Conversations and Katrina
When President Obama was interviewed in New Orleans by Brian Williams on NBC News yesterday, there was a brief question about what had happened to the promise for continued conversations. Katrina had been an accident waiting to happen, and the alarm was not sounded early enough. Obama rightfully said it was not meant to be a one time talk, rather an on-going dialogue.
Yet, there is a tendency to only discuss issues on their anniversary and move on. Do we ever really get to the deeper questions and stay with them? Not really.
I was in New Orleans three weeks after Katrina. My husband and I had done a lot of work with post-traumatic stress syndrome and one of our business clients asked us to “set up shop” and be there for their employees, many of whom had lost everything.
The doors were open and the employees came by themselves, with their families, with neighbors. We did talking circles and let them review, in a safe place, the moment-by-moment scenes of what it was like to get away from the rising waters. Some had been able to return to their homes for brief moments. They were given the opportunity to describe in as much detail as they needed the sights, smells, sounds and feelings of the days gone by.
Five years later, I can see the difference in those who were willing and able to process the pain at the time, and those who still keep a lock on that pain of the past even today. The need to talk and be heard is a basic universal need and honoring the five-year mark has been, in its own way, healing.
However, the real conversations have yet to happen. Perhaps there are small pockets of discussion. We were privy to this during our stay right after the crisis. And by now, there are some areas of New Orleans that are fresh and bright. Others still have the edges of recouping from a war-torn area.
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