 |
|
|
|
|
|
| Back |
Previous on Jeremy Bosch Memorial HOF |
Next on Jeremy Bosch Memorial HOF |
Booty Faulked
(198.51.92.3) on 9/9/2005 - 12:04 p.m. says: ( 5 views
)
|
"Louisiana; they're trying to wash us away."
|
|
Never have I experienced a place where people knew more about love,
about family, about loyalty and about getting along than the people of New Orleans.
It is perhaps their very gentleness that gives them their endurance.
First off, major thanks to Wayne and LT for allowing me to use their gas tanks. I would have been really nervous during the drive from Birmingham to Alexandria last friday had I not known I hd nearly a full tank in reserve.
During that drive only about one of every ten gas stationss had gas, and there were lines that went for hours waiting to fill up. I didn't have the time or inclination to wait in those lines, especially considering the limits on quantities pumped.
Finally, in monroe I found plenty of gas stations open, selling for $2.59.
Sunday my mother and I were allowed into her community, kenner, a day before the rest of jefferson parish. After checking on an elderly great aunt and her son (mentally unstable 56 y.o.) we went to see what we could of flooded new orleans. It wasn't much, rooftops and the second floor of homes that had one.
The next day my mother went out in a boat with two gentlemen to see what was left of her paternal familys home, purchased by her grandfather in 1921. Five-six feet of standing water was in the home elevated about two feet. This is in lakeview, a community that has never flooded since its development in the early 20th century.
Tuesday I went out with my mother and a retired fireman to see what condition my house and my mother's investment property around the corner were in and to retrieve the retired fireman's father in law. Mom met up with some greek reporters and asked them to give her a ride to the french quarter sso she could inspect damage to her property on St. Peter Street. The fireman and I went on foot (floodwaters seemed to recede in this area) towards his father in laws house and my house.
The fireman and the father in law tried to leave in the father in law's car, and I went back to get the boat we had used. The boat was gone. Stolen. So I met up with a Swiss rescue team and got a ride out of town with them. We had to drive through downtown and uptown to get to metairie (about 10 miles longer than it should have taken in non-flood stage).
That afternoon, as I waited at the boat launch for my mom to return (her story of this day is another filled with chaos), I met a japaneese reporter and offered to take him out and show him around the city. I got angry at him and his crew, though, 30 minute into the boat ride because they asked me to pretend to be looking for my family. I left them at a small bridge manned by the red cross and other groups and rode back to the launch with members of the oakland, CA search and rescue team.
I've enrolled at Nichols State this semester, and may have to enroll here again next semester because i doubt UNO will reopen. My 3rd senior year will be at Nicholls State. I'll have wireless internet available campus wide, so you'll be seeing more of me.
a lot more to say, but now isn't the time. I guess there are thousands of op-ed pieces being written right now, and I've got a loose outline for one myself.
God bless the people of the coast. If anyone has information on bay st louis or st. stanislaus college prep, please post. Thanks.
War Eagle,
Go Tigers,
Stay Safe
|
|
