Posted on 09/08/2015 5:54:56 PM PDT by lowbridge
Well yes...it would be, but some of my all time favorite people are...."complected":
Sarah Vaughan, Louis Armstrong, Wilson Picket, Booker T Jones, Walter Williams, James Brown, Chuck Barry, Herman Cain, Little Richard, Katie Webster, Koko Taylor, Beau Jocque, Clarence Thomas, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Alan West, Reverend Manning....BOOM Shacka-lacka!
Well, we have the consolation of knowing the time is near when we won’t have to get there before the breakfast deadline.
I arrived in the New Orleans area as part of a law enforcement relief effort several days after Katrina struck and we were put up in the Mandeville High School in Mandeville across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans.
FEMA took over the Mandeville High School, and with the high school’s generators they were able to open the cafeteria and serve breakfast and supper. Lunch was a MRE. Hot showers were available in the school gymnasium and our sleeping arrangements were cots in the class rooms. The high school was filled with law enforcement personnel and soldiers to assist New Orleans PD, and power company linemen were there to repair New Orleans’ power grid.
Daily, we would drive across Lake Pontchartrain on the causeway and spend our days in the 9th Ward on boats rescuing people off their roofs or trapped in their attics.
I’ll never forget one old man we had to cut a hole in his roof to free him from his attic, and when we got him out he told us a story that caused us to understand how fast the water came up when the levee broke. He said he had been sitting in his living room watching TV when he looked over and saw water coming through his front door. When he saw the water coming in, he ran into the kitchen, pulled down the ladder to the attic, started climbing it and before he got to the top his head was already under water.
The old man’s story helped us to understand what we saw when the water went down and we found entire families lying dead in their living room floor. The water came in so fast it gave them no time to escape the room, and the water quickly filled the room pressing them up against the ceiling until they drowned. We would find the bodies in the floor, scratch marks on the ceiling, and we would then know what had transpired.
I was there for two months and haven’t been back since, but I can still smell New Orleans in my dreams.
Bless you. I truly had no idea........ :(
Thank you for what you did for us, from the bottom of my heart. Your post means a lot to me.
I, too, will never, ever forget that smell.
I don’t live in New Orleans anymore, but went back last week for the 10th anniversary. I did not go down in “da ninth” and from what I understand, that area is still mostly a ghost town.
As I was driving into the city on I-10, a woman on WWOZ radio was talking about the “ghosts of the ninth.” She said when that many spirits in a small area fly up all at once, that’s a powerful energy shift, right there.
Most of the city, though, has come roaring back, BETTER THAN BEFORE THE STORM. I credit Governor Bobby Jindal for that. It was truly astonishing—I want to move back, but can’t afford to live there anymore!
You should go back for a visit. Replace those awful memories with a few good ones.
The thread Anti-prepping 101: the top unpreparedness skills...has some more of my posts about NO, if you’re interested. Sorry I’m too technically incompetent (old) to post links.
Also, if you’re interested, I believe WWOZ radio (great jazz, real New Orleans flavor) can be heard on your computer, though I couldn’t say how one actually does that.
LOL! Love Lazlo!
Huddle House is my favorite and better than Waffle House!
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