Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric Apr 2008 Open Access

When the Wind Blows: The Search for Normalcy During the Hurricanes of 2005

Melissa Nicolas

Abstract

Even though Lafayette, Louisiana is 150 miles to the west of New Orleans, the city was affected by Katrina, and its twin, Rita, in significant ways. While the eye of neither storm passed directly over Lafayette, we experienced a cosmology episode as the effects of back-to-back severe hurricanes made the world, if only for a short time, less rational and orderly. Based on personal experience as well as an analysis of student essays, this article is an attempt to articulate an essence of a liminal time. Exploring how we attempted to narrate this crisis can provide insight into the ways language works to make, and to simultaneously resist, the discursive event of trauma into a lived experience.

Journal
Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric
Published
2008-04-01
DOI
10.59236/rjv7i1-2pp64-77
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  1. Richardson (2005)
    Time to Evacuate
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