I had my first experience with satellite imagery 20 years ago, sitting in my Uncle Nell’s work office at his home in Allen, Texas. The satellite imagery site was called Google Earth. Twenty years after Hurricane Katrina forever changed my family’s life, I reflect on how almost overnight, our experience with technology changed too: from VHS to DVDs; box TVs to flat screen TVs; landline phones to cell phones for the whole family, and paper maps to GPS.
It was within the first week or so that my family—Mom, Dad, and my older brother, Jonathan (“Johnny”)— had evacuated to my Uncle Nell and Aunt’ Carol’s house from New Orleans following the landfall of Hurricane Katrina. What my parents initially planned to be a one-to-two–day hotel stay in Downtown New Orleans to ride out the storm became a one-month forced evacuation away from the city upon discovering from one NOPD officer and later, from multiple news outlets that 80 % of New Orleans was underwater.
I remember that day that I went into my uncle’s home office to see our home on this new satellite map called Google Earth. Because my family’s only access to what was occurring in New Orleans was through news media outlets, none of us could confirm whether our home was underwater, even as disturbing footage of local water-engulfed homes and businesses and folks stranded on rooftops across the city was plastered over CNN and corresponding news stations.
Once I typed in my family’s New Orleans address into Google Earth, I discovered a slightly-blurred aerial view of our home—mainly our roof, surrounded by water. I called my parents into the room to see it. I think we were all in disbelief because although this map showed “live” real-time imagery of our home, because we could not view any up-close photos of our home—neither our windows, front door, nor the oak tree that covered our front yard—we could not confirm that our home was truly flooded.
It would not be until early October 2005, when my family would be able to return home for the first time after the destruction of Hurricane Katrina and the breaching of the levees flooded our beloved city.
“Everything is gone . . . The clothes on my back is all I own.”
VHS to DVD
While my family was able to salvage some possessions from the wreckage of Katrina , there were a lot of precious possessions that were lost in the flood, one of these including the only family video footage on VHS tape (circa 1993) that Johnny had found in our home about a year before Katrina. After staying with my Uncle Nell for those intial weeks following our evacaution from New Orleans, my parents rented an apartment in Allen, TX close by the new middle school that I was attending, Ford Middle School, and close to my brother’s high school, Allen High School. While many of our family members were still temporarily evacuated out of New Orleans in other cities across Louisiana, Texas, and Georgia, my immediate family’s access to New Orleans was primarily through news mediums.
The former box TV that provided our source of news and entertainment in New Orleans—accompanied by the now equally obsolete VHS player—had been replaced with our family’s first flat screen TV and DVD player. While technology changes seem relatively minor amid the tumultuous experience of Hurricane Katrina, these shifts have formed an invisible demarcation line of time; it has marked a time when every year since 2005, my family has often referred to life in New Orleans as “pre-Katrina.” Similar to how many people now say “pre-COVID” to describe their different life patterns that existed before the 2020 global pandemic shutdown, “pre-Katrina” describes that similar time for my family and many other families affected by Hurricane Katrina.
Twenty years later, the one cultural technological relic that I have from New Orleans, pre-Katrina, is a cassette tape (circa 2002) of a prophet ministering to my parents, my brother and me at our local church. I will not disclose the details of that prophecy, but one of those prophecies that my mom often reminded me of years before her passing—and one that I can verify in my own life now that Mom is gone—is that I would always have a village of women to support me. One day, I might purchase a cassette tape player to relisten to that prophecy because of the decades passed.
Landline Phone to Cell Phone
I received my first cell phone at the age of thirteen. It was December 25, 2005, my family’s first Christmas living away from New Orleans after Katrina. Johnny had already received his first cell phone either earlier that year or in 2004, when he was sixteen or seventeen years old. This might seem wild for Gen Z and Gen Alphas to grasp, but perhaps most interesting is that our first cell phones were not smartphones. My parents gifted each other their first cell phones as stocking stuffers during Christmas 1998. We still have partial pictures of this moment in one of our salvaged family photo albums from Hurricane Katrina.
My first cell phone was a Cingular Nokia phone, almost palm-sized, with no WiFi or texting capabilities (I didn’t talk that much to peers outside of school anyway LOL). I only used it to call my parents, my brother, and the few friends that I had. The only games that I had on my phone were Sudoku and some mnemonic snake-type game that I cannot remember its name.
My parents did not keep that rotary phone long after moving into our beloved home in 1996. If I can recall, their last bedroom landline before Hurricane Katrina contained a black answering machine. Up until the day that we evacuated for Katrina—August 28, 2005—my parents had a corded phone in the kitchen, which I loved using because we had a nice barstool sitting beneath the phone to answer incoming calls or to dial out (we also had the Yellow Pages, which if you know, you know 
).
Paper Maps to GPS
I do not remember if my parents ever used paper maps prior to Hurricane Katrina to navigate to certain destinations across Louisiana; if they did not, that is understable being that both of them were born and raised there for over 40+ years and likely knew every inch of New Orleans in particular. Although I was too young to drive while living in New Orleans (I was twelve years old when Katrina displaced us), I suppose that my parents may have used MapQuest to navigate our family road trips outside of Louisiana. Mom was always adamant about printing two copies of directions for our travels; I particularly, remember this when I became older, and whenever Mom and I traveled together—via air travel or road trips—she always made sure that we had two copies of our travel plans, especially flight tickets. Even when flight check-ins became digitized, Mom always insisted on having two forms of proof—both in paper LOL.
Today’s Technology
As a millenial, I feel that I experienced rapid technology changes that unlike my boomer parents’ generation that lived for decades into adulthood before using cell phones, I adapted to without having to reminisce about a time without these changes. For me, Sony Walkmans, CD Player Alarm Clocks, stereos, AOL, and floppy disks, along with corded phones and VHS tapes, embellished my childhood. In high school, MP3 players and digital music streaming replaced my Sony Walkman players, and today, all of my cell phones that I have owned since my junior year of high school (circa 2008) have been smartphones. Also now, I can listen to any song from the comfort of my smartphone. YouTube has also been a huge reservoir of nostalgia since I discovered it after Hurricane Katrina, around 2005-2006, soon after its founding.
*Cover Photo Credit: Rod Long on Unsplash