As the ten year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina has taken place, although devastating memories are brought back, the ten year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina has forged many new friendships that will last a lifetime.
Take a moment to close your eyes and go back in time to August 29, 2005. It is probably hard to remember something that happened ten years ago, especially considering that most of us were at a very young age at that time, but does this date bring back any memories? Maybe some have a vague idea of what happened, but people from Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama know exactly where they were, what they saw, and how they felt about that day. It is not just a date for those people. Instead, this one day in late August stands as one where Hurricane Katrina hit and changed their lives forever. Nothing is the same as it was for these people, and is still is not the same ten years later.
“It’s just August 29th to everyone else,” Hurricane Katrina survivor, Rhonda Aubert said. Aubert fled her home in Louisiana days before the hurricane started destroying everything in its path. Today she lives in Dallas, Texas and has yet to come home.
As the Hurricane started, it appeared much like usual storms that impacted the South yearly. However, this time the rain just kept coming and coming. The winds got worse and worse with each new day. No one expected this to eventually be described as a category five power storm. The storm killed 1,833 people over the course of a few days. The victims of the storm amongst the affected southern states, were warned to evacuate. Prior to August 29th many took the warning under consideration, and evacuated the area. It took 16 hours for everyone to get just five hours away, which shows how many people were running scared trying to figure out where they were headed to flee from the storm.
Charlene Hibbs drove thousands of miles away to bring her three boys and her dog, all the way to our home, Newtown Connecticut. After staying in Atlanta for a few days with some friends, she realized that the storm was going to be different from any other hurricane before. Immediately, she took advantage of the offer she got from Dody Flynn, a local Newtown resident, and fled to her house.
Flynn and Hibbs have been friends prior to this. They met through different DMA (Dance Masters of America) conventions, and have continued their friendship while becoming members of the organization and being certified through dance teacher training school. A whole new definition was brought to their friendship when August 29 arrived in 2005.
The Hibbs family stayed in Newtown for three months, with just the clothes on their back and the small overnight bags they had packed. The boys Ty, Austin, and Zane enrolled in Newtown Public Schools and became a part of a town baseball team. While it was devastating for her to leave her home, Hibbs knew it was the right decision. After seeing the news and watching the footage of the place she called home being destroyed in front of her own eyes, Hibbs did not know how she could go back. She worried about the lives of her friends and tried to locate her family to make sure they were okay. August 29, 2005 is a date Hibbs will never forget.
“If there was one thing I took away from Newtown, it was the kindness of people. We’re so blessed with that,” Hibbs said while reflecting upon her short stay here.
However, not everyone had a family in another state to go stay with for a while and not everyone had a car to drive them to another place to flee. People were stranded with nowhere to go. Nearly 500,000 people did not have access to a car. It got even worse when the levees that were built to prevent flooding and withstand the storm, collapsed. There was nothing preventing more water from flooding the area. How was everyone supposed to fight through conditions like this? Some used the roofs of their homes as refuge, while others used their bed mattresses as floats.
“You can easily rebuild a home, but you can’t easily rebuild a new spirit, mind, and soul. There’s been a lot of pain and heartache. And still during this post Katrina phase I have these moments where I can’t breathe. I just can’t do it,” Superdome survivor, Shelton Alexander told History.com.
Katrina was hard, but the aftermath was the hardest part. Still ten years later, people are struggling to cope with the force that destroyed their home and what remains destroyed. People fled their homes and have yet to relocate. There are empty lots everywhere, serving as a constant reminder for the survivors of what was lost.
Gas stations, grocery stores, hotels, and mini markets are all gone, and have yet to be rebuilt. These are simple fabrics of a community that have been left unsewn, making destroyed towns look as a stranger to those who call it, or used to call it home. Neighborhoods are gone. No one is coming home anymore. The fear of where those people are, is what still get’s at survivor even a decade later from when the storm first started as rain.
The government has been considered a setback in the recovery of affected areas that are still struggling today. They provided aid to survivors and gave them trailers for shelter, but took those trailers back as soon after. The levees that the government built also collapsed, which was a big contributor to the amount of flooding and damage that occurred.
“I think from Katrina that it’s ridiculous that neighborhoods have yet to be rebuilt and families are unable to come home. It’s been ten years, the government has had plenty of time to step in. Families are relying on that place to bring their kids to school, and to go to work. They need that secure feeling of being safe in their homes again,” said Newtown High School sophomore Hayley Lambert.
Towns such as New Orleans, have put these thoughts aside and tried to move on, with a ceremonial parade on the tenth anniversary. This town’s heartbeat will never be taken away. This parade helped people realize that this hurricane was a disruption, but when disruptions happen, gifts are created. A gift to start over and to start something new.
“I’m guessing over half of my friends on Facebook are people I met after the storm. You may think the storm didn’t affect you, but it did. Without the storm and the decisions we made after, we wouldn’t have met,” Aubert said.
Hurricane Katrina ripped apart the split between communities and brought everyone together. The real story of the storm is not what is reported on TV or online. It’s how the isolation that used to exist in the town affected, was washed washed away in the floods. The legacy of this hurricane talks more about how as a community everyone came together and learned that people help the people.