How to make groceries in a pirogue

Life as Chris and I knew it seems to be officially over. As of the news this morning water continues to rise as the levees are blown out and New Orleans is pretty much destroyed. We’ve seen footage within half a mile of our house and it doesn’t look good. It looks like it may be over 30 days before we can even think about going back to what was our home to see if anything is salvagable. There is only so much of a life you can fit into a Honda Civic.

We have a lot to be thankful for. We are comfortably staying with Chris’s little sister and her husband in Florence. We have each other and our cats. We’re nervously awaiting news from friends, but just about everyone we knew was evacuating. I’m concerned for some of my clients, but going to have to try to keep that anxiety under wraps because there is just no way of knowing who made it and who didn’t.

We have our important papers, pictures, some clothes, Grandma Smith’s wedding dress and Grandpa Reynolds baptismal dress. We’ve got money in the bank and a temporary free place to stay. We have the tower from our computer. We are in much better shape than a lot of others.

I’ve e-mailed anyone I have the e-mail address for Mike and Elizabeth’s phone number. My cell phone is not working for incoming calls. I only have intermittent access to the internet for now, but I will try to keep everyone posted. About what, I don’t know. Anything that seemed important in my life a week ago has ceased to exist. Deadlines at work are gone, my planner doesn’t really mean anything anymore. That mopping I was going to get done this weekend…well…

So many questions keep coming to mind. Do I still have medical insurance if my job no longer exists? Does my job exist? What about our friends? Where are they? No one’s cell phone works. I don’t think we can go back. We didn’t own so there’s nothing to rebuild. If we wanted to move back there is no where to move to. What about all the people that didn’t make it out? What happens when disease starts moving through? Did anyone we know or care about not make it? There is a considerable chance that some of the homeless, or nearly homeless I worked with didn’t make it. Are Chris and I now considered homeless?

We are really fortunate to have family because there are a lot who don’t. If we were looking a hotel bill without an end in sight this would be a lot harder. We used to joke that it was good that we were living in New Orleans because sometime in the future it could be wiped out and we would have known it when. Maybe that’s yet another thing to be thankful for–we knew it when…