As Hurricane Francine bore down on Louisiana’s coastline, it triggered a mixed bag of memories, emotions, fears and prayers among those who lived through the life-altering storms of the past 20 years.
Oh no, not again. Please, God … not again.
The mere thought of those storms — Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Laura, Delta, Zeta and Ida — conjures horrific flashbacks that can still induce physical reactions.
The killer storms of the new millennium came after decades of relative calm along our state’s southern coast. Betsy happened 40 years before Katrina. We largely dodged Camille in 1969.
Two generations passed without the trauma of existential loss. As humans inevitably do during such quiet periods, we let our collective guard down. We became complacent.
Then, in 2005 and too often since, nature violently reminded us just how vulnerable we are.
Clancy DuBos
Perhaps that’s why, for so many of us, hurricane preparations have become akin to muscle memory. Once begun, the checklist practically completes itself.
Francine, like other storms, kept changing course before finally taking aim at Louisiana’s coastline. And, as we’ve seen too often of late, she intensified before landfall, packing winds of 100 mph as a Category 2 hurricane.
Thankfully, and also as expected, Francine weakened soon after landfall. But she still packed a lot of wind and rain. For many of us, she was whiff, thanks to meteorological terms we’ve come to intuit if not understand. What, after all, are steering currents and vertical shears?
For too many others, particularly in the River Parishes and across coastal areas, Francine brought devastation.
In any storm's aftermath, be it a near-miss or a killer hurricane, we see reminders of just how much we need one another. Whether it’s extra water and food, batteries, flashlights or the shelter of a whole-home generator, the stories that stay with us of coping with impending or all-to-real disasters are tales of people helping each other.
This is especially true in south Louisiana, which has been hit too many times by massive storms in the past 20 years. Having spent my entire life in New Orleans, where life is precarious even in the best of times, I have experienced this firsthand.
No matter where we live or where we “went to school,” disaster reminds us that we are neighbors — family, even — not strangers.
Life here is uncertain, sometimes perilously so. Yet we cling to this low-lying, flood-prone, mosquito-infested place we call home.
People elsewhere often ask why anyone would want to live in such a place, where hardship and disaster are so much a part of life.
When I hear that question from folks who live elsewhere, I recall James Carville, south Louisiana’s unofficial Minister of Badassery, explaining “why” years ago. He was talking about New Orleans, but what he said applies just as much to every community across south Louisiana.
"Living here has always been and always will be a struggle,” Carville said. “But every struggle here matters. People in other cities are obsessed with their quality of life — their sunshine, their libraries, their universities, their income levels. In New Orleans, we’re obsessed with our way of life, because our way of life is our quality of life.
“New Orleans has more culture than most countries. We have our own food, our own music, our own funerals, our own social structure, our own architecture, our own body of literature,” he said. “That’s why we stay. That’s why we endure — because it’s worth it.”
