The Katrina Effect

Katrina is everywhere.

The hurricane that ravaged Louisiana and Mississippi coasts three years ago this week still spins, surges and settles over those who endured and survived it. The signs of loss, rebuilding and hope are everywhere.

Even those not affected because we resided outside the South--we, too, feel the hurricane in ways that are palpable now that we live closer to the damages. Two of many recent examples:

In the waiting room at a garage last month, I met a young mother whose two-year-old daughter had died and been buried in a Gulf Coast cemetery not long before Katrina struck. The woman marveled at how a new neighbor in upstate Mississippi (where the family had moved after the storm destroyed their home) volunteered his own time, money and transportation to relocate the coffin and headstone from her child's burial spot so it would be nearer to the family. This had happened within a week after the hurricane.

To accomplish his mission, the benefactor had braved Katrina aftermath and out-argued officials who tried to keep him away from the cemetery that was badly damaged in the storm. But tenacity on behalf of his new, hard hit neighbors meant that he had prevailed after all--and rapidly.

"Now," the young woman said, "our family visits my daughter's grave more often than we would've otherwise, and for less money in gas." She said their neighbor's generosity was even more valuable than the property that had drowned that awful August night.

As if to underscore such stories, a dance troupe I saw perform at the Mississippi Museum of Art last Saturday presented "House of Broken Dreams," choreography based on a Katrina-inspired painting by the same name. The physical and psychological ravages of the storm, so solidly shown in the painting projected on the wall and in the stylized motion of the dancers, paled in comparison to the joys and hopes represented in the final moments of the piece. What's more, it was all done to the brilliant, recorded music of composer-pianist Phillip Glass.

Katrina turns 3 this week. Her survivors will mark the occasion with more stories, more work, more art, and best of all, more HEART than a storm has a right to ask.