Hurricane Katrina Evacuation

Dear Friends and Family:

We evacuated from Metairie two days before Katrina hit the New Orleans area, so we not only missed the storm, but we drove in the contraflow lanes, so the traffic wasn't bad. We spent the first night in Alexandria, and then moved on to a little town between Houston & Galveston called West Columbia. (Much better than Alexandria, as our motel room was a downstairs room, which helped a lot with the many potty walks.) The locals treated us like royalty, giving us gift bags, free meals 3 times a day, and info on food stamps, unemployment, etc. A retired physician came by the motel and saw any refugees for free, writing prescriptions and all. A vet checked one of the dogs for free and gave me 4 pigs' ears for them. Local churches combined with the Chamber of Commerce gave us $50 WalMart gift cards, and the Academy Sporting Goods at the mall in the next town offered each of us three full outfits of our choice from their house brand, plus socks and shoes (very much appreciated by the many refugees who packed only a few changes of clothing.) It is inspiring to witness--not to mention, be the target of--such sincere hospitality and generosity.

Actually, we are so far west of Orleans Parish that we expect little or no flooding. What WILL be an issue is wind damage: we have gone through so many false alarms that, in our disgust and fatigue, we left our Macintosh computers (all but one laptop) and all our irreplaceable photos and other things (like all my computer backups!) at home. What's more, we did NOT board up the windows because Joel’s recuperation from his October car wreck was interrupted this summer by his first-ever horrible siege of kidney stones. (Hmmm...if trouble comes in threes, maybe the hurricane fills our quota!) We are hopeful: three blocks away from our house, a friend reports that her "unboarded" neighbors had no broken windows.

Whether or not we stay in the Deep South hinges on the state of the Metairie house. There is very little likelihood of either of us getting any regular work for the next 9-12 months or so, given the crumbled infrastructure of the NOLA area, although there is still hope that Jefferson Parish might want Joel to help with the assessment of traumatized deputies. We tentatively decided to stay close to NOLA and take our time about dealing with the house. Houston makes sense for a while.

Joel and I have been sending out feelers for jobs in California and elsewhere, and exploring the housing markets in various places, via the online assistance of knowledgeable friends. We have full insurance coverage and were almost hoping that the house would be damaged enough that we would be forced to move. The website for the state of CA listed some lucrative psych jobs in state hospitals and corrections. We're lucky that Joel never let his CA psychology license lapse, so he'd be able to work right away. I wish the new state hospital in Coalinga were built already; we could both probably find work there, near Fresno. Not that I would want to stay in that part of the state indefinitely, but it'd be a start.

God, do I want to be back in a blue state! Joel’s parents, sister, and son are all in the Los Angeles, but I dream of some outlying, unknown part of San Diego. Joel also favors San Diego, because of the high cost and poor schools of L.A. He has strong professional contacts in L.A.. I asked San Diego and other CA friends what neighborhoods might be most affordable. Sadly, it seems like the only folks who can go to CA are those who were flown there from the Superdome. (No, I'm not resentful toward them, but I hate to think how they'll cope with the high cost of living.) Prices everywhere are astronomically high. Ventura County sounds nice as does Long Beach, but again, a real stretch.

Watching the news is quite surreal. Everyone I know from Louisiana that I've managed to reach has been okay—even a friend who had relocated to beachfront Biloxi! But still, most cell phone service was pretty iffy, so we've been depending on the TX land lines or this one Windows laptop computer to keep in touch with our friends. It's hard to believe that there is a possibility we'll never see a lot of those folks again. The violence and looting were, sadly, NOT surprising to us. As I said when General Honore arrived, “Laissez les caissons roulez!”

Meanwhile we've been monitoring reports of storm damage in our neighborhood as best as we can without having gone there in person yet. They say a woman shouldn't go alone to drive into Jefferson Parish, and that the roads are not necessarily clear close to our homes. Especially since Joel is still suffering from his kidney stones, it's hard to imagine sending him in there singlehandedly. We have a kids' red wagon for transporting small, heavy items, but we would have a LOT to pack. It sounds like upholstered furniture and any floor-lying appliances exposed to the flood waters require outright replacement.

We found a 2+2 apartment in central Houston near all the hospitals, and took a lease of at least 4 months. Rumor has it that there is a multi-week lag before any rental place can deliver furniture, so we are getting a lot of stuff from the Dollar Store, WalMart and Target. We were lucky to find a dog-friendly place with washer/dryer that was unusually lenient (usually they allow only two dogs) and had an available unit with a tiny fenced yard. It comes with utilities and two swimming pools plus a Jacuzzi.) I may look for work in some mindless job close to the apartment, or volunteer at the Astrodome, as I'm not licensed here. Joel is looking for REAL WORK, in part through the local Jewish Federation and in part through a website for Displaced Psychologists. He and Katie are driving around, aided by our GPS, while I babysit the dogs, who still can’t be trusted not to destroy the apartment or to attempt to escape.

We enrolled Katie in Beren Academy, one of the Jewish day schools in Houston. They're offering free tuition, since we already paid in New Orleans. She used to be in a class of six kids; now there are 25! Monday she starts school. Katie now has to wear a below-the-knee skirt every day, and no t-shirts are allowed if they have writing on them. Today we got a call from the mother of one of her new classmates, inviting her over for a playdate Sunday. Such kindness is touching.

We changed our cell phones a week out of Metairie, because New Orleans-exchange phones were not working. We'll keep these numbers indefinitely. We signed up for a land line at the apartment only because it was the only way we could get Internet access. I don’t know our new number yet.

Supposedly Cox Communications is continuing to supply on-line access as best they can, but not charging NOLA customers. I think that I should be able to continue using my previous cox.net email address, even if we use a different service for our connection.

Sorry I don't have time to write individual letters today: the three of us are still competing for this one laptop. Thanks for all your support, warm wishes, and prayers.

And please help those who didn't fare as well we did during this tragedy. The Charity Navigator site is a good one to help you compare the efficiency of various charitable organizations.

Love,
Gloria, Joel, Katie,
4 dogs: Elliot, Simcha, Jesse, Boogie
4 birds: Solomon, Elissa, Elana, and Tweety