The flight jinx

Remember last summer when I tried to fly to Paris? My dad and I fought off oncoming contraflow traffic to get me into New Orleans right before Gustav hit. I was afraid my flight would get canceled and I’d be stuck in the middle of Katrina No. 2.

Well, the next flight I took after that, or was supposed to take, was from Beauvais to Barcelona. Yeah, Ryanair. Canceled due to fog. They surely tried to take my money. It required some costly calls and a certified letter to get my $$ back.

I did successfully make it to Ireland via Aerlingus in November.

On the way home from France … 

One-Eyed Girl

The best things in life are ragged. So is One-Eyed Girl, a post-Katrina documentary about Bay St. Louis put together by some guys from Texas. It has just the right amount of history and scenery to capture what I wish everyone could experience of Bay St. Louis. Somehow I trick myself into thinking we are our Wal Mart and our hideous Highway 90 strip. Or worse, we are only as FEMA and State Farm will describe us, not much different from Florida or South Carolina or any other hurricane-prone area. But this film really got behind that to the damage and the debris and the gorgeous old oak trees, the locals, why we stayed, why we rebuilt, and who Bay St. Louis is. It paints us in that Big Fish light that I love. The hazy mornings, the Spanish moss, and so many steps to nowhere.

Chinese Earthquake not Unlike Katrina

I pretty much ignored the earthquake in China, but I finally got curious, and a story about how many of the dead are children in a country where families are only allowed one child piqued my curiosity. This story literally made me cry.

I can’t believe we’re being allowed into China and that these quotes are being allowed out. I’m so glad it’s happening though.

I can’t believe the government’s inability to deal with the situation. It’s just like Katrina, and it makes me sick every time it happens to someone else. I thought we were all healed up. I thought FEMA was all patched together. Granted, this isn’t the U.S. government in China. But it’s the same thing, the same idea. The Chinese prime minister shows up and acts like help is on the way just like President Bush did almost three years ago. The Red Cross puts out help commercials instead of actually sending out help. And, we’re left with church groups to help rebuild our communities.

I feel for these Chinese people. I know what it’s like to not know if your loved one is dead, and for it to take three days to find out. I know what it’s like to feel as though the government has cheated you out of everything. You can only hope in situations like this that next time it will be different, or that next time you can be self reliant. Luckily your kid will dig out of the rubble. Your parents will do something absolutely stupid like ride out the storm on a sailboat. You won’t need the government because somehow you’ve risen above that. But that’s a sick, sick hope.

P.S. What I mean to say is reach out to the survivors and the relief effort! I went through a terrible thing (Katrina – lost my house, my parents survived on our sailboat, and I had many friends who lost family members) about three years ago, and I know how nice it is to have that Red Cross bus show up with a hot meal or a free blanket when you have absolutely nothing. China needs our help!

Katrina One Year Later: Strength of a little sister

Katrina One Year Later: 48 Hours That Changed Us Forever
Heart & Soul: Ole Miss journalism students from the Coast share what they went through in Oxford while Katrina raged.

Strength of a little sister

This first-person account of my Katrina experience ran in The Biloxi Sun Herald exactly a year after Katrina in a special edition. It was not archived on the Web. The story makes me want to cry almost every time I read it. People on the coast still remember when it was printed and mention it occasionally. When I wrote the story, my family was in the process of rebuilding, and we lived in a FEMA trailer.

At 9 a.m. on Katrina Monday, I walked around the Ole Miss campus on my way to French and calculus, eyes red and thumb stiff from jamming the Send button on my phone.

My sister Aspen, a junior at my alma mater, Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science, was making all the calls and I couldn’t get through. That morning we competed to get the most calls into Bay St. Louis and she won by far, excused from class to update the extended family constantly.

I received tidbits through her: Mom and Dad were in our house, the water rose, they fled to the sailboat.

The last call put them inside the sailboat, water receding, but I knew my mother had glossed things over for little Aspen in that last phone call.

Monday night other girls in my residence hall cried because the Biloxi lighthouse stood tall or because the Bay bridge had collapsed.

I cried because Aspen was all I had left and she was in Columbus. I cried because, of all the other grieving Coasties, she was the only one who knew what I felt.

Wednesday I watched the first aerial footage of Bay St. Louis, but reports still said Hancock County was inaccessible. A neighbor called to say my parents had survived.

Around midnight Wednesday, Aspen and I reunited at a Sonic Drive-In in Calhoun City and acted strong about Katrina. She didn’t sob, so I didn’t either.

Thursday morning Dad called, but he didn’t beg us to come home or convince us to stay in Oxford. We knew then we had to make it home Friday; Dad sounded airy, disconnected. Nobody else was coming home to save Mom and Dad.

I sat silent through my single class Thursday, planning the trip in my  head. Aspen and I would go to Starkville where a friend would take us in his truck.

Ole Miss had given me the go-ahead and so had a few friends, Dad and, most important, Aspen. Neither of us cared about the warnings; we refused to blink because the other was watching. I’ve always vied to be stronger, taller and better than Aspen, and for the hardest trip of my life I refused to give up because she refused.

Aspen and I set out for Starkville at 5 a.m. Friday. With my little sister close and twin barrels of gasoline in my friend’s truck bed, I made it home.