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    State of unpreparedness

    A ghost of Hurricane Katrina: Remembering the woman in the elevator ondisaster's anniversary

    Carolina Astrain
    Aug 29, 2010 | 1:39 am
    • More than 350,000 New Orleans homes were destroyed by hurricanes in 2005.
      Photo by Jocelyn Augustino/FEMA
    • The woman in the elevator brought Hurricane Katrina home.
    • In 2006, 150,000 to 200,000 Louisianans made Houston their new home.
    • At first student evacuees came in with low testing scores, but in 2009 Katrinastudents excelled slightly more in reading than Texas students statewide.
    • Murder rate per capita in New Orleans took the number one spot in 2007.

    I have a bad habit of talking to strangers in the elevator. During one of my treks back to Texas from Missouri, my bad manners let loose at a hotel stop. My victim that night was a middle-aged black woman with a somber look on her face.

    I generally like to cheer people up, so I asked her why she was staying there and expected to hear a story about her visiting a grandson gone away to college or a family funeral. Then she me told something that shook the steel doors of the elevator off their hinges — at least, that's what it felt like to me.

    “This is my sixth month here in this hotel,” she said. “My home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.”

    Gravity relapsed back into my stomach. The door opened and she glided out of our temporarily shared space — a ghost out of a TV news report. My eyes centered and my brow lowered. I quietly wished her luck before she faded away down the hall.

    The week of Aug. 29, 2005 was like any other for me. Reading back my old blog entries, I wrote nothing about the Katrina approaching New Orleans (not before it hit). My main subjects were: my high school newspaper's back-to-school lock-in, the cold floors of my stepmother’s house and falling asleep on my keyboard the night before. I was a senior then.

    My friend Michael Quartano and former Missouri classmate, was a high school student in Baton Rouge then. Quartano remembers the population of Baton Rouge tripling within a week of the hurricane’s impact. Reports of rioting and crime poured out of Baton Rouge, all, which Quartano says didn’t happen.

    “The stories came from people in Baton Rouge who were just bothered about refugees moving into their city,” Quartano said.

    Little did I know, Hurricane Rita would soon hit Houston’s Gulf the next month.

    The water only began to show after the sons and daughters of evacuees enrolled into my high school, Humble ISD. In a student population of over 5,000 it was still pretty easy to pick out their salty Louisiana accents. Security at school tightened its grip with seven security officers patrolling the hallways, blowing whistles to corral the bursting student population to class, and corridor sweeps getting made by the vice principals.

    President Obama plans to visit New Orleans on Sunday — the fifth-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina — to remember the tragedy alongside residents of NOLA.

    The former chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Michael Brown, who became a scapegoat for the disaster that ensued, is now a radio host in Denver. Brown broadcast his show from New Orleans Wednesday night.

    In Houston, we’re gearing up to face our next potential hurricane. Our lights will go out, but maybe not for too long thanks to the State Energy Conversation Office (SECO). The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center, a division of the National Weather Service projected a 70 percent probability of eight to 14 hurricanes this season.

    I never saw that woman from the elevator again. But I still think about her sometimes.

    unspecified
    news/city-life

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    Shaquille O'Neal Ninfa's Uptown
    Courtesy of Ninfa's
    Shaquille O'Neal had lunch at Ninfa's Uptown.

    Editor's note: It's time to look back at the top Houston news of the week, starting with a surprise visit — and big tip — from Shaq. Plus, Houston ranks among America's most overpriced cities, and rents rise in Sugar Land. Get the details on our most popular stories below, then find the best things to do this weekend here.

    1. Shaquille O'Neal leaves $1,000 tip at Houston Tex-Mex institution. NBA Hall of Famer and media personality Shaquille O’Neal surprised the crowd at The Original Ninfa’s Uptown when he stopped by for lunch, posing for pics and leaving a very big tip.

    2. Veteran Houston bartender shakes up the Heights with new tropical bar. The woman behind your favorite bartender’s favorite bar has quietly opened a new cocktail spot in the Heights. Called Berwick’s Birds of Paradise, it’s the latest project from Double Trouble owner Robin Berwick.

     Berwick's Birds of Paradise bar Robin Berwick Owner Robin Berwick took inspiration from hotel bars for BBOP.  Photo by Vivian Leba  

    3. Houston is one of America's most overpriced cities, study finds. In what may come as a surprise to some local residents, a new study ranks Houston among the 10 most overpriced cities in America.

    4. This Houston suburb had the highest apartment rent prices in June. Apartment rent prices in June were more expensive in Sugar Land than anywhere else in Houston, according to the latest monthly rent report from Zumper.

    5. Houston influencer opens an antiques-filled boutique hotel in Montrose. 109 Stratford Street in Historic East Avondale has recently opened as a nine-room boutique hotel, The Marlene Inn, from owner and Instagram influencer Lily Barfield.

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