Nix Bits

It’s two years on and that’s hard to believe. In the great elsewhere, Katrina is old news. Here in New Orleans, we live it every day. In the past several months, I’ve often sat down thinking I would send some missive or reflection about the current issue of the day in New Orleans only to have the inspiration slip away.

Part of the reason is fatigue and the sense that writing about it isn’t doing either the community at large or me any good any more. So much has been said, much of it by voices clearer and stronger than my own. And for all those words, at times it certainly feels as if things will continue as they are no matter how stridently we push for real progress.

There are so many things to be outraged about. It’s hard to prioritize and ultimately leaves one feeling helpless. Just when you’re incensed about yet another brutal murder and the ineffectual police force and DA, you hear the Corps or Donald Powell spewing some nonsense at the Federal level. And then some quack columnist or pundit 5,000 miles away claims we aren’t working hard enough and this town shouldn’t be saved, basing all his assumptions on politicized half truths and still failing to grasp that Katrina in New Orleans was an entirely man-made disaster.

Even my job is due to Katrina. After the storm, I was still working, but received some offers both inside and outside of the state. And now my day-to-day job is focused on SAN storage, particularly replication, backups, and Disaster Recovery. Within two months of starting this job in 2006, we had begun transitioning the backup environment to a new product and I was in New Jersey performing pre-hurricane season Disaster Recovery tests. I enjoy the work and the technical challenge, but the post-K context is always there.

My wife’s job is pretty much all-Katrina all the time as well. She’s a psychologist in private practice and since June/July of 2006 her practice has been busy. After all, she’s one of the few mental health practitioners left. She’ll be helping people with their ongoing Katrina-related issues for years to come. She says one of the greatest things about getting into our new home was being able to leave Katrina at work.

Getting into our house was a huge step for us. It was not long after that, that I pretty much stopped writing. Besides the aforementioned outrage fatigue, I was also enjoying our own private respite from all-Katrina, all the time. It’s been great to throw our energy into our house. It’s a very private, personal Katrina recovery involving simpler victories, such as hosting a family dinner and having everyone stay at our house hours longer than any of us expected. So tonight we’ll probably watch some of the local TV coverage. I’ll probably look through our photo album and maybe read some old postings. We’ll call our friends in Jackson who sheltered us for a month and our families. And then we’ll wake up tomorrow and keep on going.

obligatory further reading: New Orleans councilwoman Shelley Midura’s letter to George Bush