Katrina Reflections #1

Wednesday night, while I was watching coverage of New Orleans, a segment ran showing a black man who was nothing less than broken, lost, dazed. The story fell haltingly, agonizingly, out of his lips – how he and his wife had tried to climb onto the roof of their home when the waters rose, how he had tried to hold onto her but she couldn’t get up to safety, how she had told him that she didn’t want him to die because of her, that she loved him, that he should take care of the kids… and then she had let go.

Now he was wandering the streets, looking for her even while not being able to look because he was far too bewildered and lost amid all the destruction.

The crying reporter kept asking what his wife’s name was, so that word could get out and people could look for her. But the man just kept repeating that he didn’t know what to do, he just didn’t know what to do now…

… after which the anchor cut to a series of on-air interviews with reporters about how they were attempting to cope with the emotional impact of covering the catastrophe.