I took this photo earlier today. What you see is what remains of the IGA supermarket in Buras, Louisiana. There were two supermarkets in Buras, but Hurricane Katrina took them away. The folks down here in Buras, Boothville, and Venice still don't have a supermarket in the community. Instead, they must drive a half-hour north to Port Sulphur.
There are many vivid reminders of the devastation brought by Katrina to these people and their homes. They see them every day.
The Saints made it to the Super Bowl for the first time in their forty-two year history. The Aints ain't Aints anymore. That's one reason why, for folks in south Louisiana, the Super Bowl was much more than a game. But it wasn't the only reason, and I think it wasn't the most important reason.
I think for so many folks down here, the Super Bowl means that it's okay to hope again. God bless them.
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5 comments:
All the more reason I'm glad they won.
The pace at which the nation has helped Louisiana and the Gulf Coast recover from Katrina is shameful.
quid
I was rooting for them because it is my nature to root for the underdog. It was good to see them win. I really loved that, and I do not even like football.
Amen, Hal. I thought I was for Indianapolis, you know, they're in the Titans' division and all that. Once the game started I couldn't help but pull for NO. It was their time.
It's hard to say why people settled and built houses on that peninsula south of New Orleans in the first place. Was it so they could live close to Venice and Empire and the boat and helicopter terminals through which they passed to go to their jobs? No matter- the area probably should *not* have been built-up. That big levee probably gave them a false sense of security. Katrina reminded us why living in a swamp is so risky.
Residents along Hwy 23 got used to having supermarkets and restaurants and all the amenities of civilization, most of which are now gone. Do I grieve? Not hardly, and that's not being callous.
There are areas of the world where people just shouldn't live: Bangladesh, for example, and we can think of other desert areas in Africa also. There is never a good reason to say, "I'm a-gonna buy or build me a house in Buras!" Actually, that applies anywhere south of Belle Chasse.
Nevermind that you'll live in the shadow of a huge-ass levee one the other side of which the level of the river is ABOVE "ground" level, but you are at the mercy of any tropical storm that rumbles through. You want to live there, fine, but don't expect me to go boo-hoo and send federal funds your way when nature huffs and puffs and blows your house down.
I used to work in Fourchon. To buy groceries, we had to drive way the hell on up to Golden Meadow, because nobody was stupid enough to put any kind of permanent structure out in the marsh. They'd learned *their* lesson.
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