Diary of a hurricane: Katrina, from the edge

or, What did you do while waiting for the hurricane? I shampooed the carpet...

Fri, Aug 26
all-hands meeting at work -- yeah, ivan was supposed to go to new orleans too, and look what happened; everybody go out to the beach this weekend and blow real hard

emergency power crews are staging just north of town, ready to roll into miami

Sat, Aug 27
shopping, at the natural foods co-op, less crowded than the "real" gorcery stores. more stuff still on the shelves; stock up on water, cereal, crackers, peanut butter, dog food, cat litter, gluten-free munchies (most of which might as well be cat litter)

yeah, i always keep a supply of hurricane stuff on hand all summer, but category 5 is different -- it used to be a mythical creature actually -- not any more

suppertime
start cooking -- and eating -- perishable foods. tonight is ground buffalo made into spaghetti sauce, and all the green salad you can eat

sun aug 28
wind started blowing today, some spitting and showers

breakfast ground buffalo spaghetti sauce, spaghetti and salad greens gone

laundry, clean the kitcehn and bathroom, last-minute shopping -- 2 trips -- duct tape (not what you think) , laundry detergent, bleach -- always get bleach before a hurricane

always go into a hurricane with a clean house and clean laundry -- things are going to smell bad enough before you get a/c, water, refrigerator back

first shopping trip, in the am, to the IGA two blocks away, drove the car anyway, cat litter and laundry detergent are heavy

2nd shopping trip, some time after lunch -- duct tape -- NOT for the windows

lunchtime -- laundry going well, cleaning kitchen and bathroom in between fraying -- or fraying in between cleaning and laundry, hard to tell which is the dominant activity

lunch ground buffalo spaghetti sauce, start in on the carrot sticks

washing machine sounds funny, it's 20-something years old, not surprisingf hat it should be feeling its age, but oh man, what a time for it to crap out! looks like it's doing ok, though, so ignore it and go back to fraying and cleaning. more fraying than cleaning, i think -- it's addicting, where cleaning is not. besides i'm waiting for the dryer.

shortly after lunch
washer and dryer both stopped, time to shuffle laundry -- fold dry clothes, move wet clothes to the dryer, pick up the next load off the floor and into the washer. you know the drill -- if you don't you should.

up from the computer! down the hall! squish squish! uh, squish squish? that explains the washer sounding funny. water water everywhere and all of it soaked into the carpet. fuck.

the storm's not even here yet and already i have a flooded apartment and wet stinky carpet. the discharge hose has worked itself out of the drain and is on the floor behind dryer, bleeding the last of the rinse water.

i have owned, and given away, two shop vacs so far in my life. mistake; don't give away your shop vacs.

off to walmart, which i usually boycott, but this is an emergency of the first water, and the walmart superstore is closest.

takes 4 walmart associates, but we finally find shop vacs in the hardware department, right next to some lamps. makes sense to me. if you saw these lamps it would make sense to you too.

paid $10 extra for the one labelled "quiet"

after sucking up 15 gallons or so of soapy stinky water out of how-did-it-get-that-filthy? carpet i'm convinced. give away all your old shop vacs and buy the "quiet" one.

moved the dryer to mop up the water behind it. hole in dryer hose, no wonder the lint has gotten so bad. no problem, i've got more rolls of duct tape than i ever had shop vacs. goddamnitalltohellanyway! where did all the freakin duct tape go?! can't even find the roll of electrical tape! packaging tape might work but i don't know about the heat tolerance of packageing tape. i've already flooded the place, don't need to set it on fire too.

i dont NEED to fix the hole in the dryer hose right now, but i'm getting too wound up sitting around waiting for a monster hurricane to maybe change its mind and turn this way. i NEED to get out and go after this roll of duct tape.

off to the iga, walking this time. on the way i meet a little old man in a one of those motorized scooter chair things, just coming out of the iga parking lot. we nod and smile, each recognizing in the other the last-minute huricane shopper.

into the store, full of people, shelves still full too. the beauty of shopping at small local stores -- the plundering hordes stay away in droves.

duct tape on the highest shelf, just outof reach, in a hurry, no tall people around, pull about a dozen rolls of tape down on my head. i'm just tall enough -- and nice enough -- to put the other 11 rolls back.

paid for and out the door. the little old man has made it to the restaurant parking lot next door. i stop to ask if he needs help. in a helium-balloon-sucking voice he answers no, there's nothing i can do to help, he's just stopped to rearrange stuff in his basket and the wind blew a few things away. i'm not sure what i was expecting but it wasn't a munchkin straight off the yellow brick road. i'm pretty sure i didn't bat an eye at the unexpected voice, though, and i offer to chase down whatever it was that blew away. no, he says, that's ok it wasnt important.

back home. dryer hose taped. laundry going.

about 4pm
as good a time as any to cook the last of the meat -- 2 sirloin steaks. eat one, save the other for breakfast. finish carrot sticks. drink milk. drink orange juice.

laundry, cleaning, walk the dog, worry about new orleans, worry about me, fray until the lights go out which is at

3:39 am monday aug 29
lights out!

7am mon aug 29
call the storm hotline at work, all hands report to duty

take the last piece of steak and the last glass of milk to work with me for breakfast; worke dhte food out pretty good this time, i'monly going to have to sacrifice one nearly-full carton of orange juice

8am
make it to work, wind has really picked up, for the first time in my entire tree-hugging life i am glad to be driving a big honking gas guzzler -- it's rocked a few times sitting at stoplights, but hasn't blown away yet.

speaking of stoplights, can't help noticing that MY neighborhood seems to be the only one without power

830am
katrina has crossed that little spit of south louisiana and is sitting just off the coast of biloxi; we're all sitting around at work watching cnn and the weather channel

9am
weather is worse, no crews going out now until the storm is over, most of us are sent home

i drive an older car, it has a few problems, not the least of which is that it's near to impossible to get parts for it. the hood is held closed with a dog collar, and i have completely forgotten about this until the wind gets hold of it. drive all the way home at about 20 miles an hour, the hood doing its bucking bronco thing all the way. but the dog collar holds.

home and parked and the hood is still leaping around. right in front of my unboarded-up sliding glass door.

the wind is really howling now, the rain is coming down in all directions, and i'm worrying about the car hood joining me in the apartment, uninvited.

two dog collars, one wire coat hanger, one sand bag, and two ripped fingers later the hood is quiet.

so is the rain -- quick take the dog out.

10am
back in the house, changed into dry clothes, called everyone and checked in told them i'm back from work they can quit worrying about THAT anyway, radio batteries turn out to be dead and replacements are the wrong size; don't really want to think about what's happening in LA and MS and anyway there's nothing i can do for them now.

exhausted

sleep

3pm
phone rings, can't get to it, it's an obstacle course in here, with all the plants and stuff taken in from the porch

call friends and parents to see if anybody is introuble and was trying to call for help, everybody ok, probabky a telemarketer

break in the rain take the dog out

people have started generators already! hate the noise.

the whole complex smells like gasoline fumes and freshly split oak firewood.

5pm
another break in the rain, longer this time, take the dog out, we all have cabin fever. lots of people out walking around, with or without dogs, people sitting out in the parking lots drinking beer

wind still blowing, branches still falling out of trees occasionally

6:00pm
neighbor two doors down is running a generator on their porch instead of out in the yard (the porches are enclosed) and the fumes are bad. when i suggest moving the generator off the porch because of the fumes, they shrug it off and the guy gives me that you're-just-a-girl-what-do-you-know-about-generators look.

6:30pm
i'm still mad about the brush-off, i'm worried about those idiots qualifying for the darwin awards, the fumes are worse, i can smell them from here, i'm worried about the building blowing up or all of us dying of co poisoning, and their generator is the loudest in two complexes. i call the cops.

7pm
well THAT generator has stopped!

11pm
have been reading and writing by flashlight and candlelight, used up half my stock of flashlight batteries already; take the dog out, then lights out, sleeping on the sofa with the sliding glass door open; it would be unbearably hot if the wind weren't blowing so hard still. as it is, it's just miserably hot

4am tuesday aug 30
wake up, something's not quite right; the wind has stopped.

7am
get to work, find out that i'm just about the only person there with no power, the rats!

6pm
i'm home! there's power! a/c! fridge! but i throw out the orange juice anyway.
walk the dog and start fraying like mad.



apologies for the unreadability, but this post was re-created from hand-written notes that were originally produced in the dark, by flashlight, and candle light

the handoff

a hot and cloudless day. the sky, blue, so innocuous, still ... so bright it hurts to look at.

a minivan. a mom-car. some dark color, something incongruous, british racing green perhaps. the sliding side door open. the driver's door open.

a man, thirty-ish. round, pink, unlined and close-shaven face sweating lightly. starched, white, long-sleeved dress shirt buttoned up all the way. dark tie. pleated slacks.

the man steps out from the shadowed entrance of the restaurant, walks across the parking lot. awkwardness betrays the unseen black cloud of anger surrounding him. he reaches into the open driver's side door, and turns, with a baby on one arm and a denim bag on the other. a bag too large to be a woman's purse, too small to be a diaper bag.

holding the baby and the bag slightly away from his body, he recrosses the parking lot to enter the restaurant -- enveloped, buoyed, carried forward by the anger.

in moments he exits the restaurant and crosses the parking lot again, back to the car. as he's slamming the side door closed, i finally recognize it. the smooth, too young, too closely shaven, unlined and angry face is the face that has been botoxed by the hand of god. the face of a man secure in the knowledge that his lord will take responsibility for this too -- this handing-over the [freaking] baby to [that bitch] the ex-wife.