I've never been to New Orleans. I really wanted to go to Mardi Gras down there my last year of college because it happened to be over Spring Break and I knew it would be the last Mardi Gras I'd get to enjoy for a long time due to tax season, but no one else was wanting to go with me. I have always regretted it, but now I regret never having seen the city at least once before all of this. It'll never be the same now.
I also remember the Flood of '93. It was the summer after my first year of college and I was staying with my parents. They have a creek that runs right behind their house that gets really high when it rains a lot. There were at least three times that summer where we had to rush to get out of the house in the middle of the night for fear the water would get us or that we wouldn't be able to get our cars out to the main road. Even though the creek was so high the water went around the levee, it did not break and the water never made it to the house though it came within a yard of the back door.
My mom has lived through three floods in that house, and before the levee was built she and her family had to escape to the roof for at least one of those floods. Friends and neighbors of my family know to check on my mom and dad when they get a lot of rain in a short amount of time. I know how quickly the water in that creek can rise, and I can't help thinking of home when I see the pictures of those poor people on the Gulf who have chopped holes through their houses to get to the roof. It breaks my heart to see it.
1 comment:
I kind of think that lighthouses look kind of cool. They can be three stories tall yet still not look "overbig". They ride out storms and wind and floodwaters, and the roof can be flatter than most roofs.
Plus, climbing all those stairs every day would get me in shape again.
I hope you don't think this is too flip!
Michelle de Seattle
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