Remembering Katrina: Ten Years Later
Early in the morning on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast of the United States. When the storm made landfall, it had a Category 3 rating on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale–it brought sustained winds of 100–140 miles per hour–and stretched some 400 miles across.
I remember April of that year vividly. That's when the owner of the New Orleans Saints, Tom Benson, halted lease negotiations with the state of Louisiana until after the completion of the 2005 NFL Season, due to a stadium dispute. Big news down here in the south. At the time, I followed the Saints almost as much as I did the Texans. I was proud of my local team then, just not secure in if I was able to pour my heart out to any franchise yet. I was still hesitant. When the Oilers left Houston it effected me. It hurt so many fans. The ultimate betrayal to a sports fan. Pick up and leave them behind, waiving their banners for a team that no longer existed. Now it seemed that New Orleans would have the same fate.
They have had this happen before with other teams. This time you could hear their screams all the way over to their neighbors here in Texas. All the rumors of where the Saints may go, to me it was heartbreaking.
I became a fan of the Saints when I met an ex of mine. His family was from the New Orleans and Baton Rouge areas. He had a warm passion for that team. It filled me and I became intoxicated with the Saints after not only seeing his excitement, but the everyday fans of the team. They were fun loving, party hard, eccentric people with a zest for life. I saw this first hand when we would visit Chalmette, Louisiana and we would take a day or two with the family to head to the French Quarter. Oh, I fell in love immediately with that city. A 20-something girl walking down a city street with streetcars on one side and dancing, singing people on the other. Artists on the sidewalks, voodoo priestess in one building and hand carved kids toys in another. The food was amazing everywhere you went. You just couldn't help but to fall in love with the people and the city.
Time began to pass for me. Changes happened within me and I went my own way, in a path that didn't have that wonderful family in it. I still think of them often, the family from New Orleans that imprinted passion and love for things I never thought existed. I still love that family even if the are no longer a part of my own.
Soon I was living a completely different life. Two little girls, ages 3 and 1, the other life far behind me. Trying to keep up with young kids when the news began to turn head on towards that wonderful city I fell in love with years before. This was sure to be a hectic time for the families and community. I've seen those levees with my own eyes, towering far higher than the small, broken down homes that were right alongside them. Those pictures with others of the marsh lands, Chalmette's main street and memories of my old family telling me about how it was when Hurricane Camille came on land in August of 1969. Top winds of 210 mph and a 23-foot storm surge at Pass Christian, Miss., sideswiped St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes with storm surges of 15 feet, causing $250 million in damage and killing nine in Louisiana. The days after that storm, my old family were the only ones in their area that had working phones. They had people lined up down the street to use their phone to call loved ones to let them know they were safe and alive. Neighbor caring for neighbor. As I thought back on those stories, it wouldn't be much longer that I would see that again in my own community. neighbor caring for neighbor, caring enough to let them in their own home to weather the aftermath of a storm that destroyed not only their homes and livelihood, but their family members, animals and communities.
Flash forward: I-10 traffic was at a standstill. Not just in one or two towns. No, no. Two states long, stop and go traffic. I lived near that highway and 90. Both in a mess. Locals in my community handing out water to cars in the traffic as they passed through our small towns to Houston, just as they did later as Rita hit close by. Neighbor helping neighbor. Even 10 years later, it's all so vivid in my mind. The Astrodome was opened up to the evacuees of Hurricane Katrina. So many people fleeing the Louisiana area that cities as far sound as Corpus Christi and beyond starting opening up their own homes to those in need. A mass exodus from the city that I fell in love with so many years ago. These people lost everything.
We all needed some football to take away the pain of what we were seeing every day. But, no one more than the evacuees fleeing from their lives back in Louisiana. And although the season games had yet started for the Texans, we began to see the team, cheerleaders and franchise come out to the forefront. They had been helping in many ways since the exodus began. Now that the city of Houston had settled in a little. The new chaos that was the now the new norm, the average person started seeing what was happening outside the box piece by piece.
This is when my love for my home team became something more. I felt they were more than just a team trying to make money on a game and it's fans. They cared. The whole franchise cared for that community beyond words could ever express. They not only cared for their own, but the opened their lives and hearts to their neighbors. They didn't have a cocky attitude about it. They didn't boast about it. They just wanted to help in any way they could. From the cheerleaders and players going out in the city and surrounding areas to help boost morale, to other in the franchise donating what they could to help aid those that needed our help so desperately. I found my team. I found out what it was like to support a group of people that deserved my passion and thought.
The Saints owner left all that talk behind. He knew now that the city of new Orleans needed them. It would be the glue that kept that city from becoming a swampy wasteland and help return some of the families back home where they wanted and needed to be.
... And that is why I'm forever a Houston Texans Fangirl. No matter where I live, Irving, Texas or Chicago, Illinois. These players, cheerleaders, coaches, owners and whole franchise give me a reason to be a fan. Thank you for showing me people will still help their neighbor. I love you for it.
#Respect
