When Zeta Struck
New Orleans is known for its tremendous amount of hurricanes when it comes to natural disasters. The biggest being Hurricane Katrina at a category three. On Wednesday, Oct. 28 things went left for New Orleans natives. The most recent was Hurricane Zeta at category two. Some of you are like a category two isn’t nothing to worry about but this storm came guns blazing.
According to an article on cbsnews, “Hurricane Zeta made landfall near Cocodrie, Louisiana, on Wednesday afternoon as a Category 2 storm, lashing the coast with 110 mph winds, according to officials. Forecasters said the hurricane was hitting the Gulf Coast with a life-threatening storm surge and strong winds.”
A lot of people were affected by this storm. New Orleans native Chianti Williams commented on the storm’s effect.
“See for the past two storms it was about the same. The news will make it seem serious, we go in stores stock up, close down schools and jobs; the whole nine. Then the day the storm was supposed to hit , it’ll rain like 30% and the rest of the day it’ll be sunny, so with this storm nobody really didn’t take it seriously. But when it hit it hit. It wasn’t no Hurricane Katrina but the winds were very strong. My backyard gate is literally three fourths gone,” commented Williams.
Many people had gates down, street signs broke, tree downs, power lines fell and lights were shut down for days. Tanya Harris from New Orleans discussed the trauma she felt.
“I was so disgusted like who can live without lights for four days! That’s just too much. You’re hot, can’t charge your phone, watch tv, having to take your bath in the dark, and I can’t even fix my good old food. Nothing was open for you to get any supplies . If there was a place open, you had to search in the store in the dark. It was chaos. I went to a hotel but left the next day because it felt like I was in jail. I couldn’t leave the room so me and my family took a trip to Biloxi and went out to eat. The best part that came out of this was my family and I being together. When the lights came back, I had a smile ear to ear,” Harris said.
This party city could not party for several days. With the power lines being blown away by the strong winds it caused some people’s lights to be off for four-nine days. On the first night the lights went down they were gatherings at certain places around the city, who had lights and sold food.
Mother and daughter New Orleans natives Valarie Gilmore and Breyon La’bry stated what it was like that night.
“There were only two places open the first night the lights went out. Both places were the gas station Brother’s. There was one open in Orleans parish and one open on the Westbank. When I tell you it was pack. People were out there chilling and buying chicken. All you could hear people saying is ‘this s*** is terrible, how the lights go off around the whole city.’ It was just too much all at once for everyone. All I think about is that they had people with breathing problems who had breathing machines and women with children,” stated La’bry.
“All I’m going to say is the next storm they have I’m leaving because it’s ridiculous that the lights had to be off for that long. New Orleans got to do better. All those people including myself at Brother’s was not it at all. And we still have Covid-19 going on. It was just too much. All I know is I missed my lights. I will never forget the year 2020,” Gilmore said.
However, in several days, the lights came back on and the city was back on its normal flow. Everyone in New Orleans being so used to the circumstances of a storm they all just had to go about it as another memory. For these New Orleans natives Zeta will be one for the books.
