I spent years anticipating this last Saturday, the day that, 10 years later, still represents the most radical shift in my life. It was hard then, as a nine-year-old, to understand what those changes would be.
Coming back to a hometown washed away by the waters to which I had grown so close over my short life would not be something I could immediately process. What did become quickly apparent, however, was how “the storm” shaped the interactions and behaviors of people, whether or not they were immediately affected by it.
I learned so much about how communities can come together, because, so often, it was the only way we could find strength in the face of such hardship.
I learned what it meant to be selfless, as volunteers from all over the country poured into my little town of Pascagoula and many other towns like it, to help complete strangers rebuild their homes and their lives.
I learned that being adaptable was of the utmost importance, as it was physically impossible to go on living as we had before. At first, being adaptable meant huddling in the hallway with the rest of my extended family at my great-grandmother’s house in George County as tornadoes danced along the perimeter of her property, snapping pines in half like toothpicks.
It meant staying on the phone with friends who chose to ride out the Storm, trying to comfort them as they watched helplessly from the second floor of their house the water creeping up the stairs. It meant struggling to decide when we should even try to go back, and having to wait three hours to fill up on one tank of gas when we eventually did.
Adapting to this new way of life was not a process executed by any single individual, and it was one many people who weren’t directly affected by the storm elected to help facilitate. Some of the of the necessities that were easier to find were food, water and clothing.
Meals Ready-To-Eat were distributed by the National Guard and the Red Cross. Many churches helped to recruit volunteers who passed out donated hot meals and clothing. As a child, it was almost funny to me, going to churches and relief vans for meals like they were recently opened restaurants. I even picked out some favorites.
That year, my sister and I started first and fifth grades, respectively. We had just transferred to a private school in Mobile, which is about 35 miles northeast of Pascagoula. Since Mobile wasn’t hit like Mississippi or New Orleans, its schools did not see the same break that others along the central Gulf Coast did.
Whereas my friends and relatives from home had roughly a semester off while their schools fought desperately to reopen as soon as possible, my break only lasted about a week. My parents now tell me that this was a blessing, as my sister and I were able to be removed, physically and mentally, from the destruction all around us.
The consequence, however, was that we had to balance two lives — we were surrounded during the day by those who were fortunate enough not understand the uprooting we were going through, and it was hard to relate to them. In the end, though, I grew to love this haven, where in my mind such disaster and loss did not exist the same way it did back home.
Of course, we didn’t emerge unscathed.
I don’t remember too much of my life before Katrina, and then so much of what came afterwards lay in its wake. The image of neighboring houses, mansions even, reduced to nothing but the foundation upon which they were built as if God Himself had lifted them up and scattered their remains will forever be one of my most intense and surreal memories.
But moments like that are not why I choose to remember.
I choose to remember because of the humanity I witnessed. I choose to remember because the stories of survival and triumph over the seemingly impossible far outnumber those of defeat. For me and many others my age, I choose to remember because I have no alternative.
Hurricane Katrina is part of who I am. But, most importantly, I choose to remember because of how far I and my home and come since that tragic time.
The true significance of Hurricane Katrina, like any other disaster, lies not in the extent of its damage.
We do remember things we lost, we do revisit the hurt that we felt, and we do mourn the lives of those who did not survive. But we also celebrate because of what we were able to overcome.
We rejoice that in the face of disaster, we were able to recover and achieve so much in years to come. The number of years since the Storm is somehow insignificant to its impact, because the stories and experiences which came out of it are timeless. But acknowledging that a long 10 of them have passed enables us to remember and express as a community that we have come back from those dark times which no longer pose a threat.
The damage is done, and the memorials and memories are just memorials and memories.
We continue as pioneers of the future, as we always have, and celebrating this time allows us to appreciate that storms — even ones as great as Hurricane Katrina — can do nothing to change that.
Reid Black is a sophomore biochemistry major from Pascagoula, Miss.
