I’m always nervous this time of year because we’re now approaching the so­-called “heart” of the annual hurricane season. Everyone in New Orleans who lived through Katrina has the same feelings that I do, I would venture to guess. The newcomers who haven’t been in New Orleans during a run-of­-the­-mill (if there is such a thing) hurricane anticipatory period probably can’t relate.

I’ve lived and worked in this city for the majority of my life, and even when I was a little girl, I can remember the anxiety in the air when the end of the summer rolled around.

We went through Hurricane Betsy, and the big hackberry tree in front of our house fell on the roof, but no one got hurt. We didn’t flood; our house was close to the river, but we waded through a lot of water for a couple of days (back then kids played outside in the street in the neighborhoods until the sun went down—and sometimes after—so we had fun getting good and wet and dirty).

Betsy hit when I was a freshman in high school, and there were a lot of kids in my school who lived in St. Bernard Parish who weren’t as lucky as us. Their houses were severely flooded, and it was terrible to hear their stories about having no place to live.

If you live in New Orleans, you’re going to face hurricane anxiety at some point. It’s just a fact; it’s part of your year, like Mardi Gras or Christmas. The local weather reporters love hurricane season because it makes no difference what the other news of the day is: It’s their show, and they manage to ramp up the drama (and the fear) whenever they can. Joseph won’t watch the local weather when there’s a tropical storm that could threaten us; he says they use scare tactics, and I kind of agree with him. We’re leery enough as it is, people.

But at least we have some warning when a tropical storm or hurricane is imminent. Not so all the poor folk in Louisiana who experienced flooding from torrential rain and overtopping rivers that went down in the past couple of weeks. It breaks my heart to realize that most of them had no clue they’d ever have to deal with terrible flooding. It’s really devastating for those people who had no flood insurance. Brings back all those Katrina nightmares.

I guess the moral of this story is that if you live in southern Louisiana, at some point your butt is going to be kicked by Mother Nature. Best to take it all philosophically. It’s an integral part of life that we deal with every single summer. Stay safe.