Labor Day watch party
Posted on Thursday, September 4, 2008
By 2 p.m. Monday, I couldn’t watch any more. The ceaseless video of the water topping the Industrial Canal levee began to feel like Chinese water torture. The talking heads had long ago run out of talking points, and even the weathermen—excuse me, Meteorologists—didn’t have much insight. Only hope—excuse me, Cautious Optimism. I figured five hours of Hurricane Gustav Watch was enough for now. The levees were holding. (If built suspiciously low. And thin. And why concrete ? Why not reinforced steel on top of steel on top of titanium ? Hurricanes make instant engineers of us all. ) New Orleans was drenched, but not under water. I took the Sunday New York Times and headed to a local coffee shop.
Soon as I sat down and started in on Maureen Dowd’s meow of a column on Sarah Palin, which was catty even by Mo-Do’s prissy standards, I heard the magic words in that lyrical dialect from a table nearby, “Da Saints play Sohn-day. Ahm goin ’ back.” Translation: The New Orleans Saints professional football team plays host to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday in the Superdome, which, just three years ago to the day, was the one place nobody in his right mind wanted to be.
But that was Katrina, this is Gustav. That was the old New Orleans, this is the “ReNew Orleans,” as the T-shirts and bumper stickers put it. This time, folks got the heck out of that cereal bowl of a town and, in the case of the folks next to me, headed north.
As it turns out, the table of Saints fans hails from Algiers, a community just across the Mississippi River from the Crescent City. Don’t ask me what direction; the Mississippi twists and turns so much in those parts that, at times, the east bank is west and the west bank is east. Just say Algiers is southish from the French Quarter. “Over there” will do.
So a fella in the chair behind me overhears that delicious, unmistakable accent and strikes up a conversation. As it turns out, part II, the fella behind me is a Katrina Kid, having relocated from New Orleans to Maumelle after the levees broke in 2005. He sounds wistful, both pleasantly surprised and a little sad at meeting folks from his previous home. I ask him if he still misses New Orleans—after all, he can do a lot worse than Arkansas—and he seems to get misty.
“Oh yeah,” he says. “There’s no place like it.” I settle in to a surprisingly cogent essay by the Times’ Frank Rich, and a man bounds into the coffee shop. He’s hyped up from something and soon enough we find out what: He works at a nearby hotel, and the place is jammed with some 400 folks from the coast, dogs, kids, extended family and friends.
“We’re just trying to make them comfortable,” I hear him say in that do-what-wecan way of the Arkansan. It’s like New Orleans North.
This is too much. Somebody is trying to tell me something. Namely, quit trying to avoid the story. So I fold the Times and head to the hotel.
The parking lot of the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza in West Little Rock is full, and it seems as if three of every four license plates is from Louisiana. If you didn’t know better, you’d think this was the convention hotel for a dog showwith several categories for mutts. At least a dozen people are outside on the hotel’s slim patches of grass walking their dogs on leashes.
Inside, I run into a woman from Metairie whose white dog, Doc, is the star of the lobby.
“He’s being so good,” she tells me in that wonderful sooty accent. “This is his first time in a hotel.” Doc is wearing a purple collar and a nervous smile. He welcomes a scratch behind the ears. The word from home sounds good, the woman from Metairie says in a whisper, as if not wanting to jinx it. (Can’t blame her. ) So good that she and Doc may go home the next day.
I wander around, taking in the familiar scene. Both Arkansas and our southern neighbors have been through this before. The best we can do is offer shelter from the storm, the most basic of human courtesies.
As I pull out of the parking lot, I stop by a black truck, where a family sits in back, watching the dog get some exercise.
“How y’all doin’ ?” I yell out.
“Not so good,” a big, bald-headed man in back replies. He says they’re from Galliano, La., which, by the map, is maybe 10 marshy miles inland from the Gulf—and directly in the path of Gustav. He’s not sure what they’ll find when they go home.
He asks if I’m from New Orleans.
No. Arkansas.
He smiles, says he went to school in Searcy. Back in ’ 79. “What’s your name ?” he asks. I tell him. “I’m Tony.” Let us know what we can do, Tony. Arkansans like to help. He nods, waves. I wave back and move along. Here’s hoping Tony and his family have a nice, short stay in the Natural State. Much as they’re welcome here, we understand the strong pull of home.
—–––––•–––––—Staff columnist Kane Webb also writes feature stories for the Perspective section.
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