A Counselor Looks Back on Katrina and Its Effect on His Life

Professor Zarus E. P. Watson, Ph.D., an Associate Professor of Counselor Education at the University of New Orleans, is a counselor who experienced the trauma that Katrina brought first-hand. In his account of the tragedy and its effects on his family, it's clear that this event has deeply affected Dr. Watson and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

"Several months following the storm, Congress Street was still clogged with water-soaked mud, trash and debris that was often unidentifiable. Cars were overturned and piled atop each other; most did not even seem to be from the immediate neighborhood. These vehicles, along with other large objects (pieces of homes and trees for the most part) rested in the streets as well as on lawns whose grass was brown and dead from the weeks of inundation following the levee breaks which occurred the day after hurricane Katrina swept through New Orleans.

The trees, mostly pines and elms, were broken and uprooted; the rest that were left standing, were mostly dead skeletons. My father's palm tree, located along the side of the house, was a landmark of the neighborhood especially for the nativity scene which was displayed under it every year. While the palm was still in place, it was no longer green but was rather golden in its death. In years past, since I was about eight years of age, everyone would come by around Easter time to get a palm branch for blessing at the local Catholic church. I was usually charged with cutting off a number of branches so that the church would have an ample supply for those who would seek them after mass.

The local parks, such as Bunny Friend Playground, were but shattered shadows of what I knew as a young boy. All of my once familiar surroundings I viewed surrounded by an eerie silence. Not a sound could be heard, not a bird or a cricket, not even at a distance; nothing but my own sloshing foot steps and the wind blowing through what were once homes, well kept gardens and trees.

I ventured with a colleague from my family's upper ninth ward neighborhood to the lower ninth ward area where I expected to see my cousins' homes, as well as the past home of my father's godmother. After all, as horrifically shattered as my own neighborhood was, with houses sporting gaping holes and in a state of collapse, they were, at least, still in place and I knew where I was. I was confident that it would be the same there. I was wrong.

My father wanted to know how his godmother's home fared. It took me some time to get my bearings. The neighborhood was very near one of the levee breaks and many homes had been swept blocks from where they should have been.  Many street were simply impassible. I had to look at the Claiborne Bridge as a land mark to find my bearings in a neighborhood that I had been walking in for at least forty years.

I did finally find my father's godmother's home site (it had a very distinctive color of brick). I saved my father a brick that I found on the site, the rest of the house was just gone; I thought I saw a piece of the roof several blocks away. Nor could I find any of my cousins' homes on Tennessee Street.  I thought I was part of a movie set; that this reality around me could not possibly be real. My colleague helped me process what I was seeing but for all intents and purposes, I had emotionally shut down (I just didn't know it).

Among Afro-Creoles (those whose families can be traced back in the area well into the 1800's and beyond), home is equally about place as much as about people. We can recognize each other not only by facial features but by the elementary school you attended, your family's home church, as well as your last name. There are no six degrees of separation within this community, at most, it's two.

It is said that Afro-Creoles never leave the City itself to work or live. While this is not true physically (many of us do and have left over the decades), it is true psychologically and emotionally. Home is always in a recognizable place. The place represents where you're from and what you're about in a nation that has become increasingly "rootless." And please don't think that the other recognizable social groups (various Caucasian, indigenous and other persuasions) in other parts of the country are immune from this type of deep trans-generational attachment. We all feel it; though we may deny it, much as I did in the weeks following my return. In fact, it took me almost two months to allow myself to let out my trauma (even counselors need counseling). Yet, it seemed to be only a temporary relief.

Almost a year later, I recognized why I could not experience sustained relief. Though progress was being slowly made, the staggering magnitude of this traumatic event was and still is ongoing. Up to only a few months ago, bodies were still being found up in places that had not been thoroughly searched. Miles of shattered houses still exist outside of the oldest neighborhoods; neighborhoods that often must be passed as people go about their day to day existence. I, for one, can't get to work at the University without going through neighborhoods that bear little resemblance to what they once were.

These were the neighborhoods of friends, relatives, classmates and even colleagues. The re-traumatization is almost constant. It forces me to consider that the counseling profession will need to redefine what constitutes a traumatic event. Can the event be a finite moment without taking into account its aftermath, which can be, and certainly is in New Orleans, long lasting. I think not. The aftermath is still with me and will be as long as once familiar neighborhoods are shattered or erased.  Even more importantly, as long of those members of our community who have long anchored us culturally (like my parents and the parents and grandparents of others) are not present in the struggle.

I would like to leave you with at least one ray of hope in what must sound like a Greek tragedy. I happened to go over to my parent's home in my old neighborhood with some colleagues from the ACA foundation and something happened. The grass on the lawn was green and someone, who obviously knew us, found the baby Jesus from the nativity scene and left it in the window. That felt good."