When I moved to Mid-City at the start of 2006, and now when I return to visit my brother, I’m sometimes asked with reserved uncertainty where I grew up or which high school I attended. New Orleanians can tell if you’re from out of town. But because my father’s family is from NOLA and I took my fair share of family-oriented trips down there as a kid (and not-so-family-oriented trips as an adolescent), I don’t totally stand out as being non-native.
Telling them that I grew up in Alexandria seems to explain everything. “Oh, you’re from Northern Louisiana. That makes sense.” As casually as possible, I remind them that not everything above I-10 is in the northern part of the state.
“Alexandria’s in Central Louisiana, not even ninety miles north of Lafayette.” It’s true; citizens in Rapides and other Central Louisianan parishes are proud to be from a distinct area of the state, and will readily defend CenLa as a unique place to live. That isn’t to say that we haven’t been ready to work with both Northern and Southern Louisiana on a range of social and political issues. Moreover, I firmly believe that Central and Northern Louisiana, as largely unprepared as we were, did all that was possible to assist our fellow Louisianans when natural disasters and the failure of federal levees scattered the residents of Southern Louisiana from their homes and communities.
A photo of England Airpark, from MSNBC in 2005:
Darlene Humphrey, foreground center, a nurse with the Alexandria Veterans Affairs Medical Center, tends to one of the patients evacuated in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina from a hospital in New Orleans by the Missouri Air National Guard to Alexandria, La., on Sept. 1.
If Hurricanes Katrina and Rita showed us anything, they showed that our geography in the heart of Louisiana—though just outside of Southern Louisiana—pinpoints the essential role that only we can provide to the rest of the state.
This map charts the paths hurricanes have taken in Louisiana between 1831 and 1975. It is from the Meteorology and Hurricanes section of America’s Wetland Resources, a valuable website with lots of useful information on coastal ecology. Though Alexandria is not completely spared from the damage that is wrought from the heavy thunderstorms a hurricane brings, it is the southernmost city in Louisiana that is outside the hurricane risk zone.
In the opinions of the editors of this blog, Alexandria is currently experiencing growing pains as it determines its place in 21st Century Louisiana. Two years after the catastrophic storms that have become a defining moment for this great state, Louisiana is still reeling from the impacts of those storms. We were reeling then from what was already not a perfect place to live. We have not yet recovered economically or environmentally; we have not recovered in terms of health, education, politics, or social justice. We have not yet recovered from the realization that the destiny of Louisiana is and always has been in our hands alone.
When I went back to Terranova’s in Mid-City last month after being away for a year, my grocer still remembered me. She let me owe her on being a couple of dollars short. “Don’t worry about it, baby. One hand washes the other,” she said in the inimitable Orleans Parish accent that even my father hasn’t completely lost.
One hand washes the other. Now is the time for Alexandria—all of CenLa really—to recognize that it owes it to Southern Louisiana to remake itself as an organizational and technological leader for state emergency preparedness. We must all strive tirelessly, hand in hand, for the future of the entire State of Louisiana.
CenLamar 
Has anyone put any thought into preparing for a hurricane without any air support? Think about it. Look at the New York area The NY TRACON is in Westbury and the ARTCC is in Ronkonkoma. They are about 35 miles apart. If one gets hit with a disaster what are the chances that the other will still be there and operational?
Most likely the radars and the phone lines plus the antennas and dishes will not be there. When the FAA did this I don’t think they were thinking about any kind of disaster plan. I don’t think that there is a government plan that tells you to put 2 vital systems only 35 miles apart.
If you think this is silly then you will love what I have to tell you about South Florida. They are putting the same to vital radar systems only 1.5 nautical miles apart. I would really like to see the government plan that tells them to endanger lives and the economy of an area. I have all the official paper work on this website. http://www.faahope.com I will fight this to try and save the pepole and businesses of South Florida. I have an open case in the Office Of the Inspector General’s in the Department Of Transportation since Jan 2007. I’m not giving up without a fight.
For Louisiana I can tell you this. AEX has been and is still the backup airport for MSY during times of disaster. If you had been attempting to fly anywhere during Rita that took you through Houston you will remember IAH was shutting down days before the storm was due to hit. They jettisoned out all of the smallest planes while continue to fly as many flights as possible. Then they flew as many of the larger planes and crews out away from the gulf area to their final destinations. The same scenario was duplicated across the south as Katrina approached. Airlines are first, not going to jeopardize their huge capital investment and second can’t afford to lose crew members, another large investment. The problem comes when you try to return commercial service to an area and the systems are offline.
The actual system which monitors air traffic has been in serious need of an upgrade for years now. LAX’s problems in the past month have proven that. Temporarily, air support works with literally support from the military tracking aircraft for rescue and recovery.