Other Columns by Debbie Daniel
Debbie Daniel Bio

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While I write these following words with a broken heart and a great deal of prejudice, please bear with me . . . I am a Louisianian. I've spent the past few days agonizing over the state of my beloved state. One may move away, but the heart always leads you back home. My home is Louisiana.

I grew up in Shreveport, spent summers in Lafayette, took graduation trips to New Orleans, started college in Pineville, and then finished my extended education in Mississippi. I remember Hurricane Camille in 1969 - people were fleeing the central Gulf coast - and though I wanted to be home for my birthday, I wasn't sure I'd make it. I was on one of the last planes out of New Orleans before Camille lashed and slammed into the Mississippi coastline. It was a late Saturday afternoon and I was riding in a very small "cargo-like" plane on Royal Orleans airliner to Alexandria, Louisiana.

It was so small that the seat you sat on was somewhat like a "Murphy" bed - anchored to the wall - and you pulled it down to sit on it. I can remember looking down through the cracks in the floor and seeing the scenery below -- not out a window. I could hear the putter of those small engines, I could feel the gusts of wind sweeping us (just me and one other passenger) to and fro and my nerves were on edge. I realized we weren't flying very high and wondered if I would make it into Esler Field. That's when we were still boarding and departing planes on the tarmac and I was truly looking for that strip of runway that would bring me home. Camille hit 24 hours later on my special day - so, you see it was truly one to remember. It was a catastrophe - although there had been other category 5 hurricanes in the Atlantic - never had one hit mainland American at such velocity . . . Camille did.

So the latest situation in lovely Louisiana has definitely hit my heart as a category 5. The winds hit land as a technical "4" and did great damage, but the destruction that has ensued is of "Biblical" proportions, and its true "category number" of destroyed lives and property may never be known.

I've listened to the criticism, I've watched every report possible, I've been stunned with utter disbelief, been angry at reporters, heartened by the bravery, disgusted with the thievery, and then anguished by the comparisons of 9/11. Yes, the day the terrorists attacked New York, the Pentagon and then ended with a failed mission in a Pennsylvania field has become our model for how to handle crises. While I agree wholeheartedly that the mayor, city officials, and all the emergency services acted with exceptional speed and diligence to save lives - and even giving the ultimate sacrifice of their own -- New Orleans can never be compared to New York City.

To even try to compare it would be to put all of Manhattan under water, with all emergency services grounded, no electricity, no water, no food, no fire trucks racing to the scene, and everyone struggling to get off the island that was virtually shut off from the rest of the state. If that were the case, a comparison would be fair. But even then, that would not give you the coverage of what was done to Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and parts of Florida. This storm battered and beat tens of thousands of people down -- it's beaten us all down.

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