Waiting (Evacuation part II)
So how does one spend a Hurrication? By tomorrow when many of my readers will be viewing this, we will likely still be waiting to find out if the levees hold. In the mean time, for those who have not had the pleasure of experiencing a Hurrication, here are some of the things that we do compulsively.
1. Watch news on anything having to do with the storm. There’s a level of information junkie-dom that can only be reached by those who are waiting in another city to see if their home and their city will be destroyed. CNN, NBC, CBS, nola.com, BBC, National Hurricane Center models – everything. Watch wind speeds. Weather patterns. Measure three day cones. Second-guess the experts.
2. Contact everyone you care about. This second process is actually appears to be the most time-consuming and important, at least for my friends, during a Hurrication. It is a warm and wonderful process, tinged with terror. The strange and desperate attempt to hold together all the social fabric that you wove on the street, in bars, at work, in your neighborhood. Because all of this is threatened, there is an extra emotional pull. She is in Arkansas. He is in Memphis. She is in Pensacola. Baton Rouge. Birmingham. But most importantly, they are OK. And each successful phone call is a brief narcotic moment of elation, which is repeated over and over again. As long as you can find them.
3. Drink
4. Take long walks or do anything else repetitious and physical to keep from losing your mind.
And wait. Which is the hardest part.
Just ran across this – suspicions about the inadequacy of the city’s 311 line system were verified on Friday by tests conducted by the New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice, courtesy of Maitri.