Part of the gospel of post-Katrina New Orleans is that when you go there, you will cry. "Plan to cry," my friend wrote to me. "Everybody cries."
People who know me as a reporter and editor might bet that I'd get out of there dry-eyed. And I almost did.
On a recent NPR reporting trip, we interviewed a man whose dreams washed away with his businesses, and then his employees betrayed him. We met a young woman whose family lost six homes in the Lower Ninth Ward, some insured and some not. We'd driven all those damned abandoned streets of blown-away homes.
I wore my professional hat like an emotional suit of armor. I wasn't fine, but I was pushing on.
Then on my last day, I lost it. I was touring the ruined Lakeview homes of my friends at The Times-Picayune, including Mark Schleifstein's. Mark is a modest guy who is famous now but wishes he wasn't. He co-wrote a 2002 series saying pretty much that all of this would happen if the Big One ever hit New Orleans.
I started sobbing at the site of Mark's journalism awards scattered amid the mud and debris in his backyard. His home got two feet of water -- on the second floor. Turns out, Mark had tossed the wood and brass plaques outside in hopes that they might dry in the sun.
Mark and others at Picayune are uncomfortable with being counted among Katrina's heroes. But they are. And I do.
Mark is just one of the most famous among them. Jim Amoss is an extraordinary editor. He and features editor James O'Byrne moved the operation from place to place, sometimes city to city, after their headquarters flooded. They led a mostly homeless and devastated staff that never stopped producing great journalism.
Few journalists and the people who support them are ever tested in the way these people were. (And thank God for that.) We all think we know how we'd react if the most a catastrophic storm was bearing down on our communities, families and homes.
We think, abstractly, that we'll suit up and put journalism first and pack our spouses and children off by themselves in gridlocked traffic toward some supposed safe place. But thinking it and doing it are very different things.
Then imagine when the storm passes and the horrific damage is known, your world is gone. Who among us would have the strength to give 500 percent toward holding our families together and another 500 percent to the biggest professional challenge of our careers? This as a whole city -- your city -- is relying on any bit of information you can gather amid fetid flood waters and the collapse of civil order.
Four of us Picayune alumni started a relief fund to help families at the paper. All told, 169 asked for help. We don't release their names and we let them sign up without detailing the extent of their losses. Still, many of them -- editors, reporters, printers, secretaries, ad reps, you name it -- wrote us heartbreaking letters revealing hardships they don't wear on their sleeves at work.
They are deeply grateful to have jobs. But many have little else. They live in lousy, overpriced rental properties or trailers. They drive their kids to far-away, overcrowded schools. Most fight constantly with insurance adjusters, city and federal bureaucrats and bill collectors. They can't sleep.
The Picayune staff surely will win many of journalism's top honors this year. And they deserve them. But what they need right now is cash.
As one woman who lost everything said, "It takes a fortune to start over."
So far more than 700 journalists, journalism groups and people who believe in great journalism have given to The Friends of the Times-Picayune. The Annenberg Foundation, the White House Correspondents Association and the American Copy Editors Society are among the many industry groups that have contributed. The San Diego Union-Tribune library held a fundraiser. So did The News-Gazette in Champaign, Ill. Money has come from leading lights in television news and the Peoria Guild.
After we sent families a first round of checks before Christmas, we received many grateful and moving letters. Let me share two which break my heart for different reasons.
"Because of the storm," one woman wrote, "I lost my house and one of our cars. We are lucky that we have relatives to stay with in Florida, but it is still a very difficult time for us.
"I would like you to know that your efforts are going to bring a lot of happiness to two little children this Christmas. My 5-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter lost all of their toys, clothes and their brand-new bikes because of the storm. We will use this money to buy them each a bike and helmet, replace some of their toys, and to buy them some winter clothing."
A man who lost his home wrote that he was going to use the money to buy a new compressor. But "seeing the need of others, I will go to Wal-Mart and purchase some kids bikes and bring them to the children living in tents down in St. Bernard parish...We intended to do this on Christmas eve...I know you gave this money to help us, and I will gladly reimburse you after the holidays. After all, what I went thru that Tuesday morning ... Being stranded with another employee who could not swim. The two hours it took us to get back to the TP and making it thru the flood seeing the bodies, the looters the shooters. I am just happy I have a chance too see another Christmas."
Heroes, I tell you. Heroes.
Here's the link to give: www.friendsofthetimespicayune.com.
