Two Years Later

Today is the two year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Several months before, I read an extensive and alarming article in the National Geographic that persuasively described the structural problems with the levee system in New Orleans and accurately predicted the devastating results of a strong hurricane's direct hit on that city. It all came to pass just as the article predicted.

The really sad thing about Katrina is that the death, destruction and dislocation it caused so many people was largely preventable. Louisiana officials had diverted funds for levee repair and reconstruction to other projects. Too many residences and businesses were located below sea level. As New Orleans rebuilds, I pray that the lessons learned in Katrina will be taken to heart and the mistakes of the past are avoided.

A series of feature stories in the Houston Chronicle this week mark the anniversary with reports on the more than 150,000 former residents of NOLA who now live in the area. Think about it. That's far less than the number who were fled here immediately after the storm, but it's still the size of a good sized city. These people are now part of our community and most of them will stay here. They've found jobs, homes, and better educational opportunities for themselves and their children. But they are still suffering from emotional trauma as well as economic loss.

It hasn't been easy. The Houston crime rate spiked up and there's no doubt that some of the bad actors from NOLA continued their activities while living in the area. That causes resentment and conflict between Houston residents and the evacuees. It's been different, to say the least, to see Louisiana and NOLA officials campaigning for office in Houston -- complete with billboards, radio ads and free bus rides back to the Louisiana polling places to relocated residents. How long you can reside in Texas and continue to vote in Louisiana?

On the whole, I think Houston is doing a good job adjusting to this massive social change. It helps that we have a vigorous and growing economy. It helps that the metro area has a tradition of welcoming people from all over the world. There will be more bumps along the way because the process continues. Let's pray for understanding, patience and God's guidance as we all continue to adjust to the future wrought by Hurricane Katrina.

What Summer's Heat Brings

A few days ago I was bemoaning the uber-hot weather down here in southeast Texas. Now the temperatures are 15 degrees cooler....thanks to Tropical Storm Erin which is rumbling outside my house even as I write. It came in south of here, so we're on the "dirty side" of the storm.

Here's the deal: the hotter it gets, the more likely tropical storms and hurricanes are likely to form in the Gulf of Mexico and blow inland, reducing the temperatures with the rain and clouds. I've seen this phenomenon all my life as a native of the area.

As tropical weather goes, this is not a concern. Even the hysterically overanxious local tv weathermen are relatively laid-back about it. For them.

But it's only two years after Katrina and Rita, so we find ourselves paying much closer attention to every blip on the radar screen in the Gulf of Mexico then we did before 2005. Now whenever I see the temperatures climb into the 100's, I begin to watch for the formation of the storms.

This is one reason why August is not the best month to plan events in Houston, but hopefully the Presbyterian Global Fellowship event that kicks off this evening will be unaffected. Welcome, Presbyfriends! I hope you packed your umbrellas!

Black 47 and Katrina

I took the pictures here near Galway Bay on the west coast of Ireland. They show scenes of a "famine village." The terrible famine in Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century was caused by the failure of the potato crop which sustained the population and resulted in death, suffering and emigration on a massive scale. Our tour guide explained that in 1847 (called Black 47 in Ireland) the landlords evicted all of the people for failing to pay rent and then burned the roofs of their homes and all of their belongings.

Those evicted were left to live and starve on their own, with no assistance from the British government, which governed the country at that time. Our tour guide said that those who lived on the west side of the country usually left for the United States and Canada, while those on the east side usually left for the UK and then Australia. Those traveling to the US faced a 30% mortality rate onboard--hence the term "coffin ships" was coined to describe them. Those traveling to Australia fared much better because the ship's captains were paid according to the number of people who arrived at their destination safely.

Almost a century and half later, these ruins still remain. The guide said that the people didn't want to tear down these structures and rebuild because of their belief that would disturb the spirits of the evicted families. I had to wonder if the reluctance to tear them down was also rooted in concern that this ugly part of history would be forgotten--built over and eradicated-- instead of remembered. Today some of these properties are being bought for development as vacation homes for British and European owners who don't share the Irish view of the famine villages. Still, the area is really eerie and sad today.

When the guide mentioned that during this time Liverpool had over 500,000 Irish refugees descend upon the city, I was reminded that only 2 years ago Houston received the same number (or more) refugees from Hurricane Katrina. It's hard to imagine Americans leaving the ruins of New Orleans or the Mississippi coast untouched as a memorial to the devastation that storm wreaked on the area rather than rebuilding it as quickly as possible.

Although Black 47 was an act of man and Katrina was an act of nature, in both cases communities were shattered and dispersed as desperate people fled their ruined homes seeking new lives elsewhere. And in both cases their governments failed to assist the people affected in a timely and efficient fashion.

El Jefe's ancestor Patrick Harrington left Ireland circa Black 47 for America, so this story is also his family's story. Patrick Harrington fled Ireland aboard one of the infamous coffin ships from Cork, Ireland. He survived the journey which took him to Halifax and shortly afterwards made his way to New England. Subsequently he traveled westward and participated in the Oklahoma land rush, becoming a landowner which would have been an impossible dream for him if he had stayed (and survived) in Ireland.

One hundred sixty years after Black 47 we are living in the Houston area which continues to cope with the Katrina diaspora and that is our story, too. Most of the Katrina evacuees will probably remain in Houston and in the other cities where they settled. Today Ireland's biggest export remains its people--more than 48 million of Irish descent worldwide compared to slightly under 6 million in the Irish Republic. That's the legacy of Black 47 and the ruined "famine villages" give their mute testimony to it. Meanwhile the legacy of Katrina is being addressed up and down the ravaged Gulf Coast and we are still living it.

And Hurricane Season began 3 days ago.