After the Disaster
“What people here experienced in the years after Katrina was unique in countless ways—just as the storm and its aftereffects was a disaster unprecedented in U.S. history. But what we have seen are heightened struggles over the same concerns faced by folks everywhere: education, health care, housing, workers’ rights, criminal justice, and the privatization of public services and resources.”
—Jordan Flaherty, Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six
A disaster strikes fiercely and suddenly. It shatters our homes and property. It puts an end to many community services. It plays havoc with our interiors. A disaster leads people into and through stages of despair. Our once-so-comfortable-existence is replaced with anger, grief, frustration, and confusion. Looking back, I now see this after the disaster calamity as a null zone. In many cases a null zone impinges into the life of those who try to reconstitute themselves after the disaster.
The basic human instinct to recover, return, and rebuild motivates people after the disaster. Unfortunately, the situation around them is not normal; in fact, it is far from being anything like “normal.”
Post-traumatic disorders are caused because of a twisting and wrenching outside of our control. Good people who are doing their best come to believe, in the midst of a tumultuous external situation, that they are failing. They blame themselves for this failure. However, they are as capable as they ever were. The situation they are forced to live in creates and environment in which some degree of failure is inevitable. Such a disconcerting backdrop for life leads people into a null zone.
Many in the New Orleans area faced trials after our levees broke but Liz Trotter, a life-long member of Community Church Unitarian Universalist, lived as if on a Tilt-a-Whirl.
Liz is a paralegal at a major local firm. She, her boyfriend Larry, her daughter, and two cats were able to evacuate. However, when they got to their hotel in Lafayette, LA, the management did not honor their confirmed reservation, and instead had given all the rooms away at an inflated rate. So, they all drove back to Baton Rouge and weathered the storm in her daughter’s college townhouse, along with 9 other adults, 2 dogs, stifling heat and no electricity.
After the storm, all phone service was out and she was very worried because she could not locate her elderly father and disabled brother. (This was at a time when rumors about violence heightened all our concerns about safety.) Finally, through text messaging with another sibling who lived in Albuquerque, she found out they had safely evacuated to a hotel in Lafayette, but had left in such a hurry they had not even packed a suitcase. At this point, no one could return to New Orleans. After a joyful but brief reunion in Lafayette, her father and brother headed off to Albuquerque.
She shared with me in one of our first conversations that her legal firm had decided to open temporary offices in Houston and Lafayette. Employees had to find a way to join them or risk losing their jobs. As fate would have it, Larry had spotted a small camper trailer for sale down the street from where Liz’s father had been staying. They did not have a truck to pull it, but on faith, they bought the trailer and slept in it the first night right there on the sale lot! Luckily, there was a campground not far from Lafayette, and she and Larry were able to set up their new “home.” Life was getting better. This was, however, another stage in the emotional ups and downs in the null zone that arrives after a disaster.
The elation over this camper was short lived. Rita, the next hurricane, one that missed New Orleans, blew into Southwest Louisiana. A large oak tree fell on their brand new trailer, splitting it in half. Luckily, they had headed the warnings and safely evacuated, again. Liz had to pull up her bootstraps and continue to carry on. Her law firm helped her find a place to stay in Breaux Bridge, LA. However, Larry returned to his job close to New Orleans and they had to drive to see each other on weekends.
At the end of October, her company was able to return to New Orleans. Liz was promoted soon after they returned. She and Larry, who had faced a host of trials after the disaster, decided to get married. I was delighted to officiate at their wedding ceremony.
There were other trials, many others, in our congregation. But Liz and Larry faced a series of difficulties, including arguments with insurance companies and the discovery that a con artist had stolen family monies in a Ponzi scheme. But through this all a sense of constancy was provided by a connection to our church community. In the midst of her despairs she saw that others had it even worse. She decided to help our church reach out to local people and organizations that needed help and support. She became chair of our Community Ministry team. Our church’s outreach through this effort led to a growing appreciation in our area for our Unitarian Universalist congregation.
As Margaret Mead once said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.” Mead’s look at changing this world has guided our church. We see the need to change. We embraced a transformative spirit. We have tried, through times of trials and a host of post-disaster missteps, to shape a transformative vision of where we wanted to go. We chose to enter into relationships with those around us. This vision also led our congregation to design and construct the first Energy Star, solar-panel house of worship in our country.
I was once asked what sustained us through the trials that came after the disaster. I said, “Spiritual practice.” I truly believe that our attention to our spiritual journey is more valuable than any bottles of pills a doctor may provide.
Emotional peace does not arrive from a pharmacy. But faith in the Divine, faith in this world, faith in self, and faith in life will uphold us if we devote ourselves to aggressively pursuing our spiritual practice. No matter how lost our spiritual vision may seem in the midst of your null zone, you can find it, claim it, use it, and proclaim it. You can allow it carry you through all the transformative stages of recovery.
May the divinity in you greet the divinity in those around you. Namaste.
- After the Disaster - November 4, 2011
