History Remembered In Real Time
My mom, Julia Mae, used to always say that fashion just repeats itself. When I would go “gaga” over some new fashion craze growing up, my mom would say “I wore that when I was 17,” or “I have some of those in my closet from way back.”
The longer I live the more I believe her— not just about fashion but history too as it seems. It’s hard to believe that Hurricane Katrina was 16 years ago to the day that Hurricane Ida hit New Orleans and the Southeast, again catastrophically. Jacob’s fifth grade ELA class began reading “I Survived Hurricane Katrina” last Monday and it brought back memories from that time just as Ida was forming in the Gulf.
I shared with him the images that Hurricane Katrina presented the world through the media like the Saint’s Superdome battered and torn leaking rain as thousands hunkered down inside to weather the storm. I showed him pictures of people on their rooftops’ with written messages for aid or yelling out for help to rescue missionaries in their boats on the flooded streets of Louisiana that looked liked waterways.
I could have waited a few days and he could have seen much of the same imagery in live time from the mass damages of Hurricane Ida—same day, same type catastrophe, different year. The good thing for New Orleans is that the levees did indeed hold this time but that was not so for some of the parishes to its south.
There is an article on page 6 of this edition that details how Washington Park fifth graders read “I Survived The Attacks of September 11, 2001.” They were then asked to survey their parents, grandparents, etc. about where they were when they heard the news of the 9-1-1 events.
I remember where I was for Katrina and the 9-1-1 attacks! When Katrina hit, Robert (Robyn and Jacob’s father) and I were in Gainesville, Fla. I remember rainy weather was in the forecast for the area because Katrina had formed but was heading away from Florida. We were headed to a jazz concert on the University of Florida’s campus featuring a friend of a friend of mine who was an up and coming artist at the time. When the storm made landfall we were having tea at this quaint bed & breakfast as our eyes were glued to the television.
As for the 9-1-1 attacks, which will turn 20 this month, I was at work in the old Monticello News office next door. We didn’t have a tv in the office (and we still don’t), except for the tiny black and white one I used to watch Frasier on Tuesday nights if I worked late. It was mid-morning and I remember Kathy saying something’s going on, someone watching tv had called to notify her so we hopped on our now dinosaur computers to search the internet. We didn’t have to search at all, it was there front and center.
The imagery from that is still fresh, too. I remember people jumping from the upper floors of the Twin Towers building in downtown New York as the building burned following the plane crash. It was hard for me then, and now, to imagine trying to make a decision in that moment of circumstances whether I stay in the burning building that was going to topple or take my chances and jump from 20 stories high to my survival or my death.
At age 16, I made my first trip to New York City where my sister Karen was interning at the time. One of the first places she took me was the Twin Towers and we went all the way up to the lookout. That was a loooooong way up so when I saw the people jumping during 9-1-1, I knew just how far it was.
Devastating.
Fast forward 20 years and we just witnessed the last days of U.S. military occupation in Afghanistan this week. For two decades, the U.S. forces took to that country in an effort to stamp out the Taliban which claimed ownership of the 9-1-1 attacks. Is the country any better off? Maybe but maybe not as 13 young American soldiers and others lost their life to an Afghan suicide bomber just days from leaving the country for good.
What strikes me most is that all except for one were in their early to mid 20s. Five of those 12 were newborns in their parents’ arms when the 9-1-1 attacks happened and the other seven were toddlers between ages 2-5 at that time. What did any of them remember from 9-1-1 in real time? Doesn’t matter, each of them did their due diligence in the trying to make the world a safer place—they died for it.