A New Orleans timeline: Katrina, 9 years on.

It’s hard to believe that today marks 9 years since hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast with devastating impact; sweeping violently ashore wreaking havoc across the states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Almost a decade has now passed since New Orleans’ breached levees and the plight of its under-water, under-siege citizens was beamed into homes across the globe via news report after heart-wrenching news report. 9 years on, vibrancy restored, New Orleans’ resilience shines strong and proud. Yet memories of that time remain vivid for the city and its people, with many scars – emotional and physical still raw and unhealed.

During my recent visit to the South to undertake a Southern Lit road trip with Erin Z Bass, the Editor of Deep South Magazine, my journey began and ended in New Orleans - a favourite destination of mine and a place I like to check in with often. Visiting the city during the summer months, namely hurricane season, you are often reminded that the region is at the mercy of Mother Nature and her volatile weather systems coming in from the Gulf. Keeping an eye or an ear on the weather report becomes second nature. So much so, I follow local news station WDSU’s chief meteorologist Margaret Orr on Twitter, receiving her updates with interest even when I am back home on the other side of the Atlantic.

On my final Saturday in the city a few weeks back, I met my friend Ken for dinner. Promising me the best barbeque shrimp in town, we headed out of the Quarter to Deanies in Bucktown. As we drove along, the evening sky grew dark and brooding with dangerous looking, red-streaked clouds gathering ominously above us. Looking out of the window, I spotted a sign at the side of the road. It marked the site of the 17th Street Canal levee breech, one of the many cracks in the levee system inflicted by Katrina, resulting in almost 80% of the city being under water. By now, the area has been more or less entirely rebuilt - all of the houses we pass as the first fat drops of the evening rainstorm begin to fall, are new. Many are now raised high from the street, standing tall and defiant in the shadow of the repaired levee.

If you talk to a local in the city, you will notice that everything: time, events, memories are all categorised as either pre-or-post- Katrina. It is a phrase heard several times daily.

“Pre-K. ” “Post-K”. A New Orleans timeline.

Over the years, I have read many accounts of that fateful day in late August 2005 and the impact had on a city beloved not just by its inhabitants, but the world over by people like me – who have let lady NOLA work her way into our veins, bewitching our minds and stealing our hearts. One such piece of writing that came to mind often during my recent visit was Welsh poet and one-time Crescent City resident Clare Potter’s ‘Do You Know What it Means?’; her emotionally charged, haunting contribution on Katrina to the special Southern Lit edition of Wales Arts Review I guest edited in July.

Today seems an appropriate time to re-read her poignant words.