First, a cruel irony in my personal life. My significant other and I met while living in New Orleans 19 years ago, and split up last Friday. Throughout our relationship, the specialness of New Orleans came through in our inside jokes and comments, though neither of us grew up there (I’m a Bostonian). The leveling of the Crescent City somehow seals the breakup for me.

Now, more about the response: “The City That Care Forgot” is not a city that moves quickly. Of course, no one could predict the awfulness of what has happened, but it’s a city ill-equipped to take warnings seriously. The poverty, the educational gaps, the uniqueness of the political system is at a level I haven’t seen anywhere else in America. I suppose the strength we’ll see in the people here will be in a sort of tacit acceptance in whatever happens, and though New Orleaneans don’t move fast, they keep going.