Like most people with people "at home" in New Orleans, I found myself both here and there in 2005. By late August, I was daily monitoring weather maps two time zones away. I watched how a "tropical system" gathered force, how it garnered enough ferocity to be granted a name. Katrina looked serious, even from 2,000 miles away. But my family, as always in moments like this, downshifted emotionally, ran a checklist, stilled potential chaos.
My mother, a New Orleans native, made phone calls from Los Angeles. The list included blood ties and friends she considered extended kin.