Sixteen years ago, I remember watching MY STREET flooded as hell on CNN from Hot Erica's apartment in Baton Rouge. I sort of detachedly noted that hey, that looks like my dresser bobbing by and Hot Erica asking me if I was, in fact, OK. I was not. I was worried. Not only about my dresser, but my students. That was my first adult job as a teacher. We had been in school four days before Katrina hit. I had just learned all their names. We were making country flags to decorate the classroom (middle school) because as a school in the Seventh Ward projects, it was rather grim (and this is the NICEST adjective I have for that school). I was worried about my kids because many of them were not leaving, not only because they didn't have funds, but they'd heard that FEMA wouldn't help them IF the storm hit if they weren't there physically so they were staying. I told them I was sure that wasn't true, but what does a 24 year old white lady from suburbia know? (Fair.) As for those students and what happened to them, to quote the Shadow and Bone series (now on Netflix), no mourners, no funerals.
Ida is NOT that situation. VERY few casualties. The levees held. The biggest problem is Entergy and its lies and corruption about what it was doing with tax payer money. (Helena Moreno, Journalistic Gods Bless Her, is going after them full force.) Louisiana allows utility monopolies, and it's like living in the Wild West/Robber Barron Capitalism/America's Banana Republic, take your pick, they all have some truth to them. Entergy taxed people on the promise that its grid would hold, hence the higher "hurricane surcharge" (yes that's a thing) on EVERY bill and that it would be independent. Well, now, it turns out that part of the reason for the lights being out is because it has to borrow from the Slidell, LA grid. So...errr....I have questions...
I'm going to address several things that have been said in this thread about why people continue to live here. We live here for the same reason people live in California despite earthquakes and horrific fires. You want to talk about a precarious situation? At least hurricanes are predictable in advance. California could break into Pacific at any minute with very little warning. We live here for the same reason people live in Tornado Alley. We live here for the same reason people live in Chicago which has to be the coldest place on Earth, and yes, I've been to Siberia. We live here because it's home. It also takes money to move. These are people with shrimp boats. Oyster boats. What the hell are they going to do with those skills in Ohio? I will tell you the story of the hurricane that wasn't. For a time, every damn hurricane to come to this area, people evacuated because it was news. I think it was Ivan. My whole family evacuated to the hill country of Texas why my uncle lives. It was the usual nonsense pre-hurricane--no gas, no groceries. Well, Ivan petered out. It was nothing. But that evacuation cost us over $1000 AND missed work. The cost was food on the way, two hotel rooms, and boarding for five animals as the hotel didn't allow dogs/cats, so we had to find a vet, and emptying all the food in our freezer/fridge before leaving. And the price gouging before/after a hurricane was AMAZING. And if there's no disaster, well, there's no disaster money. If you like many people in poor states live paycheck to paycheck, you can't afford to evacuate if there is or is not a disaster. Remember, aid comes AFTER not before. So you can't check into a hotel without money to start with on the promise FEMA will pay and a lot of people, such as myself, our only family/friends is mostly here. What if you get halfway down I-10 and there's no gas and you're stalled on the road? This happens. A guy in Baton Rouge drowned because of this.
Now for my situation and what is not making national news. The hardest hit area was not New Orleans, but St Tammany Parish and an area called Grand Isle, which has now
been deemed unlivable and no one can return (though to be fair, they will. No one keeps Grand Isle people out of Grand Isle. Like a way less serious Chernobyl.). The eye went right over my high school and apartment, cause I have a talent. (Just like in Katrina, the hardest hit was not NOLA, but Chalmette, and the Gulf Coast of MS/AL sure could have used some more attention). If y'all are friends with me on FB, I'm going to go on the requisite post-disaster tour of my area and film it all for your voyeuristic pleasure. As for why I stayed during the hurricane when I do currently have the means to leave as I was saving up for a new sofa, new couch, new everything to go to my new house...which I was supposed to move into on Monday.
(ooops). My lease is up September 1st, and my mom's October 1st. We received letters from our apartment complex earlier that state if it appears we no longer live there, they have the right to come in and seize all our stuff. And remember, y'all, this is the South. Things you think happen in other countries happen here. Here, the rights are with the property owner, not the tenant, and it's perfectly legal. Tenants have no rights AT ALL. It drives my brother, who lives in Brooklyn now, insane.
My mom, who is a borderline hoarder, is terrified of this. She refused to leave because what if they use that as an excuse to seize our stuff?!! I mean, for me, it would just mean I wouldn't have to pay for movers, but she has way more attachment to stuff than I do, so I understand. Yesterday, we received an email stating that the maintenance people would be coming in to all apartments to "check" and clean out fridges. There are A LOT of people leaving this month, and I know
exactly what that means. If I don't stay here, I'm basically homeless. I can't get to my new house as there's sort of a power line dangling across the road and a big ass tree nicely hugging it. Even if I could get movers, they couldn't get there. So I'm technically a squatter. Now it did get so hot that my mom's health was in danger and and so me, mom, and the pups went to stay with a friend in MS for a few days, but we came back. Luckily, because we are on the same line as a hospital, power was restored yesterday (though god, it is flickering on and off as they try to find the best way to get everyone online).
The maintenance people btw are out in their little golf carts knocking on doors. The only thing that protects me, as I know I'm an illegal squatter by La standards right now, is my Brooklyn brother is a Harvard lawyer and that scares the crap out of the evil management. (My mom added him to her lease last year specifically so he could scare the crap out of them--you have no ideas the rounds residents have gone through with these people).
So here I am like a crazed gun-nut grandpa with his old-ass hounds, protecting his property from the carpetbaggers.
outage.cleco.com
That's a myth that gets perpetuated for a number of reasons. It's not how our fault lines work. Sorry. 
www.cnbc.com
I was a Best Banker before that since birth. I’ve been really impressed with my apartment complex so far. I’ve owned a home the past 22 years and have never lived in an apartment, so this is an all new experience for me.
www.nytimes.com
