marientina

Just talked to a close friend who has been evacuated and is already in Texas in the eve of what may be the biggest disaster that ever hit New Orleans. For Tor, it is all the more ironic that this is happening to him, a day before his scheduled move to New Orleans from Chicago. He more than all of us understands the ramifications what may happen when the storm hits the shore tomorrow morning.

Tor is a geoscientist who is on the move from UIC to Tulane. He studies the Mississippi delta. He knows what it looked like millions of years ago and what it could like like again. And adding further to the irony, he is Dutch, which means that he understands what living below sea level can do to a city when a storm hits. Tor and I have been joking about this for years. And suddenly, the joke is no longer that funny. He is in his car in the middle of Texas and he is concerned that if the storm hits, the flooding will kill more people than we can imagine. City officials are hiding the fact that they are preparing hundreds of body bags for the people who will be affected: those who can't leave the city and those who are trapped in flood planes. And the glorious city that is New Orleans could become the creepiest town in the south.

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We build in flooplanes, we dam-up rivers, we make the impossible happen. We are struggling eternally against nature, so hard that we forget we are part of nature and then we act surprised when disaster strikes. We have even managed to beat the democratic process in which death occurs, with medicine going only to those who can afford it and evacuations possible only by people who can. Is that our nature then, to live at the expense of others? I sure hope not.

I live a little over a mile away from the beach and in a city of earthquakes. Perhaps it is my fatalistic greek upbringing, but I will be the least surprised if I die by tsunami or by being hit over the head by collapsing debris in an earthquake. When I walk on the sand of Venice beach or any beach, I close my eyes and enjoy the sound of the waves. And at the same time, I try to embrace the possibility of losing my life to the water I very much love. Just like my great aunt Fotoula who slipped and fell into the river she adored and crossed every day of her life.

You can't escape the great forces of nature. We do our best to avoid disaster. But so long as we treat nature as the enemy, we will always fail. As the age old saying goes, keeps your friends close and your enemies closer.