Ang's Journal

Yesterday I arrived in Albany NY to start a 90-day FEMA deployment, working on claims originating from Hurricane Irene & the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee from late last summer. I haven't gotten my logins yet, so nothing of interest to report yet from work.

Being back in New York has been a trip down Memory Lane. I actually considered going to college in this area, going as far as to accept a recruiting trip from RPI's swim team in 1991, when I was senior in high school. That would've put me right across the river in Troy, NY. Spider-Dad reminded me of that trip in a text message today. It... was not exactly the model of scholar-athlete behavior. Short version: I ended up driving some of the team members home from a frat party after they got too drunk for me to let THEM drive. This was exceedingly bad, because my escort had a stick-shift car & at the time I didn't know how to drive stick. I drove them home, about three miles, in first gear, without stopping for any reason. Awesome.

I was ambushed later today by another memory, this one from 1992. My freshman year at Cornell, I got very sick & missed a week of classes in the spring semester, before Spring Break. In order to catch up, I decided to stay at school for the first half of spring break. Then, my first ever-boyfriend, Maaaaaatt, drove all the way back to Cornell from his parents' house in Queensbury, NY, & took me to his hosue for a four-day break.

Those four days were some of the best of our whole relationship. His parents & siblings were wonderful & their house was beautiful. We went snowshoeing in the Adirondacks. His dad took me for a drive in his Acura NSX. But the highlight of the trip was coming down to Albany to see U2 on the Zoo TV tour. The concert was held at the Albany Egg, & was by far the biggest production I had ever seen. It was an incredible night.

I have a long weekend this weekend - half a day off Saturday, & full days off for Sunday & Monday. I'm debating where to go - NYC or Ithaca? Votes? Other proposed destinations?

Writing to you from Harahan, LA, just outside of NOLA. My hunch last week was right - I have been deployed to just outside New Orleans - I am working in St. John the Baptist Parish (in Louisiana, parish = county; it's a legislative designation, not a Catholic one). My hotel is right in New Orleans - in fact, I can see the infamous Convention Center from my window. It's a very strange place to be - most of the city does not have electricity (although our hotel does). There is a citywide curfew from 8 PM to 6 AM, although it gets ignored in the French Quarter. There are armed guards at the door of our hotel. The streets are littered with rubble & vegetative debris. Many traffic signals & signs are out of order, so driving in the city streets can be hair-raising (my first night here, I ended up going the wrong way down a one-way street - how fast can YOU do a three-point turn??). The water at our hotel is not drinkable, although we've been told it's OK for showering (the environmental scientist in me is a bit doubtful but the alternative is not showering, so I just wash quickly & try not to think about it). Cell phone coverage is spotty but generally available. The city stinks of garbage, but strangely, I haven't spotted a single rat. Maybe they flee sinking cities as well as ships.

I only arrived at this field office yesterday, & so far it's been a slow start. FEMA is a giant bureaucracy, & because of that, it tends to move .... well, ponderously. Hopefully I will have some work to do soon so I can start feeling like I'm helping this area to get on the road to recovery.

I'm trying to find a PCUSA church in the area but (at least around my hotel) they've all been abandoned. I'll keep looking. This Sunday, I might go to Mass (!!!) at St. Louis Cathedral - that's the only church I've heard of in NOLA that's open.

I've done a bit of driving around the area. This landscape is incredibly alien to me. It is completely & utterly flat. The only topographical relief is anthropogenic - either levees or roads. There is standing water everywhere - I'm not sure if that's unusual or not. Almost all construction practices have been modified to accommodate the water - cemetaries are full of above-ground tombs (groundwater is too shallow to dig graves); all state roads are required to be built seven feet above grade (to prevent flooding); levies & associated pumping stations are giant edifices....

... & despite all this, the river & the ocean are devouring the land. One parish located south of NOLA has lost half its land mass. Driving around & seeing the standing water everywhere, I realized that it's not gonna be California that falls into the sea first.

Edit: interdictor posted a photo of a burned van a while back. This is ~5 blocks from my hotel.