Below the Water Line provides a gripping account of a family’s
hurricane evacuation experiences and all that followed in the decade
after Hurricane Katrina. The story begins in August 2005, when author
Lisa Karlin, her husband, thirteen-year-old daughter, eleven-year-old
son, and two dogs evacuated New Orleans for what they thought would be a
two-day “hurrication.” The day-by-day account of the weeks that follow
vividly chronicles the unprecedented displacement of thousands of
Americans, and on a personal level, describes how her family makes the
trifecta of major life decisions: where to live, where to work, and
where to enroll their children in school.
Below the Water Line
provides a first-hand commentary on how everyday life has been impacted
by Katrina’s aftermath and how, a decade later, there are still
lingering effects of one of the most devastating events in American
history.
About The Author
isa Karlin is the author of Below the Water Line: Getting Out, Going Back, and Moving Forward in the Decade After Hurricane Katrina. She
is an oncology nurse who, unlike weather chasers who look for storms to
track, has had the weather chase her, and these experiences are
described in her memoir. Lisa lives in New Orleans, Louisiana with her
husband, daughter, son, and Yellow Lab named Buddy.
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Book Excerpt
The pool water is bathtub warm, and the sky is postcard-perfect, clear and blue.
Thirteen-year-old
Samantha floats on a raft near me. My daughter has carefully positioned
herself with her arms extended by her sides and her chin tilted up
toward the sun. Since school started last week, her tan has faded and
she is determined to preserve it. She lies perfectly still; her only
movement is the subtle rise and fall of her chest as she breathes.
A
major hurricane named Katrina lurks just a few hundred miles away, out
in the Gulf of Mexico, but we are not concerned. Landfall predictions
are still uncertain, and I’m expecting that this hurricane will turn to
the east or west and spare New Orleans, just like all of the hurricanes
in the past forty years have done.
I take notice when I come in
from the pool, turn on the television, and see the satellite image
showing that Katrina has increased in intensity, and is now bigger than
the state of Texas. Even so, the hurricane watch area extends all the
way from western Louisiana to the eastern edge of the Florida panhandle.
Anything can happen with this hurricane at this point.
Late in
the afternoon, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin calls for a voluntary
evacuation. He says he’s adhering to the state's evacuation plan, and
will not order a mandatory evacuation until thirty hours before
Katrina’s expected landfall so that people living in low-lying
surrounding areas can leave first and avoid gridlocked escape routes.
My
eleven-year-old son calls and tells me he’s ready to be picked up from
his friend Colin’s house. On the stoop outside their house, Colin’s
father asks if we are evacuating, and I tell him my plan is to watch the
news and The Weather Channel and then decide. If Jim Cantore shows up
in New Orleans, then we’re going to skedaddle, since he always seems to
broadcast from the bulls-eye of a storm. Colin’s father says he plans to
see how things look in the morning. And I have jury duty on Tuesday, I
tell him. Can’t miss that!
My son John and I make a quick stop at
Breaux Mart on the way home. Cars circle the parking lot, competing for
the few open spaces. The store is clogged with people, and many shelves
already are bare. I dispatch John to see if there are any hamburger buns
still on the shelf. He reports back that just a few packages remain and
like a fisherman, proudly holds up his catch. I see a few scattered
packages of ground beef lying in a refrigerator case, and speed up to
get there before anyone else does.
There’s nervous chatter in the
long checkout line as people debate hunkering down or getting on the
road. Older folks recall evacuating in ’92 after Hurricane Andrew
blasted across southern Florida, and then entered the Gulf of Mexico and
headed toward Louisiana. Andrew made landfall as a category 3 hurricane
a couple of hours west of New Orleans, so we dodged that bullet.
Hurricane Alberto in ’94 looked like it was headed for New Orleans, but
veered off to the Florida Panhandle. And no one could forget evacuating
for Hurricane Ivan last year and the arduous, tortuous process that
was.
With ample time in the checkout line, many evacuation
stories are told, eliciting nods of recognition from the people standing
in the adjacent lines. We know all too well what it was like to
batten-down the house, creep north along the interstates, spend a
sleepless night out, and return a day or two later to sunny, intact New
Orleans to start reversing the process. “Here we go again,” another
“hurrication,” seems to be the sentiment of many in line. A number of
people say they’re waiting to see how things look in the morning.
It’s
inconceivable that a major hurricane is headed this way. The sky is
clear, the air is still, and the sunset is spectacular. Buddy, our
80-pound yellow Lab, takes a leisurely swim in our pool while we eat
dinner on the patio. It’s just another ordinary day.
All evening
long, we wear down the television remote jumping from station to
station. We, too, have decided to see how things look in the morning,
knowing that a lot can happen in twelve hours. I’m still predicting that
fateful turn that hurricanes take at the last minute, the turn that
produces a collective sigh of relief from the people in their initial
path.
We watch evacuation footage and see that even with the
contraflow on the interstate this year, it’s no better than last
September when about half of the people in New Orleans evacuated for
Hurricane Ivan. Despite six lanes of traffic all heading westward, the
traffic on Interstate 10 does not move at all. People are standing
beside their cars, an impromptu and odd social gathering of sorts. Good
thing we didn’t leave tonight, I tell my husband, Rich. We’d be stuck
out there on the highway in the dark. I can’t imagine our family—two
adults, two kids, and two dogs—inching along the interstate all night.
John
plops down on the couch and announces that it would be fun (fun?) to
evacuate at night. He tells us he would bed-down in our car, tell the
dogs goodnight, and go to sleep. Rich raises his eyebrows. He knows our
two kids would be squabbling before we back out of the driveway. And
there’s no telling how Buddy and John’s 12-pound Jack Russell Terrier,
which he named Jack, would handle a long car ride. We have trouble
driving around the neighborhood with our dogs, and with our kids for
that matter.
A news announcer casually mentions that Pat Sajak
and Vanna White, who are in town taping New Orleans-themed episodes of
Wheel of Fortune, have cut production short and are leaving. The
“Wheelmobile” and eight tractor trailers of equipment are being readied
for departure. It is the first time in its thirty-year history that the
long-running game show cancels taping.
I silently pray that
Katrina weakens and changes course, but the latest information indicates
that this hurricane is strengthening and coming our way. Local
weatherman Bob Breck pronounces that “the water will be so high that
you’ll be on the roof with the cockroaches!”
Around 10 p.m., we
are surprised to see Mayor Ray Nagin back on TV. He looks just as
surprised to be on TV; earlier today, he said he would issue his next
statement in the morning. The mayor says he received a phone call from
Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, who in turn had received a call from
the National Hurricane Center Director. The news is not good. As Nagin
puts it, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a test. This is the real
deal.”
For More Information
Debbie
Macomber is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and one of today’s
most popular writers with more than 170 million copies of her books in
print worldwide. In her novels, Macomber brings to life compelling
relationships that embrace family and enduring friendships, uplifting
her readers with stories of connection and hope. Macomber's novels have
spent over 750 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Eight of
these novels hit the number one spot.
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