Twenty years after Hurrican Katrina, Clint Smith recalls returning to his family’s home in the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans after the floodwaters receded. Confronted with destruction, debris, and streets devoid of the sounds of life, Smith recounts the human suffering her witnessed while evacuated and how forever after, the storm has become a common reference point to demarcate a point in time for those who survived.
When I stepped inside again, I saw that the walls were covered with mold. Blue-green spores were everywhere. The floorboards were warped; some had come loose. The refrigerator door hung open, rotten food spilling out. The television in the living room was face down on the floor. My mother’s wedding dress, which had been designed and sewed by a local seamstress who had made dresses for generations of Black New Orleans women, lay ruined on the floor beneath the stairwell. A kitchen stool hung by one of its legs from the chandelier in our dining room, but the dining-room table was no longer there. The rising water had lifted it up and carried it into our living room.
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