New Orleans, La. (Aug 31, 2005) Ð Aerial view from a U.S. Navy helicopter assigned to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron Two Eight (HSC-28), showing the rising flood waters threatening the entire downtown New Orleans city center, including the famed New Orleans Saints Super Dome. Tens of thousands of displaced citizens sought shelter at the dome, before, during and after Hurricane Katrina, but have been forced to evacuate as flood waters continue to rise throughout the area. HSC-28 flies the MH-60S Seahawk variant, based out of Norfolk, Va., and is embarked aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHD 5) participating in humanitarian assistance operations led by the Department of Defense, in conjunction with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Bataan has been tasked to be the Maritime Disaster Relief Coordinator for the NavyÕs role in the relief efforts. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate Airman Jeremy L. Grisham (RELEASED)
In rememberance of lives lost and lives forever changed due to the Federal levee breach in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I’ll be posting poems and short essays I’ve written over the past 10 years through August 29.
Never Forget.
*****
Washed Away
Every time I smell that scent
it brings back those long summer
days – and the winter ones too –
when we all sat outside together
smoking and talking, laughing at
your stories, you were always
the funny one quick with a joke
and a smile, the glint of devilment in
your soft brown eyes, you beguiled
us all with your charming Cajun ways
talking about growing up on the bayou,
riding bikes in the cane fields where
you claimed you once saw a Big Foot
and about how the older boys chased
you and hit you with brooms
at Courir de Mardi Gras.
But then The Big One came and washed
us all away to Memphis, Dallas, Asheville
and even all the way to New York,
scattered from our ribbon cane murmurs
and confidences, our laughter and
complacence. Washed away, never
to return the same again.
2013
Charlotte Hamrick 