The Return Home, Part I
Originally, I was hoping to check my residence out within a week of the storm. The first chance was when I trucked the supplies in and failed to get inside due to the deep mud surrounding my place, the corroded lock that would not open, and most importantly, the Army helicopter that had quit circling and began monitoring my every move.
Two days later I made it back to St. Bernard, this time heading straight to my grandfather’s house, the house where I had grown up and stayed on many occasions.
The mud had baked to almost concrete firmness, but in the areas around the house where the sun light was cooled by shadows from the neighboring house, the sludge was deep and I ended up retreating to my car.
For over two weeks, thanks in part to Hurricane Rita and the tidal surge rushing through the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet that submerged the only land route to the parish and had busted the shoddily repaired Industrial Canal levee, I had not returned.
I need to add something else to the above. Part of the reason I didn’t go inside either house was that my heart was not ready for what lurked behind the doors. I tried to prepare myself for the worst, yet what I would go on to see after the waters brought forth from Rita had finally ebbed was beyond anything I could possibly imagine.
Realizing that I had to “get through it”, I jumped at my first opportunity to return when Paris Road, the causeway between Bayou Bienvenue and the marsh, had dried. The route to the parish took me through New Orleans East, one of the worst hit areas of the country. Rail cars were strewn around the track and the waterline was at least 10 feet on the noise barriers.
Thankfully my party left Baton Rouge late, which meant we mostly avoided the traffic pile up created by obstinate New Orleans officials and their police department, who refused to let parish residents cross the Jefferson-Orleans boundary. After two hours of protracted negotiations, penned in St. Bernard residents were allowed to cross through New Orleans en route home. The whole affair was further evidence of the state and city’s incompetence.
As I entered St. Bernard for the first time since before Rita, I saw a giant crucifix that had been removed from a church that had been posted on the St. Bernard-Orleans border and a spray painted sign below it that read “Keep the faith St. Bernard.” Oh how I wish Joe Cook, the local henchman for the ACLU and self-anointed enforcer of mandatory atheism, would have seen it. I can just imagine the rabble-rouser being led away in handcuffs for attempted looting as he tried to pull down the twelve-foot cross.
When we pulled in front of my grandfather’s house, we began donning our protective gear: breathing mask, gloves, and knee-high boots. My paternal grandfather had suffered a stroke back in 1998 that has left him bedridden and unable to care for himself. Being a leathery veteran of the Coast Guard and a man who made his living on the water, bad weather did not startle him; actually he liked storms, unlike his more weak-kneed grandson.
Despite his debilitated condition, he did not want to leave his house and we literally carried him out against his will, the only thing that kept the X on the front door from having a “1” spray-painted below it (the code sign for a found body). Pop’s luck was not shared by all ornery senior citizens who ha ridden out Hurricane Betsy forty years before, the previous benchmark for devastating storms in St. Bernard, back when they were spryer. Many elderly people who refused to leave or lacked having relatives drag them out kicking and screaming never left their homes.
All told, Hurricane Katrina would make Hurricane Betsy look like an afternoon shower.
Trying to soften the blow and possibly grasping to one of the last straws of hope that “everything was going to be fine”, I peaked inside via the mail slot. There wasn’t any light inside, due to the windows being boarded up, but I could make out enough to know that the inside looked as if a tornado had run through.
A flooding report posted on the internet had claimed that the water in my grandfather’s neighborhood had flooded to 3 feet. Since the house was raised three feet off the ground, this would mean that if the report was accurate, the amount of water inside would have been minimal. A trip to the back house nipped that delusion in the bud.
The back house, originally a garage that had been transformed into a two bedroom house, had a white wood front, near where I would practice pitching on its brick corner while in school. The visible waterline was 8 feet.
When the last of the boards had been removed from the windows, which would be our only source of illumination aside from our flashlights, we tried to enter the back door, though without success initially. Though the key worked and with a little effort the locks rescinded, the door wouldn’t open for two possible reasons: 1) the wood in the door frame expanded from the water or 2) something was blocking the door. It turned out to be both.
Figuring that the house was likely a total loss, the door was kicked in and we discovered that the washing machine had moved from its corner position and drifted to in front of the backdoor. After a few minutes of struggle, the entrance was no longer blocked and there I saw Katrina’s devastation inside my home. The refrigerator had be knocked over, the mud inside the house was several inches deep, tables and chairs were scattered all over the place. Almost everything was covered with a slick mud. As the fridge made the front area impassable, we needed to go through my late grandmother’s room.
Had she not already been dead, Granny would have died right there. The mold was all over the walls and the ceiling…or what was left of the ceiling, since most of it had collapsed, leaving the beams and the attic exposed. My grandmother’s room was also full of mud and her makeup table, television, and other pieces of furniture was all over the wooden floor, which had buckled up several inches in a few places.
Not paying any mind to what was below my mud-covered boots, I trudged through as the sound of smashing glass and broken wood filled my ears. After making it to the hallway, I saw a large picture of one of my uncles that had occupied the end of the narrow walkway and had a waterline halfway up, a height of five feet.
Once again I ran into door trouble, this time a 200 lb chest of drawers blocking my access. I threw my weight against the door and exerted all of my strength to finally pry the door open to see my preserved childhood in ruins.
The ceiling had collapsed in part of my room and only a giant bookshelf that was at the far corner of the room had remained in place. My bed had floated to the center of the room and collapsed furniture was scattered everywhere. Four weeks of water, mud, and God knows what else had caused mold to fester all over the room.
Most of what had hung on my wall five feet or above had remained in place but had appeared soggy. My TKE paddle and Holy Cross High School diploma had fell into the cesspool but they were retrievable. Also salvaged were a framed impeachment ticket from the 1999 Clinton trial; a signed campaign poster by President Bush; and my valedictorian trophy from kindergarten (I’ll take my academic accolades where I can find them).
Everything else was virtually lost. I made a beeline, rather a slow and steady trudge to the bookshelf where a smaller shelf had held several signed books by prominent figures, including a signed copy of John McCain’s Faith of my Fathers. The book I cared the most about was President Reagan’s first autobiography, which he had signed when I visited him in California in 1996. The bookshelf that had held that book had totally collapsed in the sludge. The books were most unidentifiable but I made out the copy and plucked it from the morass. The wet and disintegrating pages had merged into one, yet there was only one page in particular I cared about. Opening the front cover I turned to the vicinity of where he signed it and saw a bled out blur of his dedication and signature. Instead of taking the book, I carefully ripped out the page where he had inscribed his name, figuring that it would at least have some personal value to me.
I had also boxes and boxes of 8x10 signed photos with politicians that I had kept on the floor. These photos were a signature though gaudy trademark of my college apartment walls and council office. No need to go into detail of their condition.
A few scrapbooks that I had left there were totally drenched and molded but I took them anyway, hoping that I could remove the items within the album pages and put them in a new one.
My lamp where I had pinned dozens of collector’s item political buttons had been knocked into the mud and I didn’t bother removing it. I did notice where I had nailed a corkboard that held many other buttons, which had shown evidence of rust and mold and I took the board off the wall.
Before leaving my room I opened the closet door, with the remote hope that my baseball cards and comic books that I had invested my allowance had survived. I discovered a crumpled, soggy relic of my proud collection. I closed the door but before walking out, I spied a binder of baseball cards I had accidentally left on my bed on a previous visit, amazingly in good shape as weight of the cards had not been enough to keep the mattress from floating up with the water.
As I was about to exit the house through the front door, which had to be kicked open as well, I carried some of my family’s china out. I noticed that the dinner table that had moved a bit yet everything on it, mostly pictures, had not fallen off or even budged.
Since the water was 5 feet on the inside at the flood’s peak, the table must have also floated. Some of the pictures untouched were those of my nephew, late brother, and other family members in addition to a common rendition of Jesus Christ. There was also a Bible on the table, also undamaged; curiously enough the holy tome was opened to an interesting book…
To be continued.
Two days later I made it back to St. Bernard, this time heading straight to my grandfather’s house, the house where I had grown up and stayed on many occasions.
The mud had baked to almost concrete firmness, but in the areas around the house where the sun light was cooled by shadows from the neighboring house, the sludge was deep and I ended up retreating to my car.
For over two weeks, thanks in part to Hurricane Rita and the tidal surge rushing through the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet that submerged the only land route to the parish and had busted the shoddily repaired Industrial Canal levee, I had not returned.
I need to add something else to the above. Part of the reason I didn’t go inside either house was that my heart was not ready for what lurked behind the doors. I tried to prepare myself for the worst, yet what I would go on to see after the waters brought forth from Rita had finally ebbed was beyond anything I could possibly imagine.
Realizing that I had to “get through it”, I jumped at my first opportunity to return when Paris Road, the causeway between Bayou Bienvenue and the marsh, had dried. The route to the parish took me through New Orleans East, one of the worst hit areas of the country. Rail cars were strewn around the track and the waterline was at least 10 feet on the noise barriers.
Thankfully my party left Baton Rouge late, which meant we mostly avoided the traffic pile up created by obstinate New Orleans officials and their police department, who refused to let parish residents cross the Jefferson-Orleans boundary. After two hours of protracted negotiations, penned in St. Bernard residents were allowed to cross through New Orleans en route home. The whole affair was further evidence of the state and city’s incompetence.
As I entered St. Bernard for the first time since before Rita, I saw a giant crucifix that had been removed from a church that had been posted on the St. Bernard-Orleans border and a spray painted sign below it that read “Keep the faith St. Bernard.” Oh how I wish Joe Cook, the local henchman for the ACLU and self-anointed enforcer of mandatory atheism, would have seen it. I can just imagine the rabble-rouser being led away in handcuffs for attempted looting as he tried to pull down the twelve-foot cross.
When we pulled in front of my grandfather’s house, we began donning our protective gear: breathing mask, gloves, and knee-high boots. My paternal grandfather had suffered a stroke back in 1998 that has left him bedridden and unable to care for himself. Being a leathery veteran of the Coast Guard and a man who made his living on the water, bad weather did not startle him; actually he liked storms, unlike his more weak-kneed grandson.
Despite his debilitated condition, he did not want to leave his house and we literally carried him out against his will, the only thing that kept the X on the front door from having a “1” spray-painted below it (the code sign for a found body). Pop’s luck was not shared by all ornery senior citizens who ha ridden out Hurricane Betsy forty years before, the previous benchmark for devastating storms in St. Bernard, back when they were spryer. Many elderly people who refused to leave or lacked having relatives drag them out kicking and screaming never left their homes.
All told, Hurricane Katrina would make Hurricane Betsy look like an afternoon shower.
Trying to soften the blow and possibly grasping to one of the last straws of hope that “everything was going to be fine”, I peaked inside via the mail slot. There wasn’t any light inside, due to the windows being boarded up, but I could make out enough to know that the inside looked as if a tornado had run through.
A flooding report posted on the internet had claimed that the water in my grandfather’s neighborhood had flooded to 3 feet. Since the house was raised three feet off the ground, this would mean that if the report was accurate, the amount of water inside would have been minimal. A trip to the back house nipped that delusion in the bud.
The back house, originally a garage that had been transformed into a two bedroom house, had a white wood front, near where I would practice pitching on its brick corner while in school. The visible waterline was 8 feet.
When the last of the boards had been removed from the windows, which would be our only source of illumination aside from our flashlights, we tried to enter the back door, though without success initially. Though the key worked and with a little effort the locks rescinded, the door wouldn’t open for two possible reasons: 1) the wood in the door frame expanded from the water or 2) something was blocking the door. It turned out to be both.
Figuring that the house was likely a total loss, the door was kicked in and we discovered that the washing machine had moved from its corner position and drifted to in front of the backdoor. After a few minutes of struggle, the entrance was no longer blocked and there I saw Katrina’s devastation inside my home. The refrigerator had be knocked over, the mud inside the house was several inches deep, tables and chairs were scattered all over the place. Almost everything was covered with a slick mud. As the fridge made the front area impassable, we needed to go through my late grandmother’s room.
Had she not already been dead, Granny would have died right there. The mold was all over the walls and the ceiling…or what was left of the ceiling, since most of it had collapsed, leaving the beams and the attic exposed. My grandmother’s room was also full of mud and her makeup table, television, and other pieces of furniture was all over the wooden floor, which had buckled up several inches in a few places.
Not paying any mind to what was below my mud-covered boots, I trudged through as the sound of smashing glass and broken wood filled my ears. After making it to the hallway, I saw a large picture of one of my uncles that had occupied the end of the narrow walkway and had a waterline halfway up, a height of five feet.
Once again I ran into door trouble, this time a 200 lb chest of drawers blocking my access. I threw my weight against the door and exerted all of my strength to finally pry the door open to see my preserved childhood in ruins.
The ceiling had collapsed in part of my room and only a giant bookshelf that was at the far corner of the room had remained in place. My bed had floated to the center of the room and collapsed furniture was scattered everywhere. Four weeks of water, mud, and God knows what else had caused mold to fester all over the room.
Most of what had hung on my wall five feet or above had remained in place but had appeared soggy. My TKE paddle and Holy Cross High School diploma had fell into the cesspool but they were retrievable. Also salvaged were a framed impeachment ticket from the 1999 Clinton trial; a signed campaign poster by President Bush; and my valedictorian trophy from kindergarten (I’ll take my academic accolades where I can find them).
Everything else was virtually lost. I made a beeline, rather a slow and steady trudge to the bookshelf where a smaller shelf had held several signed books by prominent figures, including a signed copy of John McCain’s Faith of my Fathers. The book I cared the most about was President Reagan’s first autobiography, which he had signed when I visited him in California in 1996. The bookshelf that had held that book had totally collapsed in the sludge. The books were most unidentifiable but I made out the copy and plucked it from the morass. The wet and disintegrating pages had merged into one, yet there was only one page in particular I cared about. Opening the front cover I turned to the vicinity of where he signed it and saw a bled out blur of his dedication and signature. Instead of taking the book, I carefully ripped out the page where he had inscribed his name, figuring that it would at least have some personal value to me.
I had also boxes and boxes of 8x10 signed photos with politicians that I had kept on the floor. These photos were a signature though gaudy trademark of my college apartment walls and council office. No need to go into detail of their condition.
A few scrapbooks that I had left there were totally drenched and molded but I took them anyway, hoping that I could remove the items within the album pages and put them in a new one.
My lamp where I had pinned dozens of collector’s item political buttons had been knocked into the mud and I didn’t bother removing it. I did notice where I had nailed a corkboard that held many other buttons, which had shown evidence of rust and mold and I took the board off the wall.
Before leaving my room I opened the closet door, with the remote hope that my baseball cards and comic books that I had invested my allowance had survived. I discovered a crumpled, soggy relic of my proud collection. I closed the door but before walking out, I spied a binder of baseball cards I had accidentally left on my bed on a previous visit, amazingly in good shape as weight of the cards had not been enough to keep the mattress from floating up with the water.
As I was about to exit the house through the front door, which had to be kicked open as well, I carried some of my family’s china out. I noticed that the dinner table that had moved a bit yet everything on it, mostly pictures, had not fallen off or even budged.
Since the water was 5 feet on the inside at the flood’s peak, the table must have also floated. Some of the pictures untouched were those of my nephew, late brother, and other family members in addition to a common rendition of Jesus Christ. There was also a Bible on the table, also undamaged; curiously enough the holy tome was opened to an interesting book…
To be continued.
posted by BourbonConservative at 7:43 PM
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