HURRICANES

FRED’S BLOG
Hurricanes continue to be a big part of my life and I guess they will as long as I live in the areas that I do. (Duh) If you have never been though a hurricane it will be hard to explain and understand exactly how a person is so affected by theses storms.
The hurricane has an affect on the people in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast as soon as it enters the Gulf of Mexico. Your attention is drawn from what you a doing to what is happening in the weather. The conversation on the street is “what’s happening with the storm. The weather channel is put on more and more TV’s. The focus of attention becomes what is going on with the storm.
As the storm approaches it becomes to dominate your life more and more. The regular activities of your life begin to be replaced by hurricane activities. The energy of the society begins to be spent on preparing for the storm. First the supplies that are needed are gathered. This can be as simple as a flashlight and as complicated as moving a army depending upon your specific situation. Since my house was just a few blocks from the water in Waveland Ms. And My business was on Bourbon St. in New Orleans it was time consuming and costly for me when each storm approached. During the season when there were several storms and warning of storms the drill would become routine and there would be supplies gathered from prior hurricanes that would be set to go.
As the hurricane approached closer and it started to sets its course and direction the preparations for the storm would replace all activity. Depending on the angle of approach the house or the club would be focused on. Often all things on the first floor of the house were moved to the second floor. ( this did no one any good during Katrina since the storm surge was 40 ft high.)
This has taken place over a three day period of time while the storm slowly moves across open water gaining strength each day.
When the eye of the storm is three hundred miles away you can begin to sense and feel the storm in the gulf. This is one of the hardest things to explain if you have not felt the feeling. The birds and animals feel it. Dogs and cats begin to tell you that something’s coming, and you understand because you are feeling the same thing they are feeling. The hurricane becomes more and more a living entity. It takes on a personality, it collects to itself not only the energy of the warm water that it its feeding on but it captures the energy of the creatures living in its path. As the barometric pressure drops lower and lower a sur-real almost movie like affect begins to be felt. It is like nothing is real that its just a big movie your in and your on a big move set where the special effects are kicking in.

My first real experience with a hurricane was in the fall of 1965 when “Betsy” hit New Orleans. As with Katrina but to a much smaller extent the problem was not so much the hurricane itself but New Orleans and the levies. For years after this storm there were charges that the lower parts of the city were allowed to be flooded to protect the more valuable properties. I have no idea if this is true but I do know that as early as this New Orleans knew there was a big problem with the levee system and that the city was at danger. This didn’t seem to prevent the levee board from wasting a lot of money on pet projects and 40 years later the results of there actions was seen in Katrina.
In 1965 my friend Roger and I had spent the summer in Cape Cod working for a night club called “Your Fathers Mustache” there was also a club in New Orleans and we were on our way back when we heard of the storm. We were returning to New Orleans from Cape Cod by way of Kansas City. We had grown up there and when your 21 and gas is only .30 cents a gallon a detour of a couple thousand miles doesn’t mean much. We were staying at a friends apartment when we heard that a hurricane had hit New Orleans. My Brother, Sister-in-law and Mother were all in New Orleans and there was no phone service or any way that I could ck to find out if they were ok so the day after the storm hit Roger and I headed to New Orleans. Everything was normal until we got into Mississippi and we began to see the effects of the storm.
Betsy was not a big hurricane as hurricanes go it was only category two yet the damage that was done extended into the north by several hundred miles. At first there was only a few trees down or broken, but as we moved south it became much worse. We stopped to get gas in Jackson Ms. We tried again to call, there were no cell phones but there was something that no longer exists today and they were called “pay phones” There were public phones where you could deposit coins ( later dollars) and make phone calls. Lines were still down and it would be weeks before the phone and power was back on for the area.
When we asked the people at the gas station what news they had of New Orleans their answer was that New Orleans was destroyed and didn’t exist and more.
As we moved south the damage was extensive. Hundreds of acres of trees were flat. Pine trees are Ms biggest crop and the southern pine grown straight and tall. Phone poles are made using these trees and to see thousands of them down was a experience. These trees all lay pointing to the north like one way signs , and we were going in the wrong direction. Our progress was slowed time and again while road crews cleared the roads and we had to work our way though one lane of traffic. The destruction became greater and gas became hard to find.
When we got to New Orleans we found that some areas including where my family was, was still flooded and we couldn’t get to them. The club was located in the French Quarter on Bourbon St. and had not flooded since this was the highest ground. There was still no power and no water. I reached my family several days latter to find everyone was ok. They lived on the second floor and the people who lived downstairs had stayed with them and moved a lot of there things upstairs and as life would have it the roof got damaged and the rain came into the apt and destroyed a lot of their stuff. The flood did not get into their appt. but the area was so flooded that they could not go anywhere for five days after the storm.
With in a few weeks everything was back to normal and the finger pointing had started. Me, I was twenty-one going to college and working on Bourbon St and had no time to be concerned about hurricanes and in fact did not have to worry about one again until Aug. of 1969 . For more agout hurricanes visit my websites www.unclefredsweb.com