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Blown
Away By Katrina.
- My Escape - by Jim Bartz -
Hurricane
Katrina has certainly changed my lifes path! Wow! I never thought I'd get caught
up in the Storm of the Century! As most of you know, I had decided
last spring that I needed to move out of Milwaukee down to the
New Orleans area to find a more active music atmosphere. It was
a lot more of an active atmosphere then I ever bargained for!
Over all, I was not enthralled by the move as the heat and humidity
were outrageous and this new threat of Hurricanes was something
I had not experienced before- It was an elongated sense of doom!
...just sitting there as this huge storm inches its way to your
door day by day ...never knowing if it may turn left or right
-do you run or do you stay? ...but I was up for some adventure
in my life and set my sites on the good odds of not being swept
away and of getting to the next level with the StringStation
project- no matter what.
After arriving and settling in last June, I began (at the nudging
of a good old friend) to write a business proposal to secure
funding for my project. I removed the artist/musician hat I had
been wearing and put on the businessman hat. I did research into
the process of writing an effective business proposal and worked
on the words and graphics for a solid month until it said what
I felt; clear and concise. I finished it all and printed it up
the day before the Hurricane hit. Something inside told me to
mail it out before I fled for my life and so I did. That was
Saturday and I evacuated the next morning.
My roomate and I only had one car to try to get all of our most
valued possessions in. It was then that I realized how much stuff
I had that was directly tied to the StringStation project. We
were somewhat casually loading the car at 9am on a hot and sunny
Sunday morn. The TV was blaring in the living room as we strolled
in and out when the Mayor of New Orleans announced the 'mandatory
evacuation' of the City. A sense of amazement was quickly replaced
with the fear of gridlock. The main road east out of N.O. went
right by our place. We had to hurry before the mad rush out began
in the city of Jazz just 40 minutes west of us.
It took us 3x as long to get to Mobile, Alabama and then up to
Montgomery which felt somewhat safe at a distance of a 150 miles
inland. The only place we could find with a vacancy was in an
ultra sleazy motel that we were lucky to find. We watched the
TV in the 10x10 room in disbelief as the storm slowly and then
relentlessly ripped up our town of Biloxi LIVE on TV.
We waited the storm out but got caught up in the hurricane bands
that sweep out and create tornadoes. The loud warning siren was
right outside the motel door and went off a half dozen times
that tragic Monday. I watched the sky churning in ways I'd never
seen it move before. I hadn't cried since 911 but the next day
when my mind couldn't stop thinking of all the people that must
have stayed behind and then the vision of all my cherished music
equipment and irreplaceable master tapes flying through the wind
and water, it broke me down. I don't mean to sound petty about
material things but I had so many artistic creations and things
that I had spent serious amounts of time creating including all
the self programmed electronics of my StringSatation instrument
invention- all lost just because I didn't remember them in the
rush to leave and more over because there was just not any more
room in the car for them. I accepted the fact that it was all
gone and that I would carry on somehow, someway.
We stayed in Montgomery for two long nights in bleak anticipation
of leaving. We were never sure we could make our way across the
Hurricanes torn path over to Texas where my brother Jeff and
his family offered shelter. The road over to there was strewn
with countless numbers of snapped trees and unidentifiable blown
refuse.
Caravans
of army and electrical service vehicles were everywhere. There
was no electricity or gas anywhere in Mississippi though so we
had to make sure we had tanked up and had water before crossing
the state line. We drove with the radio screaming the whole while
announcing all the devastation which we were now actually passing
through in person. Even though we were 150 miles from the coast,
it looked like a direct hit. Smashed and ripped landscapes everywhere.
We made it over to the Louisiana border dodging the fallen trees
and fueled up again to make it onto Texas. The price of gas shooting
up seemed such a slap in the face of decency as we traveled through
the Hurricane wasteland trying to envision what life would be
in future days.
News from my neighborhood was hard to come by- but knowing that
my place was just a half mile from the gulf and just the other
side of a totally wiped out Biloxi bridge seen on the news, forced
me to come to terms with the reality that I had lost everything
that wasn't in the car.
It was several agonizing days after I arrived in Texas of not
knowing if my stuff was in a water hole or scattered over Mississippi.
The cel phones wouldn't work to anyone down on the coast. I finally
got a call though after days to find out that my place was still
standing. The next-door neighbor said it even looked like there
were no windows blown out, It was later that day that my landlord
called to say that indeed the place was untouched- even though
there were shredded houses all around and huge tress laid about
like kindling. He had told me that his boss and three sons were
killed and that a dozen people from the area who stayed to ride
it out were killed. It's hard to believe that this once beautiful
lush landscape had become the killing ground for so many of my
new neighbors. I am stunned. I can't understand how my place
could have been spared amid all the devastation. It is such a
turn of emotions for me. I still feel shaken and unsettled but
grateful.
A few days after that , my brother and I took the 10 hour road
trip back down there when we heard from a friend that had made
it back to the gulf without any road blocks. We just had to avoid
the routes that had the destroyed main bridges. We arrived in
Biloxi around 10pm welcomed by a tree that had fallen onto the
driveway. We tried to move it so we could park the truck but
it was still half in the earth. Trees were ripped up by their
roots everywhere. I got inside the house and the electricity
had just been turned back on early that day. It was amazing-
all my stuff was exactly where I left it- all rapped in moving
cellophane to avoid water damage and huddled in the bathroom
as the safest place in the house. It all survived the Hurricane
untouched! I am amazed!
The only sign inside of the house that the outside had endured
such a storm was in the morning light when I saw leaves stuck
to the outsides of the windows. It was surreal to witness all
the downed trees that usually define a neighborhood just flicked
around and scattered dead and the ones left standing looking
like the life had been sucked out of them. All the pine needles
and leaves that just a week earlier had been lush and green hung
from the leftover trees brown as dirt. The landlord said they
had been wind burned. It wasn't too hard to believe knowing the
extreme high winds that tore over the area for almost eight hours
straight. We packed up the truck on another hot and humid southern
day and left that amazing house that survived this storm. We
slowly surveyed the intense damage in the noon day Sun as we
drove away. We were caught up in the bumper to bumper traffic
of hundreds of sad and displaced people with heads turning all
around in disbelief. We were both awed and overwhelmed by the
power of nature and this nasty storm of the Century.
I am truly lucky to have made it out alive given the immense
power and size of the storm. And then to have been given back
my cherished music gear and StringStation equipment that I thought
was gone forever. It's bittersweet really as I am pained by what
I've experienced there and in New Orleans .. a beautiful one
of a kind city that I had just been in the week before at a friends
birthday party. I don't know what to say about all the bureaucratic
bungling that left so many to parish. I feel hurt and ashamed.
I wish there was something I could do. But I guess I was a 'lucky'
victim- just having to spend my money on the gas to escape. I
never imagined in my wildest dreams that I would experience such
a immense human disaster. It's scale and scope are beyond what
could be real. My thoughts are with all those who didn't and
couldn't make it to shelter. I can't go back there anymore and
will try to pick up and move on from here in Texas and the loving
arms of my family.
The
whole experience has me sure of my work with my new music instrument.
It was spared somehow and I will see it though to building and
presenting it. I sat looking at it all silent in its boxes and
thinking ...wow this stuff actually survived the storm of the
century! I better get busy!
jb
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