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K2: Katrina Revisited PDF Print E-mail
Wednesday, 29 August 2007
In the last two years I have personally gone through 7 changes of address. A nomad prior to Hurricane Katrina, I've put my head to the pillow in over 50 cities during the same 2-year span. Using mail services, Vonage and Skype, I've been able to minimize the number of Change of Address announcements for my 2 businesses to a mere 4 re-routings.

Two years after Katrina came ashore, I live in the exact same apartment and work in the exact same office building as I did pre-K. Like a cyclone winding up, I've been chasing my tail all across America, ending up right where I started: in the path of devastation. And so are you.

In Seattle where I lived last year, a mediocre storm knocked power out to the entire city for days. When I lived there 20 years ago, I canceled the earthquake insurance on my house when the annual premium hit $5000. As insurers await The Big One in Seattle, very few homeowners or businesses carry earthquake insurance; it's not required by most lenders.

In Richmond where I lived two summers ago, the downtown entertainment district, Shockoe Bottom, suffered a devastating flood on August 30, 2004. The levee built to protect this historic neighborhood from the James River ironically penned-in a 5-hour, 14-inch soaking from Hurricane Gaston. Restaurants, galleries and nightclubs were destroyed to the second floor.

The neighborhood I evacuated to in East Nashville, Tennessee -- arriving on my daughter's doorstep at 6:10 a.m., August 29, 2005 -- was sawed off by an F3 tornado almost a decade ago and is still showing signs of recovery.

Wherever you live, whoever you are, one thing is certain: you won't last forever. The question really isn't where you should live; it's how you should live. That's why I'm still in New Orleans. Frankly, it's a better city after the flood: more thoughtful, more cohesive, more thankful for electricity, drinking water, and what passes for mail service. If you want to live, you could do a lot worse than New Orleans; if you want to die, well, you can do that anywhere.

Your Faithful Correspondent,
STEVE O'KEEFE
President, AuthorViews, Inc.
Executive Director, Patron Saint Productions
Resident of New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, Earth
Read more at: http://authorviews.com/blog/index.php?itemid=191.
Tags: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, LA,
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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."
Last Updated ( Friday, 29 February 2008 )
 
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