An Opportunity Created By A Disaster
Greetings, and welcome to the September 2005 Sampler essay. As described in the recent “August 2005 Sampler” essay, Hurricane Katrina caused a disruption to my life, as it did to so many other lives (it also ended the lives of more than a thousand persons and permanently displaced many others.)
As I type this two decades later, September 2005 remains the only time that I have visited the great state of California, and this visit was made possible in part by Hurricane Katrina.
For a few weeks after Hurricane Katrina, I didn’t know if I had a job. I think that it was right after I realized that I still did have a job but that we wouldn’t resume until late September that I felt justified in scheduling and making advanced purchases for a trip to California for a mid-September trip to take advantage of the situation and just get away for a while during the madness.
I had been in regular contact with my friend Howard Bunte, a friend who is older than my parents, whom I met when we worked together with the Friends Of The Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad. He and his wife lived in Southern California, and I think that we had talked before about me possibly visiting.
Well, this was the time, and, yes, it seems that the only SLR-camera pictures that I took in September 2005 that weren’t personal Katrina-damage pictures were made on this trip. It’s amazing, really.
So, here we go.
Saturday, The 17th
We went to visit the Orange Empire Railway Museum and went to the Perris Valley Airport on this date, but the picture that I am showing you from this date is from Howard’s and Terri’s home.
That is Cara, and she was a very good dog.
Monday, The 18th
We went to Santa Monica, and, there, I saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time in my life.
Then, we went to the Philippe restaurant, and then to LAUPT, where we saw a few trains.
Tuesday, The 19th
We went to Cajón Pass on this date!
We also went to Union Pacific Railroad’s West Colton Yard.
We then went for a flight!
I got to play with the kitten for a little while before it was time to depart the next day.
So, I did get some decent action railroad photographs on this trip, and I added California to the list of states/provinces of which I have presentable action railroad images.
Wednesday, The 20th
Today was the day to return home. I went MSP.
On the way into MSP, a woman sitting next to me on the aircraft was chatting with me, and she asked if I was getting off at MSP or going somewhere else (I don’t know exactly how the conversation got to that); I told her that I was connecting to New Orleans.
“Oh, are you going help with the recovery effort?” she asked.
“No. I am going home,” I said. I was struck by how that possibility seem to have not entered her mind.
Anyway, some airport workers were striking at MSP.
The MSP-MSY flight was weird, and I felt a sense of guilt, because the flight was full of people heading to help with the recovery effort.
That’s all for the pictures for this article.
Back To Work
This was a very harrowing time, and, obviously, not just for me. About a month after Hurricane Katrina struck, we were back at work, and, since I had just started the job a few weeks before, I hadn’t had a chance to get to know most of my colleagues.
I was extremely busy trying to get back into the work mode even though getting back into work mode meant dealing with the mess – including trauma – that Katrina caused. I didn’t take out the new digital SLR camera, which I got only in July, until a week into October, and that is when we will resume this series, with the “October 2005 Sampler” essay next month.
Stay tuned.
Jimbaux
