November 30, 2005 2:52 PM

QUESTIONS OF FAITH

When I returned home to assess my damages after Hurricane Katrina, I checked my mailbox and found the September issue of New Orleans Magazine. It was drenched but in one piece, so I put it aside in my car to let it dry; I figured I could thumb through it later on when I was just sitting around in exile, waiting for my hometown to become inhabitable again. I ended up forgetting about it. About three weeks later, I came across it again. I picked it up, and as I flipped through the crinkly pages, I felt heartbroken as I revisited the New Orleans that I once knew before it was destroyed a short time ago.

The editorial “Should we really believe in this season’s Saints?” piqued my interest as I am a diehard Saints fan. While reading I was stopped dead in my tracks. My eyes could not move beyond the line “We have faith that the levees will not burst.” I read that line over and over again, trying to understand just how prophetic those words were at the time they were written. The other statements also struck me, but that first one brought tears to my eyes because of just how meaningful that statement is now. We always knew “the big one” would one day hit New Orleans, but we hoped it would never happen within our lifetime. I know I personally have had faith that “approaching hurricanes will take that last-minute turn to the right” as stated in the editorial.

As I continued, I realized the irony of most of that issue: dozens of advertisements for New Orleans’ private schools; “People to Watch,” the annual profile of the up-and-comers among various professional fields, and the new and different things they will be doing within the coming year; Modine’s gripe of entertaining guests – “we was ground zero for Category Fives. You would think people would want to take their vacations somewhere that ain’t so likely to be ... submerged anytime now.” All of these are examples of the reality we lived just over a month ago. Today it’s scrambling to find schools with room for our students; the uncertainty of rebuilding our city – who will do it, how and with what money; family and friends who can’t visit us to experience the world-famous “Big Easy” right now. But they, along with strangers, have opened up their arms, homes, wallets and hearts to us. God bless them.

I’m grateful this issue made it to me before Katrina. I know I will never forget what New Orleans was like before Aug. 29, 2005, but this magazine, crinkly and water-logged as it is, is a tangible reminder of the New Orleans that once was. Y’all have always done a great job, and I have faith y’all will come back bigger and better, along with the rest of New Orleans.

Mary E. Colomer — Metairie

Reply: Thank you for your comments, Mary. We still have faith.

Katrina did take that last-minute turn to the right. It was just the levees that let us down.

SYMPATHY FROM ABROAD

I have been reading your magazine online and just wrote to offer my condolences to everyone affected by Hurricane Katrina (admittedly belated). Over here in the U.K. (I live in a tiny suburb outside London called Esher), we have all been shocked by your tragedy, and our thoughts are with everyone.

Keep up your good work.

Roger Malins — Esher, England

P.S. Nice magazine.