's following two forty-eight-hour periods without sleep.

I kind of think it's a kind of PTSD, I was in the Russian River flooding of '95, and though that was not nearly as bad as this, New Orleans brings up feelings, images, anger that I thought had long gone away.

You see, I know the drill. (I had a foot of water in my living room. Guerneville had 12 feet in the street. Multiply by wind damage squared by water depth equals New Orleans)

You listen to the radio. It doesn't notice you've been flooded, because you're a day ahead of time. The next day, as you begin the clean up, which includes wading through your living room, you listen to the panic in their voices, as Santa Rosa gets flooded.

The helper bees, your neighbors, begin to help each other. No agencies, no Red Cross, no one but each other sharing whatever can be shared. My landlord, dry for a year, begins drinking again.

The country store gives away the melted ice cream: the kids don't care, it's sweet. At the store they give you flash lights at the door to shop, hand tally your purchases: candles, batteries, half thawed meat, eggs. You get a typhoid shot so you can clean up (Santa Rosa's cesspools somehow got mixed up with the flood waters.)

You hadn't even finished moving in yet. Plastic lidded tubs of clothing, books in the shed. You learn books can't be saved. Total loss. Some clothes can. Spend months hosing mud off of Talbot's suits, dresses. You learn: some will take it, some won't. Most won't. And mud stains. You begin to suck water out of your living room carpet with a biggreencleanmachine. Since the electricity is very erratic, you leave your bedside light turned on: not matter what the time, when the light comes on, you get up and go down and suck water out of your carpet. You use the sucked water to flush your toilet, the clean water has to be saved for drinking, as your landlord can't pump from the muddy flood waters. He replaces the hot water heater and the refrigerator in six weeks.

The call to FEMA, the questions: did you lose a refrigerator? Did you lose a stove? Well, no, I rent they're the landlord's. Well, then. Then the urging to call again. To fill out the forms. You have to keep your ruined possessions until the FEMA inspector can *see* them. No, photos are not evidence of loss. You must make a list or things you don't have any more, or which are destroyed. (The bitter locals' joke was that the forms had to be filled out in the blood type you declared you were -- Tests to be done at a later date) And wait. Weeks for the inspector, who keeps not showing up. After waiting six weeks, I left a key to the cabin with a neighbor, and drove to Utah to my mother's. The inspector showed up, but wouldn't let the neighbor show him in: I had to be there to sign. I called to reschedule. And was told my claim had been withdrawn due to my unwillingness to cooperate. I had (6 months?) to file an appeal. I took the forms, put them with the rest of my garbage, and had it all hauled away. Next time, I'll just skip the FEMA step. Period. That said: I know some people cannot afford to do that.

The Red Cross shows up, you wait in long lines at the firehouse. You talk to stress counselors.

A month later the Red Cross declares all is well, everyone's doin' good, and leaves.

And then begins, just begins mind you, the healing.

BTW, virtually no homeowners/renter's insurance in California. I'd heard a rumor about a company that was offering it, but hadn't tracked them down by the time of the flood.

Oh, yes, and I forgot. The President comes. Diverts all kind of police, firemen, etc. to taking care of him. You do not like the President. You wish he'd go somewhere else for his photo ops. Far, far away from your life.