New Orleans Tornadoes, February 2007

You know when you hear the wind blowing hail against your window, then silence, then hail against the window, then silence? When the weather is so mad that it can't make up its mind which way to direct its wrath, you know it is a bad sign. Because when it decides which way to go, it goes in a real bad way.

I heard that alternating hail rhythm in the early morning of February 13th. I looked at the clock and it said 2:45am. At almost exactly 4:oo am the phone rang. A tornado had hit a hotel across the river in Westwego. I was not surprised. In fact, I thought it must have been closer to our house, and I would later learn that I was correct. The tornado had 'skipped' across the river to crash on some homes only about a mile away in New Orleans, and it then 'skipped' two more times across the city. A handful of houses were destroyed on either side of the river, and one woman was killed. The FEMA trailer she was living in was tossed from the yard of her home that was nearly finished being rehabilitated. Even in new tragedies, everything in this town is framed by Hurricane Katrina.

All in all, New Orleans was pretty lucky this time. When a tornado drops on a metro area, the results usually are not good. The obvious conclusion about this disaster, and every other major or minor disaster until the end of this generation’s collective memory, is that it is framed by the big ‘K’. Every one of the tens of clients with which I met after the tornado more or less said something to the effect of: ‘First Katrina, now this.’ The same could be said for most of the fires to which we responded in the past year. In my estimation, the people in this area will be vulnerable to future disasters for the rest of their lives. The gulf coast still talks about Betsy and Camille, and now Katrina. Maybe one learns to rebuild and bounce back after some disasters, but when it comes to Katrina, anything else is still salt in a fresh wound. Here’s to a quiet hurricane season. Make that a quiet hurricane decade.

There was some talk after the tornado that God must have had a hand in this, since a particular hotel was demolished that had been known as a gateway for many unsound activities. It has even been said that Katrina was an act of God against all the debauchery if the city. I am not a theologian. I am not terribly religious. However I am in this city to help the people who live here and were terribly affected by this ‘act’, and I feel I am entitled to this particular response: “TTTHHHHHHPPPPPPPPTTTTTTTTDDDD.”

I have met people of unsurpassed beauty in this town and I resent – on their behalf – any suggestion that this catastrophe was deserved. Most of the debauchery that occurs in this town is carried out on Bourbon Street by tourists, in fact probably by the same people who claim that God brought His wrath upon the 'sinners'.

Not my God, She has no wrath. (Enough energy towards a small few people – but they deserve to be put in their place.)