For Storm Survivors, a Mosaic of Impressions - New York Times

For Storm Survivors, a Mosaic of Impressions - New York Times: "BATON ROUGE, La., Sept. 10 - For the survivors of Hurricane Katrina, there is no shared moment to put one's finger on, no clock-stopping space-holder of history as there was on Nov. 22, 1963, or on Sept. 11 to remind them: this was where we were and what we were doing when it all came down.

The disaster was incremental rather than cataclysmic. Instead of a crystalline moment of memory, there are infinite numbers, each with its own marker: a long journey, a recurring noise, the last words of a dear relative. Depending on where people were, what decisions they made in the blur of the crisis and how the authorities responded, every portrait of the storm is different, like a jigsaw puzzle in which no two pieces are alike.

For Robert Newman Jr., a 32-year-old resident of St. Bernard Parish, about seven miles south of New Orleans, the thing that sticks in his head about the storm is a chorus of screams. People in Mr. Newman's community, one of the most devastated areas in Hurricane Katrina's path, watched for days in growing rage and frustration as helicopter after helicopter raced overhead, bound north for New Orleans with no acknowledgment of the stranded, beleaguered people below. He came to understand, he said, how a person could go crazy enough to shoot at a helicopter, if only from the unbearable stress and anxiety of being ignored for days on a roof without water and food."