After Katrina: 2 New Orleans Authors Look Back

In what turned out to be the longest “Author2Author” feature I’ve run on Beatrice so far, TJ Fisher and Joshua Clark talk about their experiences remaining in the French Quarter after New Orleans was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Here’s how Clark describes it:

I often ask people to picture the lights going off in the room you’re sitting in. The computer, the air conditioning, phones, everything. Then the people, every last person in your building, on the street outside, the entire neighborhood, vanished. With them go all noises—chit-chat, coughs, cars, and that wordless, almost impalpable hum of a city. And animals. No dogs, no birds, not even a cricket’s legs rubbing together, not even a smell. Now bump it up to 95 degrees. Turn your radio on and listen to 80% of your city drowning. You’re almost there. Only 28 days to go.

As I say, this is probably the biggest thing I’ve ever run on this site—most likely the biggest thing I ever will—and this is an issue that deserves it. Two years later, there is still much work to be done and questions left to answer.

24 August 2007 | author2author |