30 DAYS OF FREE – NEW ORLEANS: Day Two

Activity: Katrina memorial

Difficulty Rating: 1 for travel, 9 for strangeness

I happen to be in New Orleans during the tenth anniversary of hurricane Katrina, the natural disaster which became a man-made disaster due to bungled levies and hesitant bureaucrats. The city is not entirely harmonious at present. It seems that a few people want to celebrate the event with benefit concerts and dedications and grand pronouncements of fortitude, but the rest are angry that the disaster is being brought up at all. It’s not like anyone could forget it happened when every street has at least one semi-demolished house on it, and everyone who lived through it lost a huge chunk of their lives. To those people, it’s like a holocaust BBQ or a lynching piñata. A very morbid thing to celebrate.

For my part, I am an uncomfortable observer to this issue. Ten years ago I was in Ballarat, preparing for ballet exams and fretting that my chest voice was overpowering my head voice. Being here now feels like being at the wake of someone I’d never met, witnessing their family’s grief and conflict, wanting to help but having nothing to offer. In an effort to comprehend the issue, I visited the Katrina memorial at the top of Canal street. It’s a small section of graveyard which has been historically used to bury victims of large-scale tragedies, like diseases and plagues, and also the remains of the good people who donated their bodies to medicine. It is a quiet and tranquil place even though it stands along an arterial road.

The memorial is a series of plaques and vaults set along a swirling path and surrounded by tall pine trees. The vaults house those unidentifiable or unclaimed in the aftermath of the storm. Instead of headstones or name plates, the vaults have polished black faces, as bright as mirrors, reflecting the living who come to pay their respects. Because of the date, there were lots of flowers and visitors there. Most seemed to be in a positive, talkative mood – neither wounded nor celebratory.

I feel like the best thing I can do is be educated, respectful and supportive. Listen instead of talk. This city is so welcoming of newcomers that it doesn’t feel like an “us vs them” thing that I would be involved in anyway. The hurricane comes up often in conversations, but I think the irritation is coming from a push to whitewash the tragedy into a picture of strength and pride, when for so many people it was a time of vulnerability and fear. This is what I’ve gleaned anyway, I can’t speak for the people who lived it.

Heres a picture showing the shape of the memorial, its swirls are supposed to represent a hurricane.