But Katrina was the record holder up to that time because the levies of new orleans were breached and the damage was so widespread along the coast. NBC used the word "flattened" in describing the damage done to Biloxi and that is a good word for it. New Orleans was flooded, Mississippi was flattened.
I had always made pretty good decisions or so I thought at the time. I now know how many bad decisions I made. How does one make good decisions?" At this point the stranger stopped to take a long pull at his glass which was nearly full. When he set it down it was half empty, but it landed exactly on the circle from which it was listed. No one offered an interruption.
One way is to understand what you want. This is more than just having core values, this is understanding what makes a decision right or what makes it wrong based on how you feel about yourself after you make it.
It was years afterwards that I realized that the decisions I was making were expedient, but that I did not feel good about them. As a matter of fact, I can identify with particularity the last good decision I made up to this point in time. The last decision I made that was a good decision was on a Friday, January 12, 1990. I was sick that day, a head cold, my nose was running and for whatever reason, the skin on my lips had started to crack a symptom which had not yet healed. It was late in the afternoon or early in the evening, around 5:30 and it was beginning to getting cold. There was a stiff breeze. I was in a car on Canal Street in New Orleans. I had been out drinking with a friend of mine and I was a little intoxicated, but not drunk. Having wrestled with the decision for several days, I decided to tell her what was on my mind.
"Was it the same girl?"
"It was a girl."
"What did you tell her?
Instead of answering, the stranger continued as if there had been no conversation. "That was the last good decision I made for next 25 years. I was getting ready to make a series of very bad decisions.
Fade in: Biloxi Mississippi after the storm.
To understand the after effects of Hurricane Katrina is difficult without being there. You could not get gasoline reliably anywhere along the coast and there as none once you entered Mississippi. The interstate was closed and to get to Mississippi you had to get off the interstate before you got to the long bridge and drive through one lane back roads which were lined with downed trees and powerlines through wooded areas where there were only sporadic dwellings. This road had been cleared, but not completely, some of the larger entanglements formed partial barricades that had to be navigated one winding lane at a time.
Once inside Mississippi and at the coast it was an even greater tangle. Landmarks were gone. Casino barges, very large, full sized floating casinos with 5 or 6 floors had been washed ashore, the roadways were littered with them to the extent there were enough of them to qualify as litter. One of these enormous barges was perched on top of the second floor of a hotel. Trees were knocked over and those still standing were missing their leaves. The buildings that still had roofs were missing not just tiles, but entire sheets of plywood.
We met in an office where there were open boxes of MREs (Military Combat rations). There was no power, the only lights were candles. Air conditioning was available in your car, but you used it judiciously to save fuel. The confidence man had a truck with a huge plastic water tank on it which was filled with gasoline.
Buildings were collapsed and a standing building viewed from one direction appeared fine, but when viewed from the other side was completely gutted. Huge buildings were gone, the roads were covered by sand, signs leaned in every possible direction. The asphalt was buckled and bridges were broken or gone completely.
In some places, the crowded roads had been swept clean of everything.
I stood to loose a great deal of money, but it was, after all an annoyance to me. At that time, you see, I thought the most important thing in the world was money."
"What is the most important thing in the world. Are you going to say that love is the most important thing in the world?" Jane asked this expectantly as if she was sure the answer would be something else.
Perhaps love is. If love is not, it is the second most important thing in the world. In that case, living is the most important thing. I thought money was because I had stopped living. Of course, some say you cannot really live without love and you do not understand what living is yet, so any discussion of that is premature.
And perhaps I should add something to the last good decision that I made. It was also the last honest one.
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