Note: I have been working on a couple of things, and you’ll be seeing that shortly. I will be headed out on another adventure in early September, and need to have a few things finished before I go. In the meantime, I needed to post something to keep you reading.
August 28, 2005
Where were you when hurricane Katrina, a category 5 storm, struck New Orleans and the Gulf Coast?
Here we are, seven years later to the day. Tropical Storm Isaac is taking the same path, and has turned into a category 1. The Republican National Convention postponed the first day in order to avoid the storm, and the news is comparing Isaac with Katrina. And for some reason, everyone wants to ask where were you when Katrina struck.
I had a motorcycle accident two weeks before, and recovering from shoulder surgery two days prior, I watched the whole Katrina thing on TV from the safety and comfort of my Lazy Boy recliner at home in northern Indiana. I was not in very good shape, sleeping more than awake due to the medication, but I managed to watch in horror the scenes of destruction and chaos. Who could predict that such a storm could produce such destruction, or the government response to the storm would leave people stranded for days. My heart said I need to go do something to help. My body said, ‘You ain’t going anywhere.’
I got tired of telling people I fell off my motorcycle, and frankly it was more complicated than that. People would ask if I was going to give up motorcycling or sell the darned thing. Finally, I tried a new tactic and I decided to tell a couple at a church that I was visiting that I fell off a horse. Seeing my arm in a sling, they asked, “Well, did you shoot it?” I found that kind of response worse than telling people about the accident. Also, I didn’t go back to that church again.
A car turned left in front of me, and I put on the full brakes—tires squealing, everything a blur. I went down, but missed the car, which took off. Witnesses could not find it. After a trip to the emergency room, x-rays and an MRI, the orthopedic surgeon said, you need surgery to get this fixed. I won’t go into detail, but they opened up the back of my shoulder to insert two #4 stainless steel screws into my shoulder and then charged me $900 for each screw! Thirty thousand dollars later, I am sitting in front of the TV watching the flooding and the drama, and the President of the United States telling the director of FEMA that he’s doing a good job while people in New Orleans were dying.
So the 7th anniversary of Katrina has brought back memories of pain and sorrow for many, and it has reminded me how lucky I am to be alive and still motorcycling.
See you on the highway.
Brent
I was in Michigan where we don’t have hurricanes, earthquakes, and huge forest fires. A tornado once in a while, but that’s it. As to New Orleans and Katrina, an area the size of Great Britain got hammered but the only talk was and is about New Orleans. The truth of the matter is that a city that was built below sea level didn’t even have an evacuation plan at the time and the population that was told to leave didn’t, for the most part. They just waited for someone else to rescue them. Couple all of that with incompetence on the state level in Louisiana with the governor refusing Federal assistance for two days and you had a disaster that was spun by the media to be Bush’s fault. Nothing much was ever reported about other areas and other states that were hit because they had competent local and state officials that took care of business. No sound bites for the media there.
It was once said that if we never picked ourselves up after falling, we would never learn to Walk, or Grow, or Ride.
Even though I was still a little zonked the day I came home from the hospital, John, I remember you stopping by the house to check on me. I knew then that our friendship was deeper than just good neighbors. Time has proven that to be very true. Thank you. –Brent