Hammond, LA, Sunday Night

Introducing Jay

Jay Forman, a soon-to-be-married freelance writer from New Orleans, is documenting Katrina for us from his bunker in a hotel room in Hammond, LA. He wishes he’d gotten farther north.

The first feeder bands of Katrina are sweeping over Hammond from east to west. The Days Inn is filling up with refugees from all over Louisiana. Mutual friends from New Orleans materialized an hour ago. They unloaded equipment included an aluminum washtub full of champagne, bottles of vodka and bourbon, folding rocking lawnchairs, and an Alzheimers-ridden grandpa with a live-in nurse. They are Uptown New Orleans folk, so they have real cut-crystal stemware to drink their champagne out of.

A cornrow-sporting fellow in an Atlanta Falcons jersey is hanging out on the breezeway, cheering on the feeder bands as the first storms cross the darkening skies. “Whoo … get your boots on! Here comes the rain,” he enthuses. Uptown lady smoking a cigarette nods agreement. Refugeeism is the kernel of egalitarianism.