Michael:
Our Site Ratings indicate that we are in the Pacific Northwest but, in actuality, we are over a thousand miles to the southeast, in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Our day began with thundershowers. We emerged from our rain soaked tent with the sun, at 6:00am, packed up and left the sweltering confines of Hot Springs National Park.
We spent the drive riveted to the radio and the exploits of Hurricane Katrina. We listened to the live CNN feeds, from Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Gulfport and Biloxi. Last December we spent 10 days in the affected area. We knew the Mississippi Gulf Shore motels and the levees that line the delta. We had been to the Superdome. We had spent time with the people who were bracing themselves for the worst.
That same December we did not head eastward to the Gulf Shore Islands NS in Pensacola, Florida. A Ranger told us that 2004’s string of hurricanes had wiped it out. Instead, we continued on to Orlando, Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte and saw their yet-to-be-cleaned-up devastation. At the time, Gab’s brother was working in Orlando with friends in the roofing business.
People in Alabama and Florida saw our out of state license plates and assumed we were relief workers. And this was months after the hurricanes hit. Now it is happening again.
We did not expect to be affected by Katrina. Maybe a shower here and there but Little Rock is more than a stone’s throw from New Orleans. We have a Park Site, a Presidential Library and a State Capitol to see while we are here. All are indoors.
But first, we needed a motel room. We pulled into a Comfort Inn to use their wireless internet. Our attempts to Priceline a room failed, as it had the night before. Odd. And why was the hotel parking lot full at 2:00pm? Usually all motel parking lots are empty until much later in the day. We looked at the plates. Louisiana, Mississippi, Mississippi, Louisiana, Louisiana. Could they possibly be evacuating this far north?
Plan B: bring out the coupon books. There were plenty of options so we headed to North Little Rock, an area rife with cheap hotels. Parking lots were full. Kids, dogs, trucks brimming with clothing and personal items, families, adults chain smoking outside and men returning to the motels with six packs.
Holiday Inn. No Vacancy. Red Roof Inn. No Vacancy. Travelodge. No Vacancy. Calls to five other motels. No Vacancy. “Do you have any suggestions”, we asked. The response, “I reckon every hotel in town is booked. Maybe you could find a room in Clinton.” “That’s 20 miles to the north.” “Yep.”
We imagined this scene in every city outside of Katrina’s wake. Shreveport, Lafayette, Houston, Monroe, Port Charles, Jackson, Memphis, Vicksburg, Montgomery, Texarkana, Greenville and every other city within 500 miles of the Gulf coast. Heck, Little Rock is 450 miles north of New Orleans. The mass exodus breaks your heart.
This morning in the car, the hurricane was just a topic of conversation. Tonight, we drove behind cars hastily packed, parked next to trucks filled with makeshift suitcases and coolers, watched people walk their dogs in any available space outside the motels and make conversation with other unwilling travelers. Katrina became real.
In 1979, during the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, my family left Harrisburg. We journeyed to my grandparents’ house in New Jersey. We had somewhere to go in that time of stress, anxiety and uncertainty. We are fortunate that during TMI we did not have to find a motel room in strange city and did not have to drive 400 miles to find vacancy.
Eventually, we found a room here in Little Rock, but it does not feel like a motel. No one wants to be here. They want to be home. Tomorrow they will begin their return. We can only pray that everything will be OK.