Becky Houtman

After escaping the clutches of the Illinois tollways and arriving in Madison, I got to my dad’s house, and while we were catching up I glanced over at the muted TV and saw the 10:00 local news flash “The Storm: One Year Later.” Strange to cover Katrina recovery on the local news, I thought, and then the scene cut to Stoughton, WI, where a major tornado strike (F-3 level) occurred last year on August 18. I happened to be visiting at the time; one of the touchdown points was about a half a mile from my mother’s house, and the tornado went on to tear up several homes not much farther down the road. For a week and a half, it reigned as the biggest natural disaster I had any truly personal connection to. I hadn’t forgotten it really, but it didn’t occur to me until the news came on that this is its anniversary.

It’s interesting to see now what short- and long-term responses the tornado has prompted around here. Even though it seems so small next to a hurricane, around 80 homes destroyed altogether and dozens more severely damaged makes a big impression in the few small towns hit. FEMA turned them down for disaster assistance, but there’s a Stoughton Area Long-Term Recovery Board helping coordinate SBA and other sorts of assistance, and a Stoughton Area Tornado Relief Fund, as well as at least one resident’s more personal resource site. Even though there’s a world of difference between the storms and their impact, there do seem to be a few points of comparison between “macro” and “micro” disasters and their aftermath. Hopefully Stoughton’s recovery-related intrigue and entanglements are correspondingly smaller too.

Growing up in Madison, WI, I had plenty of early exposure to liberal, progressive and radical politics (not the same things). Becoming “politically active” as early as middle school was a terrific learning experience that I wouldn’t trade for anything, and my bleeding-heart credentials remain intact, but by the time I finished high school, shortly before moving to New Orleans, I was running screaming from anything activist whatsoever. The biggest source of frustration, which can be observed at either end of the spectrum (at any end of the multi-dimensional axes of socio-political movements, actually), was the people who were only in it to hear their own voices – the slogan chanters who lived in such delusional vacuums of absolute ideals that reality (the “fact-based” community – where have we heard that lately) was a personal affront that couldn’t be obliterated soon enough. The people who I came to suspect would be devastated if peace, love and understanding were to break out universally from their very own efforts. But a close second after that frustration was the more than full-time job of staying up to date on politics and policy, constantly reading between the lines – not for the nefarious evildoing that the slogan chanters are always on the lookout for (they don’t actually have to read between the lines, they just write it in themselves) – but to understand what was really going on, what really deserved attention and action. So although, as I said, my bleeding-heart commitment to civil rights, civil liberties, responsible coexistence with the environment, etc. were essentially unchanged, I haven’t had much to do with civic involvement in years. Even after Katrina, I’ve tried to follow the news responsibly, but I’m ashamed to say I just haven’t participated very much at all.

Attempting to compile an overview lately of the nacent Unified New Orleans Plan and all the committees, commissions and conspirators who have played a role going back to last September has brought back all of that old frustration and more, but has had the possibly paradoxical effect of making me want to be more involved, not less. Still, it becomes more and more confusing and appalling at every turn, and each time I think I have a grasp on just one strand I’m more tangled than before moments later. I don’t think I’ve ever had more browser windows and tabs open at one time, and there’s always another post or pdf.

I’m going to bed now, after I check out one more thing (or 10 or 20).