For nine years my husband and I have lived Uptown in a small Victorian cottage that sits five feet above sea level, and we always laughed at those who evacuated for hurricanes. Our bravado changed to fear, however, when we learned that Katrina’s winds had reached 145 miles per hour. That Sunday at 1:30 a.m., even before the mandatory evacuation, we packed our two cars with three days’ worth of clothes, one oil painting, a few photographs, a couple of bottles of wine and our insurance documents. For a reason I can’t explain, I also evacuated my onions and potatoes, but left behind a freezer full of expensive meat. We left the cat a week’s worth of food, and drove to my parents’ home in Iota, a southwest Louisiana farming community that is culturally galaxies away from New Orleans. \r\n\r\nEarly Monday morning, after a few sleepless hours, I sneaked into the living room and turned on CNN. For a week, in between pruning trees, cooking and exploring the old cow pastures, I did little else but watch television. Several times I tried to read, but my mind had trouble staying off Katrina. The day of the hurricane my husband worked out of his company’s Lafayette office. For the next five weeks he worked in his Baton Rouge office and stayed with my sister and her husband. Aside from a few weekends, we lived apart the whole five weeks.\r\n\r\nMy first memory of the awful day Katrina hit is the sight of the Superdome. The news reporters told us that 30,000 people had sought shelter there at the last minute, and as I snuggled on the sofa under my mom’s hand-quilted blanket I felt sorry for the majority of those trapped inside, the poor who didn’t have the means to escape. I also felt anger towards those who had money but disregarded the mandatory evacuation. Even a few local celebrities ended up at the Superdome and, of course, received special treatment. For not the first time, I cringed at the thought of our city’s famous disregard for authority. \r\n\r\nThe levees broke, and the whole world saw poverty first-hand, and its face was mostly black. New Orleans has always grappled with the issue of racism. Racism certainly existed through the 50s and 60s, and the effects of those injustices are still felt today. However, I agree with many opinion writers who have lately hinted that many of today’s inequities exist not because of skin color but because of class differences. This theory certainly proved out during Katrina. Those in poverty in this city are overwhelmingly black, but, as with most affluent whites, the black middle and upper classes effortlessly escaped from Katrina. While the poor were still standing on interstates and at the Superdome and at the Convention Center, I visited a shelter in Eunice, Louisiana that housed mostly middle-class blacks. These evacuees had all driven to the shelter, and at all times were allowed to drive wherever they wanted. The finally-rescued poor are now corralled in shelters, wear armbands and face even more uncertain futures than those of all colors who were financially comfortable. \r\n\r\nThe demographic that tugged at my heart strings the most was the sight of young mothers with infants cradled in their arms. Single mothers in New Orleans are overwhelmingly poor, and young black girls seemed to make up a large part of the Superdome evacuees. The sight of the elderly in wheelchairs also brought me to tears. Genocide came to mind as I watched the forgotten left in corners with no medicine and restrooms. The nursing home disasters validated my judgment. \r\n\r\nTwo groups shocked me: the looters and the police. I sympathized with those who took food and baby formula. These people had been abandoned for three days and needed something to eat. But it was hard to feel sorry for those who shot at the police and stole tennis shoes and televisions. Martin’s Wine Cellar was all but demolished, and they busted the jukebox at John Blancher’s Rock ‘n’ Bowl on Carrollton. In a city with no commerce, it’s hard to justify stealing a bunch of quarters. \r\n\r\nI was surprised when Chief Compass resigned for unspecified reasons. I’d heard the rumors that “phantom” police were on the payroll, and that the police weren’t allowed to speak to one another unless they were in front of Compass himself. I still don’t know if any of that gossip is true, but I almost choked when acting Chief Riley announced that “as many as 40 officers…are “under scrutiny” for possibly bolting the city in the clutch and heading to Baton Rouge in Cadillacs from a New Orleans dealership.” I guess I’ve been naïve about the cops.\r\n\r\nThe most frustrating part of the catastrophe was the government’s initial response (and non-response). The president was on vacation. FEMA and the Red Cross were nowhere, and our governor and mayor could not put aside their feud, which the media gleefully aired, along with images of dead bodies, drowned buses and the tears of Aaron Broussard and Kathleen Blanco. At all levels, our government was an embarrassment, but couldn’t the news organizations find one tiny positive story?\r\n\r\nAfter watching our politicians bungle around, I was surprised that individuals, as well as corporations and even foreign countries, were so generous. Even Iota held several “Katrina Victims” drives, and my parents and I were more than happy to contribute. I just hope everyone’s well-meaning donations will be spent wisely. \r\n\r\nMany corporations used Katrina as an opportunity to spiff up a tarnished image. Wal-Mart, for example, donated millions. On the other hand, the Shaw Group and Halliburton, two multi-million dollar clean-up companies, seemed to take advantage. Both corporations have strong political ties, and both were immediately given no-bid contracts. FEMA has just announced that they will put these contracts out for bid, but isn’t it too late to try to appear honest?\r\n\r\nFive days after Katrina, my brother, a paramedic with Acadian Ambulance, dragged into my mother\'s home and told us a few of his stories. He was a first responder at Causeway and I-10, and was dehydrated and sick with some sort of virus, and, most of all, was disgusted that his little group was all that had been there to help a sea of desperate people. He saved lives, and also wasn\'t able to save lives. He started nodding off. We sent him home to rest, and he\'s promised that later he\'ll tell me everything that happened. \r\n\r\nUrban legends are rampant. Louis Farrakhan thinks the government dynamited the levee (I guess he’s read Rising Tide). Two people have told me the one about a Metairie family that was surrounded by four (or five, depending on the storyteller) thugs that wanted the car. The driver supposedly ran over three (or four) of the attackers, and claims he thinks he killed them. Another story is that the Navy Seals invaded the Iberville Project and killed anyone who was carrying stolen goods. Yet another is that the police killed four looters on the bridge. My brother-in-law in Baton Rouge told me that in one day a local gun shop sold every gun he had in stock. The primary customers were evacuees from Metairie, and they purchased anything they could get.\r\n\r\nEight days after Katrina, a few armed relatives and I sneaked into New Orleans for a couple of hours and rescued the cat and emptied the refrigerator. On the drive there, in Metairie, regular people walked around openly with rifles. St. Charles Avenue was passable, but the neutral ground was a giant mountain of debris, and none of the stoplights worked. Our street was also bordered by piles of tree limbs. A twenty-something-year-old neighbor rode up on his bicycle, a pistol dangling from his waist. He\'d turned off our gas, and said for the first few days he did little else but run off looters. We gave him a five-gallon jug of water. \r\n\r\nAnother young man who’d stayed behind pedaled up on his bike, and told us that six days earlier a neighbor on Hurst Street had died in his yard of a heart attack. Someone draped the body with a tarpaulin, and they’d been telling the military and police about it, but no one had picked him up. As of the day I was there, the dead neighbor was still laying in his back yard. \r\n\r\nThe only other residents we saw were in a quick-moving convoy of six cars that tailgated each other down Broadway. Armed military constantly cruised up and down the street. Helicopters roared overhead, and we were glad to see them. From what we could see, none of the houses in my neighborhood suffered major damage. Our door was swollen shut, but that was the only thing we could find wrong. None of the utilities worked, but, surprisingly, the water was on (not that we\'d dare touch it). \r\n\r\nExhausted, we drove back to Iota. A few days later came Hurricane Rita, and we evacuated to my sister’s home in Baton Rouge, only to return to my parents’ partial roof, broken water well and collapsed garage. We all moved in with yet another sister, this one in Eunice, who had a house full of evacuees AND electricity. For my contribution to the cause, I cooked – I cooked gumbo, shrimp stew, chili, casseroles, cakes, anything to take my mind off the madness. Needless, to say, I was the most popular of the evacuees.\r\n\r\nBut before Rita, though, while my blood pressure was shooting up at the horrors of rescues, gunshots, collapsing bodies and burning buildings, I could not help but think that something good will come of this. Already, Burger King is offering a $6,000 signing bonus. Maybe New Orleans’ underemployed can now earn a decent wage. But more importantly, now the whole country knows the face of real poverty, and maybe voters will do something to change this cycle of oppression. \r\n\r\nI’m back at my part-time job, and my husband still has his job and we’re home and have all our utilities. Our little Victorian didn’t even lose a shingle, and we should be thrilled. But we’ve seen red Xs on doors, burnt out houses, looted buildings and have numerous friends who’ve lost homes, and for some strange reason we feel guilty.