The Best and the Worst

The recovery from the 2005 hurricanes continues to stumble forward after nearly two years. It is the best of times and the worst of times for south Louisiana.

Finally, we have become bored with the political posturing and finger pointing. Most of us have come to grips with the fact that our only option is to do whatever we can to help ourselves and our fellow citizens from every walk of life to pick up the pieces and just move on.

For New Orleans, it looks as if a recovery process that will continue over the next two decades is finally starting. But when the Saints traveled to Chicago recently, windy city residents let it be known that many folks not affected by the tragic aftermath are not about to cut the Crescent City any slack. Without public apology for some of the unfair and unsympathetic actions expressed by some of the loudest among the Bears’ fan base, one can assume lots of folks in Chicago and throughout the Midwest have had their fill of sad stories from the city that care forgot.

The clear message seems to be that a large portion of America’s tax payers are ready to see people in New Orleans begin pulling themselves up by their own boot straps. Of course, many New Orleanians have been left without any boots or straps to pull. That is not easy to see until it slaps you in the face.

We all have our stories of dealing with people washed up to Baton Rouge by the storm. Their addition continues to make traffic terrific, but most of them are no longer completely lost as they were when they first got here. And then there are stories like the ones we heard recently from Suzi Gautreaux of Keller-Williams Realty in Zachary.

Suzi and her people are selling a bunch of houses these days to folks who are moving into Zachary from New Orleans, but some of the closings are far from normal business transactions. “We regularly have closings where there is not a dry eye in the house,” she said. “Before it is over the buyers and sellers will be crying along with their attorneys and their realtors.”

Recently, Suzi handled a sale for a couple that was selling to a husband and wife from New Orleans who lost everything in the storm. The couple survived with their 6-year-old son, but had little more. The husband had been the manager of an auto parts store in New Orleans, but he had to accept a much lower position in Baton Rouge in order to remain with his company. The former store manager was reduced to scrubbing toilets and sweeping floors in his new job with his old company.

Fortunately, their church in New Orleans provided some interim assistance, but it soon came out that they had no sheets or towels, clothing, pots or pans, etc. The sellers, a gracious older couple who was downsizing, cancelled their planned garage sale and left three rooms filled with furniture including their sofa and chairs in the living room and a complete entertainment center. They also filled a closet with new clothes and toys for the 6-year-old, and Suzi bought the buyers a new refrigerator. The home was on a large lot, so the former owners knew the new owners would need a riding lawn mower. They left them theirs.

“I recently handled a closing for a doctor who said he had never asked for help from anybody,” Suzi said. “At the closing he sobbed that now he and his family need help from everyone.”

Suzi said she had a recent sale where an estate was involved. The children said they did not want to clean out their parents’ home, so when they learned that the buyers wereNew Orleans storm victims, they just left everything in the house. “That one turned out to be a win-win all the way around,” Suzi said.

One lady’s mother-in-law was a hospice nurse, so they stayed behind when the storm and the flood came for as long as they possibly could. “Leaving for them was very traumatic and there was a not a dry eye around the closing table the day they bought their new home in Zachary,” Suzi explained.

Of course, along with the many good people, there are some who will do anything and everything to take full advantage of the situation. Suzi told of an 80-year-old grandmother who had no place to go when the storm came so she accompanied Suzi’s sister and her husband to Baton Rouge. After a four-week stay with Suzi and Baker Police Chief Sid Gautreaux, the elderly lady became quite comfortable and wanted to remain in Baton Rouge. Her granddaughter in a northern state, however, decided it would be better if she journeyed up there to live, so after she settled her insurance claim on her home she moved up North.

“She was miserable living up there in her granddaughter’s back yard in a little spare room, so she is back,” Suzi explained. “Unfortunately, she is minus a large portion of her insurance settlement.”

Good and bad stories growing out of the greatest tragedy ever to strike the North American continent just keep coming. South Louisiana is recovering, and there is no doubt that some day we will be much better for the experience of dealing with such a great loss right here on our doorstep.

This time it is not those poor people on the other side of the world who are suffering and having to fight their way back from a horrible, deadly tragedy. This time, to butcher Pogo, we have seen the victims and they are us.