Crappy Anniversary

Well, thank goodness it's not a "big" year, at least. 

Last year was ten. Damn near unbearable. Seeing the images and hearing the stories again. Those (many) of us bedeviled by PTSD from that time hesitated to turn on a television or open a web browser for fear of more triggers.

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I was hoping for respite from memory this year, but that ain't happening. Not with miles of moldy mattresses and stinking fridges stretching out, same as before in the parishes next door. Still haven't seen anything to quite rival Lakeview Trash Mountain, but I'm sure our worst is matched in tonnage.

1 block wide, 20 blocks long, over 20 feet at the summit  New Orleans, 2005

The photos shock, but don't convey the sick feeling when the next block looks just the same, and the next and the next. A few filmmakers working here just afterwards caught it. A couple of the chase scenes in "Deja Vu" give the idea. I still shudder at how  well  Zack Godshall and Barlow Jacobs  captured the horror of the Infinite Garbage Dump in the last scene of "Low and Behold."

With the return of debris mounds and studs naked of sheetrock, bottled water and styro-boxed pasta dishes from Red Cross trucks, we don't really need every journo putting up a think piece this year to remind us where we were a decade-plus-one ago. Quick drive up Hwy 61'll do that.

Baton Rouge, 2016

Still, it is the end of August, and there are a couple of points I feel obliged to bring up this time of year.

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First, unlike our neighbors up the road, we were not the victims of a natural disaster. What happened to us was a predictable, and predicted, failure of a flood protection system that we ourselves are not allowed to maintain. The fellow in charge of doing so went time and again to the administration, begging for funding to inspect and repair the levees of the SELA system. He was continually denied. And the system failed, more or less where and in the order he'd predicted.

And all of that happened because a needless, pointless war was a higher budget priority.

Second, should such massive, overwhelming events ever visit you, YOU will be the first responder. Last week, just as 11 years ago, the "Cajun Navy" were rescuing flooded residents. Immediate relief, gutting and rebuilding efforts, now just as then, are largely community-driven.

‘Twas ever thus. You are the people who are coming to help. Prepare and equip now, so that you can be a hero when one is called for. (And I’m sorry, but they’ll insist on calling you that.)

Lastly...

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Should the place you live and love fall under such calamitous circumstances, prepare to fight for the rest of your life. As your home place recovers, you will have to carefully monitor all developments, even those that seem good, for hidden schemes to transfer the public weal to private hands.

The vultures never miss an opportunity, and "acts of God" offer plenty. Disaster capitalism is a thing and, guess what?  You are now ground zero.

Baton Rouge, 2016

Finally, a brief request: If you are able, please consider donating to either Second Harvest of New Orleans or Together Baton Rouge. These two organizations are, imo, doing the best job of getting much-needed assistance directly to the people of South Louisiana affected by our recent floods.

Terribly sorry if this is a bit disjointed. These things often are.

Thanks for reading, and may trouble pass you by.