Hurricane Isaac

Seven years ago, a catastrophic event touched the lives of our family.

A Category One Hurricane named Katrina crossed over the state of Florida. Upon entering the Gulf and gathering strength from the warm waters found there, she bloomed into a Category Five Hurricane, and bore down on our state with deadly aim. Even with all of the warnings, I did not think we would lose our home, because weather forecasters are notorious for their shouts of “it’s the perfect storm” and “get out” and nearly all of their predictions have proven false, so NOLA became complacent in response to their cries of wolf.

Fast-forward seven years, to Tropical storm Isaac.

TROPICAL STORM ISAAC

The predictions had it taking a similar path as Katrina; it would definitely affect our area, as a hurricane, possibly a Category One. What you have to understand, is we have lived through Cat One storms before. Heck, we have had dinner parties DURING them not even realizing they were going on. (Tropical Storm Cindy was later declared a Hurricane; while we had a house full of friends over not even realizing, it was anything other than a rainy night)

So our family decided to stay, I mean it was a TROPICAL storm and stayed such almost until it made land fall. We took the necessary precautions, prepared our home, gassed up our cars and waited. We knew we could lose power, we knew we might lose water, but we felt like being here would be better than being away.

It was a ‘minor” storm.

Then the storm stalled.

It sat over us for hours and hours in that circular rotation pushing water up towards the shore and dumping water from the skies. Reports came at us from every direction that we were going to flood. “A levee broke here“ “An area was breached there“ “The water is coming from both directions, leave now or you’ll be boxed in“ “Police are going door to door asking people in your neighborhood to evacuate”

So much mis-information, so much fear.

Several times, I did get scared and wonder if we made the right decision to stay.

Then I remembered I had a peace about staying, I remembered I felt calm about the storm. It does not change WHO God is because the storm affected some negatively and some not at all. He is the same God. Author Margaret Clarkson says it like this: "The sovereignty of God is the ONE impregnable rock to which the suffering human heart MUST cling. The cicrumstances surrounding our lives are no accident: they may be the work of evil, but that evil is held firmly within the hand of our Sovereign God....All evil is subject to Him, and evil CAN NOT touch His children unless He permits it. God is the Lord of human history and of the personal history of every member of His redeemed family"

We understand we have been there.

We have prepared our church to receive teams who wish to come down to help. We have a place for them to stay. I can cook; our home is open to those who have lost theirs. We have posted this on Face book that if anyone needs a shower, a meal or ANYTHING to private message us.

We mean it.


Isn’t this the essence of Christian living?


“For I was hungry and you gave Me food, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink, I was a stranger and you brought Me together with yourselves and welcomed and entertained and lodged Me, I was naked and you clothed Me, I was sick and you visited Me with help and ministering care, I was in prison and you came to see Me. Then the just and upright will answer Him, Lord, when did we see You hungry and gave You food, or thirsty and gave You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger and welcomed and entertained You, or naked and clothed You? And when did we see You sick or in prison and came to visit You? And the King will reply to them, Truly I tell you, in so far as you did it for one of the least in the estimation of men] of these My brethren, you did it for Me.“ Matthew 25:35-40


For those who wonder why we choose to live in a place that is under threat of flood and hurricanes when there are other places we could live, here is a good article for you to read. It is full of wisdom from the son of our former mayor.


I’ll leave you with a letter from Chris Rose, a writer for the Times Picayune written just after Katrina when many refugees were spread across the country, kinda sums up how we in Southeast Louisiana “are”.

Dear America,

I suppose we should introduce ourselves: We're South Louisiana.

We have arrived on your doorstep on short notice and we apologize for that, but we never were much for waiting around for invitations. We're not much on formalities like that.

And we might be staying around your town for a while, enrolling in your schools and looking for jobs, so we wanted to tell you a few things about us. We know you didn't ask for this and neither did we, so we're just going to have to make the best of it.

First of all, we thank you. For your money, your water, your food, your prayers, your boats and buses and the men and women of your National Guards, fire departments, hospitals and everyone else who has come to our rescue.

We're a fiercely proud and independent people, and we don't cotton much to outside interference, but we're not ashamed to accept help when we need it.

And right now, we need it.

Just don't get carried away. For instance, once we get around to fishing again, don't try to tell us what kind of lures work best in your waters.

We're not going to listen. We're stubborn that way.

You probably already know that we talk funny and listen to strange music and eat things you'd probably hire an exterminator to get out of your yard.

We dance even if there's no radio. We drink at funerals. We talk too much and laugh too loud and live too large and, frankly, we're suspicious of others who don't.

But we'll try not to judge you while we're in your town.

Everybody loves their home, we know that. But we love South Louisiana with a ferocity that borders on the pathological. Sometimes we bury our dead in LSU sweatshirts.

Often we don't make sense. You may wonder why, for instance - if we could only carry one small bag of belongings with us on our journey to your state - why in God's name did we bring a pair of shrimp boots?

We can't really explain that. It is what it is.

You've probably heard that many of us stayed behind. As bad as it is, many of us cannot fathom a life outside of our border, out in that place we call Elsewhere.

The only way you could understand that is if you have been there, and so many of you have. So you realize that when you strip away all the craziness and bars and parades and music and architecture and all that hooey, really, the best thing about where we come from is us.

We are what made this place a national treasure. We're good people. And don't be afraid to ask us how to pronounce our names. It happens all the time.

When you meet us now and you look into our eyes, you will see the saddest story ever told. Our hearts are broken into a thousand pieces.

But don't pity us. We're gonna make it. We're resilient. After all, we've been rooting for the Saints for 35 years. That's got to count for something.

OK, maybe something else you should know is that we make jokes at inappropriate times.

But what the hell.

And one more thing: In our part of the country, we're used to having visitors. It's our way of life. So when all this is over and we move back home, we will repay to you the hospitality and generosity of spirit you offer to us in this season of our despair.

That is our promise.

That is our faith.