Katrina and the Lost City of New Orleans (rather long story)

[ashling]

by Rod Amis

New Orleans is the Lost City of America.

New Orleans has disappeared as surely as the lost city of Atlantis or the lost city of Pompeii, which former mayor Marc Morial and Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA.) have compared us to in their statements.

That New Orleans, the New Orleans I mean to tell you about, that will never, ever, exist again--that city of love, lust, death and sex--will never exist again.

A portion of the proceeds of this book will go to the New Orleans Hospitality Workers Fund. The cooks, servers and restaurant workers of New Orleans have provided fabulous times and memories for millions. Now we must remember them in their time of need.

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/katrina-and-the-lost-city-of-new-orleans/170780

Rod Amis was my daughter's friend.

Lori met Rod when the both worked at Acorn in New Orleans about a year before Katrina. They talked often and got to be friends. Rod helped to instill in Lori a love for the Crescent City.

Life is full of strange twists and turns and Lori moved on and eventually wound up living in Hampton, Virginia. She was surfing the Web one day and found the Blog of someone in Washington D.C. We lived in Maryland and Northern Virginia when Lori was young. My wife worked for Congress and we spent a lot of time in and around the capitol and Union Station. So Lori had an affection for that area as well.

The Blogger - I don't remember her name - told a story about meeting a homeless man named Rod Amis who told her that he was an author too and had several books. She really didn't believe him at first, because he seemed less than believable ... camped out in front of Union Station.

But lori knew he was - and knew that she had to find her friend Rod ... just to find him and help if she could. She called me to tell me that she was driving to D.C. to find Rod. I was concerned, not about her driving to D.C. - she often drove up there to visit friends - but because she was emotional and was possibly getting into a situation that she couldn't control or deal with. Lori's heart is sometimes bigger than her head.

It was getting pretty cold in Virginia that evening.

I told her that I was concerned. At that point she did not know how or where he was. I got the numbers for some local shelters for her and told her that I would not try to stop her from going even if I could. I knew that I couldn't... sometimes the only thing bigger than her heart is her stubborn streak (takes after her old man.)

She parked in front of Union Station. She met a homeless man who was known as "the general" I don't know how he got this title, but he apparently knew what was what around there. He was nice and when Lori asked about Rod and showed him the flyers that she had printed he told her that Rod was camped out in front of Union Station as usual.

She found Rod and he knew her immediately, though he had trouble remembering a lot of other things. It seems that had a brain disorder that affected his short term memory. They talked and she tried to convince him to go back to Virginia with her. All the while, she later discovered, the general kept putting his own money in the parking meter.

Lori finally convinced Rod and she carried him back home with her. He did it mostly to make her feel better, I think. She wanted him to sleep in the extra bed, but he slept on the floor. The next morning he was really disoriented and wanted to go back to D.C. He said he had a bus ticket to New Orleans ... he just couldn't remember when - or who he gave the ticket too. I don't know if there was ever really a ticket, but Rod was convinced, so Lori took him back.

Lori left him sitting in front of his tarp at his spot in front of Union Station. She talked to the general who apparently had a cell phone and so she called ocassionally.

It snowed that night. The next day she called the general to check on Rod. The general had offered Rod his spot at the shelter, but Rod wouldn't take it. The next day he was gone.

I may have some of the details wrong, but this is pretty much what happened. Anyway, it is Loi's story to tell, not mine.

Shortly after that Lori moved to Johnson City Virginia to go to school at East Tennessee State. She apparently talked to the general again and found out that Rod was in the hospital with pneumonia.

Yesterday the general called Lori. Rod died of cancer in hospice.

She put a link to this book on facebook. You can buy it there.

:cry:

[ashling]

1. I see several typos looking back, but it is too late to edit

:shrug:

[Tejas]

2. For every story in NOLA, a thousand in MS and AL. - nt

[ashling]

3. I don't deny this at all

My post wasn't about NOLA so much as it was about Rod Amis, and people like him, and homelessness. How many talented, creative, valuable people do we loose every day?

The World spins so fast . . . every day somebody falls off. Missing in Action in the struggle of life.

[ashling]

4. kick

once more for the afternoon shift

[Greyhound]

5. Another crime of historic proportion, this one our own city, that will go unpunished.

George W. Bush is one of history's http://listverse.com/2007/09/05/top-10-most-evil-men/">greatest mass-murderers, and the "Democratic Leadership" refuses to prosecute.

Do we really believe there will be no consequences to for this dereliction?

[ashling]

6. What does that have to do with the OP?

[Mimosa]

7. I lived in NOLA, relocated after Katrina and I don't blame Bush

Ashling, maybe it has to do with the OP in being about the broken hearted of New Orleans? I can't say.

Yes, Bush lied. It came out that he had been briefed that the levees would fail.

But what happened to New Orleans and other areas of South Louisiana was the result of at least 25 years of dereliction of duties by the Army Corps of Engineers. Two independent studies commissioned by the ACOE stated they neglected their duties and made some fundamental mistakes.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/11/18/louisiana.katrina.lawsuit/

Even going back 50 years ago IF the oil and gas companies and other industries had not been allowed to make shipping lanes which gridded the coastal wetlands the southern wetlands of Louisiana wouldn't have deteriorated into the Gulf of Mexico at the rate of a football field size piece an hour. That was occurring in the 1990s, well before Katrina.

When Hurricane Andrew had struck, many of us who were environmentalists tried to turn up the alarm. The barrier islands almost completely disappeared because of Hurricane Georges in 1998. Hurricane Georges, then Ivan (in 2003 I think), showed many of us what was to come. With little or no wetlands left there is simply no land barrier to help shield NOLA (which is well below sea level) from possible disappearance.

Yes, after the devastation of Katrina the Dutch submitted a plan using a system of locks and levees which if enacted and constructed might protect what is left of the 'island' of New Orleans. I used to post about the plan. It became clear to me that the rest of America would not be willing to pay the price to protect what's left of South Louisiana. I tried to tell them about the seafood nurseries, et cetera. Senator Landrieu did too. But America appears to be too broke for the investment. The Port of New Orleans will remain because America needs a port near the mouth of the Mississippi (for now). But if it were destoyed by a future disaster the port facilities could be moved upriver to Reserve or Gonzales, near Baton Rouge, which is above sea level.

I love New Orleans. I think I left my heart there, as did many who moved away because we could no longer afford to live there. God bless and protect those who remain there.

[Waiting For Everyman]

8. K&R

Reading this (and reviews of the book at the link), I can see why your daughter tried to watch out for him. I'm sorry for her loss - and the world's.

Thank you. :hug:

p.s. (I'll be buying this book for my daughter, who has a keen interest in N.O. So have I, for that matter, but at least I was there to see it pre-Katrina - she did not. I'm hoping the book can convey to her a sense of it in words, which I am unable to do adequately.)

[ashling]

10. Thank you

You might be interested in this book as well: Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and how it changed America by John M. Barry

Barry is a great writer and the book is a delight to read, and the research is meticulous. I believe he is on the New Orleans Levee Board.

The Book provides a good history of all of the problems back to the earliest days. It is also a good resource for a study of Federalism.

[happy_liberal]

9. Your daughter sounds like quite an amazing person!

and I love 'the general' too, nice to see the community of homeless work together.


This is so sad that such an important voice was lost. I so wish we had writers keeping us informed of what is going on in NOLA now. I hope he is wrong but fear this is true "That New Orleans, the New Orleans I mean to tell you about, that will never, ever, exist again--that city of love, lust, death and sex--will never exist again."


(btw-this was very well written and not too long at all)

[ashling]

11. Thank you

:hi: