Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.01.2006, Side 39
On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina collided with the Mississippi Gulf,
all but destroying one of America’s oldest cities, New Orleans, and decimat-
ing a part of the country already experiencing tough times. The Gulf states
have an odd role in American culture: the home of rock n roll, blues, and jazz,
to say nothing of the literary culture that produced America’s most celebrated
author, William Faulkner; the Gulf states also provide the country with oil
and, curiously, a large percentage of its soldiers. As America realised in the
immediate aftermath, the states hit by Katrina, despite being richest in cul-
ture, happen to be America’s poorest, with social injustices and inadequacies
curiously overlooked for the last few decades.
As a tourist magazine in one of the richest countries in the world, the
Grapevine, with the help of sponsor Icelandair, decided to put our money,
time and energy into promoting the culture at the root of American culture.
Our eight days of travel through lands devastated by hurricane and places that
“don’t need no hurricanes to have hard times,” was not an act of charity: the
South, particularly the Delta of America’s great river, is as distinct and rich as
any place in the world, even as one more round of the people who make up
this culture look to flee, a third exodus from America’s Egypt.
The easiest way to get to the Gulf and the Mississippi Delta from Ice-
land is to take a direct flight to Orlando, Florida. From Orlando, Mapquest
gives outlandishly short driving times to Tallahassee, Florida (3 hours 53
minutes) and from there to Mobile, Alabama (3 hours 41 minutes)—the
closest city to New Orleans with hotels that are not full of evacuees and are
not too damaged to be used. Arriving in early December, days after the first
presidential attempt to throw evacuees out of the hotels that were offer-
ing temporary shelter, we realised that Mapquest had not planned for roads
choked with Army Corps of Engineers and the already legendary FEMA
trailers—brand new, and, by the looks of them, unfinished, travel trailers
driven from their manufacturers to help get evacuees out of tents and into
some housing before winter set in.
“Well, I hope you boys have a reservation,” we’re told as we pass two no
vacancy signs at a chain hotel in one of the many sprawling suburbs that make
up Mobile’s metro area.
The man is in good spirits and seems to be expecting a party, so I can’t
help but ask, “Is there a football game or something?”
“No, I’m afraid we’re all full up from ‘refugees’,” he says, applying the
description that we will hear from many of the locals towards those fleeing
the damage in New Orleans and neighbouring towns. “But we’re able to get a
few normal customers in through reservations.”
Our reservations mercifully show up on the screen, and we’re checked
through, passing a number of mattresses in the hallway that have just been
taken out of a one-bed room.
After the Flood
By Bart Cameron | Photos by Gúndi
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PART 1 OF 4Touring the American Egypt