A flood of emotions

[gerisullivan]

Saturday. All night long. Increasing anxiety fueled by the worst case scenario loops on The Weather Channel. Sunday. Contain still-building anxiety levels by limiting exposure, tuning into The Weather Channel every couple of hours, but then turning it off, and listening to music instead. Still, the word of the day is Armageddon, and I finally turn in just a few hours before landfall, worried about people and places I know, worried about people and places I don't. Monday. Hurricane Katrina weakens, tracks to the more favorable east...we all know the story; we heard it, we lived it. Armageddon averted, I feel heady relief as the engineers announce their confidence that the Superdome will remain standing. Yes, it's a disaster area. Yes, there's damage everywhere. But windows can be replaced. There's a city to clean up, and I wryly observe that as a nation sighs in relief that its beloved French Quarter still stands, NOLA's residential areas are reported as taking the most damage. As the day progresses, my perception of the story broadens from New Orleans to the devastation throughout the region. But it's background noise, mostly. I work. I look forward to the festivities planned for the weekend. Loads of laundry cycle through the washer and dryer, and I contemplate how much of what needs doing I might possibly get done in the coming two days. I talk with friends. I talk with one friend rather a lot, about Katrina, about the upcoming weekend, about other issues of interest and concern in our lives. She'd given me something interesting to think about the previous day. That turned out to be a useful distraction. And so I made it through the day, trying to make sense of it all as the emotions agitated in the wash cycle.

And then it was Tuesday.

I had an early-morning appointment to have my car serviced, and much running around to do, too. The morning passed, and most of the afternoon, before I saw a TV. The radio station in the rental "car" played music rather than news. For those who know the strength of my preference for small cars, just imagine my shock when they handed me a Chrysler Pacifica. The Touring model, no less. I was further shocked to discover I did fine with it; it didn't feel nearly as enormous as it looked on the road, and it tucked right into tight parking spaces, too. Just one of the many ways it was a Very Weird Day. As always, good friends were there to see me through it, and to share stories, laughter, and sorrow along the way. Priscilla Olson lived nearby, and I stopped by for a brief visit. She's making the cutest felted handbags these days! She showed me her yarn from the seaweed-eating sheep of North Ronaldsley, and filled me in with more tales from her Scottish travels, and news from the Worldcon, too.

Then it was back to Westborough, where the bill on my car was significantly less than I'd been anticipating, adding pleasant surprise to the emotional swirl du jour. I shared amusements and plans du jour in a phone conversation with elaine_brennan, and soon I was in Auburn, with plenty of time for my next set of errands.

"No shit. There I was..." It's not a war story, traditional though the lead. In this case, it was that same TV I'd glanced at when dropping off the car at yet another service place, this time to have the tires rotated and alignment done. All for free, or at least all paid for last year. I expect to be driving rather a lot over the next week, and this has needed doing anyway. It may seem orthogonal, but one of my measures of a good party is one that helps me accomplish at least a few of the everyday things that all too easily slide. So, there I was, watch battery replaced, a bit of lunch consumed, phone calls finished for the moment. I wandered back into the waiting area at the tire place, and looked more closely at the TV. They weren't lifting people out by helicopter this time around...and those pictures hadn't surprised me all that much before. Especially given how relaxed the rescued guy looked on the way up. The basket he was in, and the way it made wide sweeps and slow turns as it carried him across the sky made me think of what a spiff carnival ride that would be.

No carnival rides this time, just water. Water. Water. Rooftops. Water. And the chilling report: New Orleans 80% Under Water. That was the first I heard that all had gone pear-shaped there.

I watched, feeling both horrified and betrayed. The betrayal was mostly thanks to my own lack of understanding, of not being tuned in or having an accurate reading of the remaining risk factors. I've watched news coverage of past hurricanes; I knew the passing of the storm was really just the first piece of a very big puzzle. I'd seen John Houghton's notice that he was headed in as part of the Response Technology team. He'd be gone not a couple of days, but most of two weeks. And that's what he knew from 1,500 miles away, a day before the levee was breached. But I thought we'd moved into the very beginnings of the recovery. Seeing the cascading effects of disaster magnified came as an utter shock.

The pictures reminded me of those from Grand Forks and the Red River flood of 1997. Only the scale was all different. I remember how far the water stretched across the flat North Dakota prairie, and how devastating it was to both Grand Forks, ND, and East Grand Forks, MN. It looked like 20 or 50 or more Grand Forks would easily fit in the pictures I saw today.

I haven't a clue if that's accurate or not, and I'm not going to try distracting myself by doing the research. I'm going to write this until I don't have to write any more tonight, then I'm going to sleep, because that's important, too.

Anyway, I called debgeisler, for what must have been the umpteenth time of the day. She filled me in on the information she'd found online. We talked. That helped. It's good to know what usually does. It didn't make the shock go away; I heard it in her voice, too. Then, and later in the night, when we talked again, discussing our reactions to the images, to the events, to the sheer magnitude of it all.

My heart lightened when I read decadentdave's post announcing Chris Li is safe; my heart went out to brithistorian and one_undone as they wait for real news and anticipate the likely fate of the aunt who didn't make it out, much though I was gladdened to hear of the at-risk nephew who did.

Reading Making Light helped, as it usually does. Eventually reading LJ posts from people writing about a wide variety of topics helped. Friends and others identified effective ways to help.

We struggle, we try to make sense of it. We liken it to other tragedies. "It's our tsunami," I read. Excuse me. I know, it's early days. The death count attributable to Hurricane Katrina is going to rise. But more than 300,000 people died from last December's tsunami. Three. Hundred. Thousand. Yes, the numbers the first few days were much lower than that. I don't know what is to come this time around, but if the count cranks up in similar fashion, I can't begin to fathom my likely reaction.

Why am I trying to scale my emotions, as if I can measure and calibrate grief? It's wrong. Horrific is horrific is horrific is horrific. Comparisons of horror don't work any more than comparisons of grief do, much as we talk as though they do. I finally realize my standard analogy applies to Hurricane Katrina, just as it does to medical crises when they arise. We're on a roller-coaster ride right now -- one like Space Mountain; it's in the dark. There are the long, waiting bits while the cars climb high; there's the first plummet, and who knows how long it will last. There are the unexpected twists and turns, the whiplash as the cars swoop back, forth, and 'round another loop d'loop. The outlook changes constantly, and it's sometimes hard to know what's up and what's down. No matter how much we'd rather be elsewhere, once the ride starts, it's important to stay in our seats and see it through until we're safely back at the platform, wherever reality we find when we arrive there. The real trouble comes if we decide to get out of the car while it's going round its track. That trick never works.

As always, it's the people I'm sharing the ride with who make all the difference in how I see it through. When it's working right, I help do the same for all who choose to ride with me.

There's a Funway in here somewhere. See you on it, always and forever more.

Comments

[netmouse.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your post. I went through a similar sort of shock... I got back from vacation yesterday, where I'd only glanced at the morning headlines each day. Tuesday I went back to work, lots of catching up to do. Even had to put my computer back together. Afternoon full of meetings and then I came back to my machine to takae a break and catch up on more pleasant things, like Making Light...

Look, I thought, Patrick and Teresa do such a good job of.. tracking... tragedy.

I watched footage they linked to, and read some reports. I looked at streets where I have no doubt walked, under five feet of water. It occurred to me that I'm eligible to give blood. But this isn't so much a blood trauma disaster as New York. This is a blankets and food and clean water and *hands* disaster. Reminds me of the summer the mississipi flooded and my only reliable co-techie at summerstock theater felt he couldn't stay, had to go home to missouri and help sandbag, which he did. Felt the sudden unreality of having been at work all day and not having had a single person mention this.

... so thanks.

It is our tsunami

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Counting the number of dead people doesn't provide the right comparison. For the people living in Biloxi (which is where i believe that quote originated), the comparison is pretty apt. The whole damn town was swept away. And unlike the situation where a tornado destroys a small town, there is no safe place nearby to escape to.

I think the scale of the devastation is roughly comparable to the tsunami, except that we have the disaster-relief resources of the richest nation on earth. If we'd had only the resources available in the places where the tsunami hit, there would be 10s of thousands dead.

I don't mean this critically, Geri. I'm trying to get a grip on the magnitude of the disaster myself, and try to figure out how much I should be thinking about it. I heard people in my office this morning LAUGHING over the scenes of million-dollar houses being flooded. What can they be thinking? I hope it was just their way of dealing with the stress of thinking about all the everyday people that are now homeless.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

My heart lightened when I read [info]decadentdave's post announcing Chris Li is safe

Juan and I are very glad that Chris is safe and sound. Has anybody got news of Julia, who used to be married to Chris? Not sure she was even in the city, but that's where she was when I last heard from her, and we're thinking of her.



As always, it's the people I'm sharing the ride with who make all the difference in how I see it through. When it's working right, I help do the same for all who choose to ride with me.

Yep. That's the heart of it. It's a satisfying thing to do, too.

[judith-dascoyne.livejournal.com]

I have been holed up and not in touch with the "real world" outside of me for over a week now and discovering Katrina has been a bit unreal. Your analogy of the roller coaster is quite apt.

The real trouble comes if we decide to get out of the car while it's going round its track. That trick never works.

WOW
you are so... right

thanks