When Home Hits You Smack in the Face

The thing about working in the news is that it sometimes takes a period of time for the subject that you're focusing on to sink in at a personal level. When a story breaks, you're busy covering it as quickly and accurately as possible, and then you need time to get over the exhaustion of dealing with it. Even when your coworkers get pulled into the story somehow, you're looking at it on a professional level to an extent. But eventually, if you have a morsel of human heart inside the cynical shell we have to put on, it hits you, and since you've seen so much in the course of covering the story, it sometimes hits you harder.

Today I had that moment with the destruction of Katrina. It was a day off, and I had a lot of very important personal things to do. But in the background, I had CNN on. In between tasks, I read my personal weblog of people I've grown to know on the internet, and heard heartbreak and anger and loss all over the place. Then I found out that at least one person I know, who was one of the first people in my memories of childhood, is - at the very least - unaccessable in the area. And over time, I started seeing all of those pictures and video and it crept in that no, this wasn't a faraway place where people I didn't really know about lived. And this wasn't an intentional act where I could lay my grief and anger down on a specific target. This was the toughest part of the cycle of life, a natural, unavoidable catastrophe, and it's playing out in a place that I know. I've been on that corner of Bourbon Street where the shop caught fire today in the middle of the flood waters. I've eaten Po-Boys in a little Mom-and-Pop joint in Biloxi that most likely is not even there anymore. I rode across the Gulf Coast multiple times, from Gulfport to Navarre Beach, when it was vacation time and my relatives wanted to see the beautiful sites of our heritage, from Jefferson Davis' home to the USS Alabama. And now if I am ever blessed to have another child, I won't be able to share that same experience with my kid. Even more awful, entire families aren't around to have ANY experiences, and a whole beautiful city has been, for all intents and purposes, lost. And as hard as it is to comprehend, it's even harder to stare that reality in the face.

There's so many thoughts jumbled up in my mind about this. I could put on my usual media analyst cap and critique the (mostly excellent) coverage on CNN, as well as the amazing coverage of WWL-TV under the worst of circumstances. I could link to a million sites that I've found with a mixture of information and devastation, where people are using the Internet to try to find each other and help each other. I could bitch about the President (however, the NYT did it for me.) I could go off on a rant about the rants that people have been posting all over the blogosphere. I could talk about Southerners and how we've lost everything before and rebuilt again. I could talk about how thankful I am to have what I have, and how ungrateful and unworthy I feel. I could even talk about hearing Alan Jackson's "Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning" at Wal-Mart and almost falling to pieces. But I can't. Words don't fit anymore in any of this. And I don't feel like it's my place to say anything, or do more than try to support those whom I can. This is the one time in my life where I think that it's important to just stop and listen, and then grieve quietly. So I will.

Since I have no time right now to post about Katrina...

...I'm going to let my friend Ann's post about why people don't evacuate/why people live in those areas speak for me. She's from that area, and she's spot-on.

So why doesn't everyone just leave? It's not always possible to evacuate. You can be too old, too poor to have a car, too sick to move. You can be a tourist in the airport. You can be a storm-hardened native who's used to sitting out hurricanes in a Bourbon Street bar, watching lawn chairs hurtle by at chest height, barbequing everything in the freezer and drinking beer. Sometimes you go home to find nothing worse than a broken window and a power outage - if the storm hits at all. I remember being warned to evacuate back in 1998. Baton Rouge declared a two-day shutdown of all schools and businesses; everyone left work and went home to tape up windows and pack cars, and we got two days of muggy sunshine instead when the storm pirouetted into Texas.

And no, nobody has any sympathy for the stubborn ones who don't leave, especially the people who could and did leave when told. A rescue worker gets hurt or killed trying to save your sorry ass? It's better to just move out of state afterward.

So why doesn't everyone just move? Who's going to work the offshore oil refineries? Who's going to fish the shrimp, crabs, catfish, tilapia, redfish, drum, and oysters? Who's going to farm the rice and soybeans and sugarcane and corn? Who's going to man the chemical plants, deliver the fertilizer, ship the petroleum? Who's going to uproot an extended family and known way of life and move somewhere rife with tornadoes, earthquakes, and/or Yankees?

Her whole post is here. In the meantime, I'll be working on this.

EDIT: Now THIS is how you liveblog a disaster.

And per WWL's live coverage, people in Jefferson Parish are going to be allowed to go back to their homes for one day next week to collect as much stuff as they can, and then they'll have to leave and not come back for another MONTH. Wow.

The Beauty and the Horror of Nature

Proof that the scariest things in nature can be the most beautiful.

Obviously, this was not the saddest or most shocking event of the day, but CNN's Hurricane One was damaged in Gulfport. Awwwwww. I thought that pimped-out Hummer would make it!

Oh, and the Weather Channel's website had a 350% increase in traffic on Sunday. Wow.

EDIT 10:30 pm: Hearing Jeanne Meserve break down on a phoner while talking about the rescuers trying to save people in East New Orleans was the most heartbreaking interview I've heard since the tsunami. Between that and the unbelievable pictures and sad tales like our weatherman Justin Bruce's family losing five homes in flooding today, it's just overwhelming. If the area was spared the worst, I don't want to think about what the worst could've been. And once the pictures start coming out of Biloxi tomorrow, it'll probably be even more terrible. Sometimes me and others in the news biz may get lost in the drama of the action, but we never lose our hearts. My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone affected by this, and I truly hope that all those who are refugeed in Nashville right now have a place to go home to in a few days.

Crazy Reporter of the Day in Nola

I didn't see Anderson Cooper do anything slightly nuts during this hurricane. (Damn) But Brian Andrews from WFOR takes the cake (he's been on WWL's live streaming coverage here.) A pretty accurate description of his foray onto Canal Street in the middle of the storm is detailed here. Even I think he was absolutely insane, but it was damn good TV.

EDIT: The guy who ran out into water that was almost as deep as the overpass was high to save a stranded motorist wins #2. Gets extra points for being a Good Samaritan, but still #2.

In other news, Tennessee will probably get our first tropical storm in many years overnight. Make sure to keep an eye on NashvilleWX.com and WKRN.com's special section for the latest. /shameless pimp

Hurricane Katrina Coverage

In case you want to see hurricane coverage and not a New Orleans traffic report, here's some links to online coverage:

HurricaneNow
WDSU-TV (MSNBC has been simultcasting them a lot)
WWL-TV
WTIX-AM
WSAO-AM
And if you want a Louisiana soundtrack (i.e. business as usual) Radio Margaritaville or Mr. PoBoy

Also, two of my station's meteorogists are natives of the Nola area. They've got their own memories of Camille and Betsy, as well as how this is going to impact Middle Tennessee (we're under a tropical storm wind watch, y'all) at http://www.nashvillewx.com/ .

You know it's a bad storm when CNN's been doing phoners since this morning instead of live shots, and most of the correspondants are no closer than Gulfport (although CNN claims that Anderson Cooper will be doing coverage out of Nola...hurry up!)

My mom lived in N'awlins after graduating from college, and my cousin lived in Metarie and Kenner for years. I went down there a lot as a teen to visit, and it really is one of the prettiest places on earth. I just hope that it doesn't drown half of the Garden District (French Quarter also, but let's face it - you can drink and party anywhere.)

EDIT: According to Miles O'Brien's liveblogging of the storm (lucky!) CNN's live coverage of the actual landfall is moving to Baton Rouge, basically because they fear that their satellite truck will float away. Damn. I'm infamous for my desire to actually cover a hurricane on the coast, but this is one where I'm not really feeling the need to jump in my car and head south. Unless I could ride along in Hurricane One, that is.

Glad to see that other people are missing Anderson. Wonder what he might almost get hit by this go 'round? Hurricane glasses? A zydeco band? Or a floating riverboat casino?

Oh, and the best quote ever from Miles:
My iPod shuffled its way to Pete Fountain mid flight. Listening to "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans". Wish I was on my way to hoist a Hurricane from Pat O'Brien's - instead of covering one named Katrina.

Never been a huge Miles fan, but he just earned about a 1000 cool points for this one.

FYI. I sure would hate to be stuck somewhere where the authorities are telling you to have something that you could hack a hole in your ceiling with, just in case.

EDIT 2: My cats are going to all the doors and windows and growling at nothing. I know that animals have weird instinctive reactions to incoming weather. I wonder if Katrina is already causing something to make this happen.

And hoo boy, that live shot of WVUE's parking lot is really exciting, y0. Yes, I know I'm bitchy and that news crews have no business being anywhere near a coastline right now. But after watching the World's Longest Traffic Jam all day, I feel a wee bit whiny about it.