K+15

It has been 15 years since the Federal Flood and Hurricane Katrina. Earlier this week, there were two storms in the gulf, both expected to develop into hurricanes. The forecast a week out had both coming at New Orleans, but as they got closer, Marco fizzled due to shear and we hardly felt anything. Laura developed into a monster storm, following a similar path as Hurricane Rita. 

We landed in Houston 3 days before Rita hit. We had bounced from my in-laws house, to my brother-in-law's house, to a friend's before securing an apartment in Houston thanks to friends.  I remember driving back and forth between Houston and NOLA after Rita and seeing trees shorn off half way, and twisted metal billboards and gas station canopies. 

Laura spared New Orleans, we were just on the outer edge and only got gusty winds and occasional rain though the rest of the state got slammed. Out of town friends and family were concerned we were staying, but I could reassure them that if state was bringing evacuees from the storm area to New Orleans to stay in hotels, it shouldn't be bad.

We had planned to have another "Isle of Denial" party like we did 5 years ago. With the 10 year anniversary of Katrina, the media was getting all ramped up and over blown. We decided to invite friends over but the rule was no one could talk about Katrina. We had a nice time, hanging out in the back yard, drinking and visiting. I supposed we could have held it this year--even with the pandemic, since we planned to be outside--but the weather isn't cooperating.

Having lived through Katrina, the Flood and aftermath--as incredibly stressful as it was and uncertain everything was--has given me the fortitude to weather this pandemic and 2020. I am not happy about it at all, but if things got better after Katrina, things will get better again. It just takes time.

Photos from the CBD where I had a cat sit this morning:

Katrina or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Technology

I'm a technophile though I'm not an early adapter.  I'll let others deal with the frustrations of Beta software and whatnot. I want the bugs worked out. A couple of months prior to Katrina my in-laws gave my husband, G, his grandmother's cell phone. Neither one of us had one yet. Many of our friends had them but we didn't want to feel like we could always be tracked down. We didn't blog. We weren't on any sort social media that was around at the time. It wasn't until 2009 I embraced social media. But Katrina introduced us to texting and blogging.

We had given G's cell phone number to our neighbors across the street. Several days after the storm his phone chirped and he received his first text message. It was from our neighbors, they were OK! But it took us a while to figure out how to reply to them. This was years before smart phones when it took forever to type anything out. I remember when G snuck back into New Orleans with his cousin, I was so nervous and scared. We had heard the stories. I was in Baton Rouge and tried to call G with no luck. The phone lines were still all screwed up. I ended up sending an email to a friend in Chicago and asked her to call him. It worked! She emailed back that she talked to him and they got in OK. When we got back to New Orleans in October, one of the first things I did was buy my first cell phone. The landline was out at my office and we had no idea when it would work. (Side note, our AT&T landline at home never went out.) Now I'm addicted to my iPhone.

After the storm, email was the only reliable way to communicate with people. Unless you were teaching at a college that was stupid enough to 1) have their server on the first floor on a campus that flooded and 2) not have a back up server in another location. I was teaching part-time at Delgado and I hated all the crap I got through my DCC email, so I had set up my own email address to communicate with my students. So glad I had that so I could check on my students and report to them what little I knew. I even heard from former students who were checking on me and their friends. The college boated in, rescued their soggy server and eventually was able to send emails out. So many emails wizzed back and forth between us, family, friends and clients. It got to be chore to respond to all our well meaning friends. We started sending out blanket emails. At some point we set up a blog. I knew G used to read blogs before the store but wasn't blogging himself. Blogging made communicating so much easier and was/is therapeutic. We read other New Orleanians blogs and the message boards on nola.com to figure out what was really going on back home. The message boards were also a life saver. Through blogging, we made new friends after Katrina, real friends we see face-to-face. I think the post-Katrina NOLA blog community was unique. We had each other backs and we were trying to get the truth out there to anyone who would listen.

Author Cynthia Joyce collected and published a bunch of blog posts "Please forward: How Blogging Reconnected New Orleans After Katrina." I don't know if I can read the book, and I guess it's not really for me as she says "I think I wanted this collection to exist not so much for people who lived through it, but for people who didn't but who wanted to better understand it." Interviews with her resonate with me. So it is now I return to my blog to rant and get relief.

I was a graphic designer at the time and I reached out to my clients to see how they were, where they were, and what could I do to help them. As a small biz owner, I understood the helplessness they felt, and the desire to get back to work. Updating my clients' web sites kept me busy after the storm. We posted their new cell phone numbers so their clients could get in touch with them. I posted status of them and their businesses. It made me very happy on the days I got to update their websites to say "Now Open."

My first foray into social media was MySpace. Remember that? A friend had a profile on MySpace and that was the best way for me to keep up with what was happening with her after Katrina. Of course I had to join to be able to see her posts. Is MySpace is still around? Yep. And you can log in with your Facebook or Twitter account. Ha! Now I'm on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Nextdoor (and probably some other sites I'm forgetting). I have this blog, a blog about my cats, a retired gardening blog, and a blog for my pet sitting business. I also do social media for my business plus a couple of other businesses and organizations. I also have more email addresses than I can count on both hands.

For better or worse, this is how we communicate now. I rarely talk on the phone anymore. Faxes, remember those? But nothing beats good, old fashioned face to face interaction. And I still love getting a card or note in the snail mail.

Today, it's a beautiful, rare, cool, dry day and I have dogs to walk. So it's time to walk away from the computer and sign off.

It's all down hill to Mardi Gras now

My last post was 1/7 so it's been less than a month since I posted last. Woot! Let's see, what has happened in the last month...

I survived the polar vortex that shut New Orleans, and pretty much the whole state of Louisiana, down. We didn't get any pretty snow just sleet. It was freaking arctic here. I grew up in Florida and have lived here the past 20 years so I'm not accustomed to below freezing temperatures 3 days in a row. A freeze over night is not a big deal because I sleep through it. We were hunkered down like in a hurricane. During all of this I had the crud. I've been sick for 2 weeks now and finally think I'm getting over it.

And even though I was sick as a dog there was no way I'd miss the Pussyfooter's Blush Ball. It's our annual fundraiser which didn't happen last year due to an early Mardi Gras and the Superbowl. I laced up in my new corset, got glammed up and managed to go until about 12:30am. Strangely there are very few pictures of me that I've seen but here are the ones George Long Photography took. We sold out and exceed our fundraising goal, ending up giving METRO $34,000!

That me on the left pointing.

I've also been gearing up for Mardi Gras which is one month away. Looking at this month's calendar, it's full of Pussyfooter dance practices, Krewe of SPANK den days -- where we work on our float, throws and costumes -- and Krewe of Muses events like throw pick-up and float viewing and of course, parades. I'm not riding or Pussyfooting in the Muses this year. It falls on my birthday, so instead I'm going to enjoy the spectacle at my friends' parade party. Of course, I have to stay mum about the themes and throws for Muses and Krewe du Vieux/SPANK but will post after the parades are over. I will Pussyfoot in three parade: Carrollton, Nyx and Orpheus. I can't wait!

Other than that, pet sitting has been slow. I remember that happening this time last year. I'm trying to build up the dog walking side of the biz since that's steadier income. Doing a little design and also doing PR for the Freret Street Festival that will be April 5th. Been shopping for a new set of wheels. Visiting dealerships and test drives is fodder for a whole separate post. Skeeball started back up and we won our first match last week. Yay!

A Pleasant Morning

This morning I went for a walk. According to my fitness app I haven’t taken a morning walk since May. Oops. But that makes sense. Once summer kicks in even early morning walks are just too hot. The Autumnal Equinox was yesterday, marking the first day of Fall. We don’t have Fall here in the deep South. We do usually have some nice, cool, dry weather in October but it’s not Fall like other parts of the country. It does usually signify the end of the unbearable summer heat. This morning, the sky was clear, the humidity not too bad, and there was a slight breeze. People I encountered on my walk had smiles on their faces and said “Good Morning.” Could be the weather, could be the Saints victory yesterday. It was a relief, after the nail biter against Tampa last Sunday, to have a game where the Saints led early, held their lead and played well. Mark Ingram was noticeably absent, much to many fans’ relief I’m sure. Fellow ‘Nole, Patrick Robinson, is out for the season much to my dismay. I watched the game at Publiq House on Freret for the first time. I liked it. They don’t serve food, but we picked up burgers from Company burger and brought them with us. Plenty of HD TVs, good beer selection, no smoking and dog friendly. My kind of place!

Uptown Flash Flood

This morning started out beautiful and clear. Sometime around 2:00 it started to rain. And it continued to rain. Then harder. And harder. Lots of thunder. I check the radar, and there was just a red dot sitting over Uptown not moving. I decide to stick my head out the door of my office and check on my car. Mine was OK but then a neighbor ran up saying my business partner should move hers. She couldn't open the driver's side door because water would get in if she did, so she crawled in through the hatchback. I ended up having to move my car a few feet because of the dip by the curb.

No wake zone please!

You could tell one the pumps were on because there was a current flowing down the street. You can sort of see it in the video.

Watching the water rise.

The kayaks might be a little over the top.

WHO DAT?!


Today's the first pre-season game for The Saints. Normally I pay no attention to pre-season because it doesn't count. But I find myself in a strangly good and euphoric mood today inspite of the fact it's been storming for two days thanks to TS #5 and work is sooooo slow and our bank balance is really low. I'm looking forward to seeing my game watching posse at Rendezvous tonight and watching our boys in black and gold do their thing.

Drew Brees' pre-game chant:

When I say 1, you say 2. When I say win, you say for you. ...
1! 2! Win! For you!

When I say 3, you say 4. When I say win, you say some more. ...
3! 4! Win! Some more!

When I say 5, you say 6. When I say win, you say for kicks. ...
5! 6! Win! For kicks!

When I say 7, you say 8. When I say win, you say it's great. ...
7! 8! Win! It's great!

When I say 9, you say 10. When I say win, you say again. ...
9! 10! Win! Again!

Win! Again! Win! Again! Win! Again! Win! Again!

Today's Big News Item

It's snowed this morning! Honest to goodness snow. G wasn't as impressed at first having grown up in New Jersey, however I was excited - I'm from Florida and can probably count on one hand the number of time I've been in snow. It was raining this morning and as I was making some breakfast I noticed the rain was different. It had started sleeting. After about 20 minutes of that it was full on snow. Then G was impressed. We drove to work together and the snow was amazing. I walked around by my office and took more pictures since the snow was starting to accumalate. Around 10:30am it turned back to sleet and now it's just melting. Boo hoo.

Our house, in the snow!

G throwing a snowball at me.

My friend's house. Such a pretty picture!

The cemetery by my office.

The last time it snowed was Christmas day 2004. We missed it because we were in Baton Rouge and they didn't get snow. Has hell freezed over? Is it because Dollar Bill Jefferson was finally defeated? Someone on NOLA.com said it means the Saints are going to the superbowl (riiiight). An other momentous, weather related even happened 8 months after the last snowfall... I hope history doen't repeat itself.

Happy Independence Day.


Independent from what I’m not sure any more. I for one plan on expressing my love of ‘Merica by stimulating the economy (‘cause it sure does need it), laying out to work on my tan (cancer schmanser), finally doing a blog post (incite the masses) eating and drinking to excess (the land of plenty) and lighting illegal fireworks (rebellion). Today I’ll drive over to Gretna and smuggle illegal fireworks into Orleans. Gee, I hope the cops don’t track me down from this post. Maybe they only troll MySpace pages. Actually, I’ll probably just get sparklers.

I’m glad to have a long weekend in which I am staying in town and have no big plans. Things have been busy around here with work, going out of town and neighborhood stuff. Along with the above I also plan on catching up reading blogs and answering email. It going to be too hot or rainy this weekend to be outdoors for long.

Speaking of neighborhood stuff…the POS house across the street is finally being renovated. And work is being done to Lyon’s park to take up the trailer park infrastructure up and return it to a field. I have to applaud city council for standing up to FEMA and getting them to get to work and lay sod at all the parks.


Looking up the weekend weather I noticed there's a TS out in the Atlantic. It's far off, but I was amused by the computer model that has it heading due east back to Africa. Add to the list this weekend: go through "disaster" kit...

Radar indicated that 3 to 5 inches of rain fell this morning in an hour and a half over much of New Orleans. As much as 1 to 3 inches more is possible. About 3 to 6 inches of rain has fallen in Jefferson Parish, including Metairie, Harahan, Old Jefferson, Bridge City and Avondale.

A rain gauge at Audubon Park collected 4.42 inches from about 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., the weather service said.

I was afraid it wasn’t going to stop raining there for a while. We are on high ground here on Annunciation but for the first time in 9 years we had to move our cars and saw water covering our street. If it was bad here I know it was much worse in other parts of the city.

Of course, this is nothing compared to Iowa and Indiana. I was tooling around looking at photos of the flooding and noticed this side bar from the IndiStar.com (hat tip Celcus)

Experts advise that storm victims do the following to help maintain their mental health:
- Get plenty of sleep.
- Eat a healthy diet.
- Exercise.
- Talk to friends and family members.
- Avoid caffeine and alcohol.

It took me back to the first weeks after Katrina and the federal flood.
-Sleep? Who could sleep? We took sleeping pills and still could not sleep.
-I must have ate a healthy diet ‘cause I gained 10 pounds in a month and a half.
-Exercise… we walked every morning because we had no place to be.
-Avoid caffeine and alcohol. *snort* that one cracked me up the most. I remember when we moved out of our in-laws house into my brother-in-laws place my first words were “I want to get blotto” 5 minutes later I had a martini sitting in front of me and it wasn’t the last. You better believe caffeine and alcohol are in my "disaster kit."

News flash! Headline on NOLA.com:

"Hurricane season expected to be above average"

Sorry if I don't go running out of here screaming to go stock up on water, canned goods, booze and a generator. Isn't that what they tell us every year? No need to panic. Not until August at the least.

OMG y'all it's COLD outside! It's 2:18 pm and it's 40 degrees! And that's not taking into account wind chill and humidity. People in Chicago and Milwaukee would say "that's not cold" and up there that's true. But we live in the sub-tropics. We were going to go watch Krewe du Vieux tonight, but I'm sorry, not in this weather. It's still wet from last night's non-stop rain. Though the weather goes perfectly with their theme of "Magical Misery Tour."

This is the kind of weather I expected when we got married in Scotland May 2003. But the weather was suprisingly nice and mild for our trip with almost no rain. Maybe it helped I was running a fever from the cold I caught from the guy sitting next to me on the trans-Altantic trip. Thanks dude. The pictures below from Whitbey were taken on that trip. So we have a soft spot for Scotland which is why I ordered my haggis today in anticipation of Burn's Night on January 25th. Burn's Night is to honor Robert Burns "Scotland's Bard and most famous son" who penned such memorable tomes such as Auld Lang Syne and My Love is like a Red Red Rose. Less well know on our side of the pond is Address to a Haggis. Mmmm a hot, steaming bowl of haggis and a wee dram would be quite nice right now. But I have to wait. I guess I better go drag the plants in for the night.

This is the time of the year when the weather here gets wonky. We had a gorgeous weekend - clear, dry, sunny skies. Monday we got soaked, 8" of rain in my part of town. Thankfully one of my office mates called me and told me I needed to move my car because the street was flooding. The water was up to the bottom of the doors-just in time! It smells a little funky but drives fine. Tuesday a front came through and we were in the 50s! One day you have to put on the A/C, the next day the heat. Today it's beautiful again, clear and in the 60s. I had to go dig out some "winter" clothes, especially shoes since all I've been wearing the last 6 month has been sandals.

Joe Heller, Wisconsin -- The Green Bay Press-Gazette

Sometimes it's strange to live in a part of the country where lack of water is not an issue. Atlanta and surrounding areas are facing a "water crisis" and fear they will run out of water in 3 months. Southern California sure could use 8" of rain right now. We here in gulf south feel sympathy towards everyone in SoCal dealing with the fires and evacuations. A friend in LA has been in San Fran on business and his wife and daughter have joined him. His parents get conflicting reports as to whether or not their cabin in the mountains has or has not burned down. One of the worst things about events like this is the lack of communication and all the miscommunication; I learned not to trust the media following Katrina. My sister, who lives in Hollywood, has been in Iowa (or is Idaho?) for the last few weeks for work so she's thankfully missing out on all the drama. NOLA blogger Editor B posts a chilling email from a friend of his from San Diego. When we were in SanFran last year, it was the 100th anniversary of the 1906 earthquake and there were signs and billboards everywhere prompting people to make sure their "disaster kit" was ready. Disaster kits ain't just for hurricanes and earthquakes y'all. I was about the use my hurricane stash of bottled water, but after Monday's deluge, decided I better not. We didn't lose power and the water supply was fine but... you never know next time.