My New Orleans: Katrina

Greetings to all of my clergy sisters! I hope that you all are making your way to the SCJ Wade in the Water Clergywomen’s Gathering in New Orleans, March 22-25, 2011. There are lots of people working to make your welcome and stay warm and hospitable.
I have created this blog as a way to create discussion about the Gathering. The official web site is up and I refer you to it for many of the particulars (registrations, deadlines, accommodations, etc,). The web-site address is: www.wadeinthewater.org.
John Besh has recently released a cookbook called, My New Orleans: The Cookbook. Like so many things about New Orleans, it is more than an ordinary cookbook. It is a montage of history, culture, and inside information about New Orleans…and, there are recipes in it, too.
In this blog, I will be sharing some of what I know about New Orleans and some things you may want to familiarize yourself with before your trip. My hope is that this blog is a jumping off place for information far more broad than my offerings.
Having said all of that, let me introduce myself: I am a native New Orleanian. That’s right. A genuine original. The city and I are good together. I credit her with shaping me in so many ways. At the time of Katrina, I was serving the church in SW LA. Immediately, our church opened her doors (as did so many of our UM churches) to receive Katrina’s evacuees. Our shelter was a medical shelter that housed 78 dialysis patients (the poorest of the poor…many rescued off of the rooftops of their homes in the lower ninth). We housed, fed, provided for these until the third week in September. At that time, we had to evacuate our shelter to another facility in north LA because there was a second hurricane bearing down on the coast of Louisiana…heading straight into us, Hurricane Rita.
Once we evacuated our guests, Rita came barreling into Sulphur, LA and, quite literally, into my house.
Six months later, I was asked by the Bishop to come back to NO and be a team leader in one of the Mission Zones. My task was to help the churches in my mission zone, many of which had been in sustained decline for more than twenty years before the storm, vision their future. I served Mission Zone #4 which included one of the Storm Recovery Centers at Kenner UMC. During my time there, more than 14,000 volunteers came through our storm center to help be a part of the city’s recovery and rebuilding.
By this time, many of you may know pieces of the New Orleans Katrina story. Perhaps, you are like me and you have a Hurricane Rita story. Or, perhaps, you are a sister from the Mississippi Gulf Coast and you have your own unique story of how Hurricane Katrina changed your world and your context. Perhaps, you are from one of the many places in our country that has suffered some other kind of disaster, natural or otherwise. I, for one welcome all of your stories. It did not take long for me to come to realize that everyone has their own Katrina “story.” One of my most graphic memories of being back in New Orleans was the powerful stories that I was told… by my church people, by other clergy friends, by people at the Starbucks, or in the grocery store line. So, my hope is that, as we gather, we listen to the many stories.
If you are looking for a deeper understanding of Katrina…of how far we have come…and, how far we have to go, I encourage that you consider spending your Thursday afternoon on the post-Katrina tour. The tour will be hosted by: Rev. Ellen Alston…Ellen and her son Nathaniel were serving in New Orleans in the Chalmette area, one of the hardest hit areas by the storm; the Rev. Dr. Martha Orphe, a Louisianian, called back to Louisiana from Pennsylvania where she was serving as a District Superintendent to be the Mission Zone Director; and, the Rev. Dr. Ramona Lynn Bethley, the current District Superintendent of New Orleans and a major force in rebuilding the churches in the New Orleans and surrounding areas. On the tour, you will travel through New Orleans and gain an understanding of the devastation of the storm and the recovery efforts. The particulars of this tour are detailed on the official web site (www.wadeinthewater.org).
By this time, there are probably hundreds of books related to/about Katrina. I think a must read is: 1 Dead in the Attic by Chris Rose. It’s poignant and hopeful and tragic and funny…. You may also want to watch Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (available on DVD). The New Orleans Times-Picayune website (www.nola.com) has an extensive Katrina archive chock full of pictures, videos, articles and stories.
If you don’t do anything else, however, there is a wonderful interactive map of how the levees broke and flooded 80% of the city. This map is an amazing explanation of how the whole event unfolded. It is in the Katrina Archive on the www.nola.com website. You will find the link in the middle column of the page about mid-way down under the heading of Interactive Graphics entitled, “How Katrina Flooded New Orleans.”
Again, I and others, rejoice in your coming... can’t wait to hear your stories…can’t wait to share ours with you.. and, as we say in New Orleans, “Laissez les bon ton roules” (Let the good times roll)….
Peace and grace,
Rev. Tracy MacKenzie
Pastor, Horseshoe Drive UMC, Alexandria, LA