Expect the Unpredictable – Enter Gullah

Irene is moving north, north-west at 13 mph.  And the nation is beginning to react.  Evacuations have been ordered from North Carolina’s barrier islands. Here in Florida, we feel relatively relieved.  However, seasoned Southerners know to expect the unpredictable

After Katrina’s frontal assault on the Gulf coast and just as New Orleans was exhaling, the real trouble began.  New Orleans has a levee and flood wall system to protect it from its low-lying areas.  While Katrina’s eye passed about 20 miles from the heart of the city, the powerful force of a storm, only hours before identified as a Cat 5, was able to cause the levees on four of the canals to fail.  The surge overtopped Lake Pontchartrain which poured into the city and flooded 80% of New Orleans.  An estimated one million  people had fled, but 20% of the population remained in a city clearly sinking.   

People took to their roofs, having hacked through ceilings with an axe.  The roof-tops were filled with screaming babies, frantic families, the elderly, the sick and their pets.  A popular journalist, Chris Rose, was later to write a book, the title taken from the post storm markings on front doors, One Dead in the Attic.  

Watching the aftermath of Katrina, everyday “in real time,” was an emotional experience.  One story in particular, that of a small boy carried sobbing onto an evacuation bus, was especially touching.  The bus driver refused to allow the boy’s small fuzzy dog, “Snowball,” onto the bus.  Snowball was left stranded by the wayside; two hearts were broken. Snowball was all the boy had left and now the beloved family pet was gone.  The story made national news; for me, it was the inspiration to write Gullah, the Nawleans Cat Meets Katrina.