From Wednesday, September 3, 2008.
Tonight, when residents were returning to the city, I went and met with some people and talked about how we felt about our reactions to the storm. A lot of people expressed distress that they'd evacuated because other people had begged and badgered them into doing so. There was an overall consensus that those of us who stayed were choosing to have confidence in ourselves and be true to that and risked making our loved ones very angry, and now felt unnecessarily guilty and ashamed (note: I no longer allow people to make me feel unnecessarily guilty and ashamed).
I'm just going to go ahead and say that I am annoyed that some people who urged me to evacuate are disappointed in me, or didn't think I could cope with staying here, or think I'm a selfish idiot.
Note: Three years later, I am more aware that I remain calmer in a crisis than I do when it is not a crisis.
I'll never know what I could have coped with if things had been worse. I am going to say that I did stay on ground that did not flood during Katrina, so if the same areas that flooded had flooded this time, my generator would have functioned differently than the generators owned by people staying in areas that flooded.
Maybe I was crazy for thinking that if an area didn't flood during Katrina, it wouldn't flood during Gustav. That's the logic most of the people who stayed who I've been interviewing followed.
I'm glad that those of you who evacuated are having a great time out there enjoying whatever vacation spot you've landed in, and I really mean that. Maybe the fact that I was camping for the past 2 months made me hesitant to see this evacuation as a vacation. I stand by the fact that I couldn't have handled evacuating. My car wouldn't start on Sunday. I could not have carried 3 animals in a friend's truck. Those are coincidences; I'd already decided to stay.
The main point that everyone I met with tonight at 8 p.m. and everyone I interviewed agreed upon is that it is not fair to yell at someone for staying, to ream someone out for staying, to accuse someone who is staying of causing one stress that he or she does not need.
That is something for a person to discuss with his or her own therapist. It is not my fault that certain people had nothing better to do than blame me for contributing to their stress. I am not talking about Joe or Sarah or Matt here, whose comments were brief and came from love and concern and not anger. I am speaking for everyone who chose to stay here and didn't need to hear it from everyone who was watching CNN news or suffering from whatever affliction prevents them from staying out of other people's lives.
It does not help to browbeat a person into evacuating. Some of my friends who evacuated because they were yelled at and blamed for others' anxiety are a mess now. They're either not back yet or here, crying and breaking down that they are more anxious than ever. They may be ingesting certain beverages that are deadly for them.
People make their own choices, and I am not blaming anyone who evacuated. I am not sitting here thinking I was smarter than anyone else. I was just lucky that it wasn't Nagin's "Mother of all storms" and that I had my wits together to prepare for the storm. The fact that my parents supported me speaks volumes, and they actually listened to my plan instead of telling me I was putting the life of a rescue worker at risk.
So for all of you out there who reamed out those of us who stayed, who yelled at us and belittled us and bombarded us with distracting text messages about how we contributed to your anxiety, please try to keep the focus on yourselves next time. Your venting did not help. Whatever calm reaction/behavior the people who stayed held onto was in spite of the blame and anxiety of other people. When you called and emailed me and asked me to drive by your house to see if it had flooded, I did. I took photographs and emailed them to you and uploaded them to my blog and even to Facebook immediately.
So remember that the next time you want me to pack up my cat and sit in traffic on the interstate and not smoke in your car. Because if you manage to knock me unconscious and drive me out of here, it is then that you will have to worry about me. I cannot handle evacuating (I can provide a doctor's note), and you would not want me with you.
And if a mandatory evacuation is called this summer, if I get even one angry email from a NOLA resident about how much of a burden I am for not evacuating, I will not respond to that person's requests for photographs, house checks, or tips for getting back into the city.
With love,
Tara Jill
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