What is Important Here, Part 2 of 6

Nugget For The Noggin

What is Important Here – Part 2

Article by: Jim “Gymbeaux” Brown, September 2, 2005

NOTE:  May 2014:  This is the second of six Nuggets that I wrote in the weeks following Hurricane Katrina that struck the Louisiana/Mississippi Gulf Coast.  There are loads of lessons to be learned and hopefully posting these may help someone in the future better cope with the disasters of life.

Today is Friday, September 2, 2005 and it has been 5 days since Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast of the United States.  The initial shock has worn off.  The television images will be with me the rest of my life.  The original Nugget, ”What is Important Here” is just as valid today as it was before Katrina struck – but my world has changed dramatically to where it will never be the same ever again.

What has happened since Monday?  Let me review.

If I could have put all 70 of my crew (the real estate agents in my office) and their families into my car I would have.  As it stands now, I have heard from only 1/3 of them.  As for the other 2/3, who knows for sure?  I feel confident that they are all safe and sound but the cell phones are not working or the circuits are too busy to take my calls, either way, I have no idea if they are safe or not.  That is not a good feeling.

So I use the Internet, more specifically email, to try to reach out to my crew.  Then came the surprises.  Email after email came in from Keller Williams Realty Market Centers throughout the country all offering some form of assistance.  They offered food, money, water, clothes, and/or a place to stay.  Frankly the response was overwhelming.  Actually it was MORE than overwhelming; it brought tears to my eyes (not an easy thing to admit for a macho guy like me J).  Not only did they come, they continue to come. 

Then I received an email from Mo Anderson of our Corporate Headquarters who informed me that Keller Williams International has raised more than $800,000 in just over two days of trying.  This is money donated from my fellow Keller Williams Realty associates.  That speaks volumes about our company and its culture and beliefs.

I am asked what can we do to help?  How do I respond?  I don’t know where all my associates are let alone their condition, financially, emotional or physical well being.  I know what it means to want to help as in 9/11.  You have such an overwhelming helpless feeling at the same time being a little grateful that it was not me.  To answer their question; I simply don’t know at this time.  I would suggest sending money to Keller Cares because it serves the Keller Williams Associates who are experiencing difficulties beyond those normally experienced in life.  In that regard, I would say Katrina would qualify.

Then my mind wanders onto reality.  How will my crew sell real estate over the next 4 to 6 months and thus earn an income?  This feeling was magnified today when I returned to Slidell and saw my city first hand and what Katrina had done to it.  It was not a pretty picture!  There were trees down everywhere.  Telephone poles were sheared off half way up the pole and the top with transformers were lying on the roadways.  There was damage to almost every building in one way or another.  Then I came upon my home.  There it was intact with every tree lying on the ground with huge clumps of dirt and sod still on the roots but protruding upwards like a monument to Katrina.  Then in my back yard a massive tree, it had fallen only a foot from my home and a foot from two other homes.  It was as if God said it was time for this tree to die but it was not time for it to take out my home or my neighbors homes.  Instead, it looked like it had been gently placed on the ground between the three of us – imagine that!  The only real damage to my home was a missing attic vent/fan that left a 12 inch diameter hole in my roof and water stains on the ceiling of my master bedroom.  In addition, many roofing shingles were missing.  Maybe it signals a new roof.  Just two short weeks prior to Katrina I had called to get an estimate on my “old” roof; it was time.  Coincidence?  Maybe, maybe not!  (2013 update.  It was not until weeks or even months after Katrina that other damage in our home started to appear like cracked bricks on the siding and cracks in the sheetrock on several ceilings and walls.  I called a structural engineer who came to look at the home and said it was fine that all the damage was superficial and probably was created when the home was shaken by the severe winds.)

Then my wife and I went about Slidell to check on relatives homes.  That is when the tears started to flow.  Beautiful homes with furniture piled up in the front rooms having been tossed and floating about the home in water up to waste high.  Garage doors literally blown out as the incoming water and wind literally pushed debris against the doors from the inside pushing the doors outward towards the street.  There was debris everywhere you looked.  Damaged roofs, toppled trees, down power lines, abandoned cars.  Then I saw what I still cannot believe.  A local car dealer had cars sitting on top of cars and one SUV was literally balancing itself atop fence in a ditch in front of the dealership.  Another rare site was a houseboat, intact, sitting on the west bound lane of I-10.  When I checked out my niece’s home, I was shocked to see a huge shipping container sitting on the front yard of the home next door to hers.  Where did that come from?   Her home also had water and the shingles on the roof were almost totally gone.

One cannot help but ask, Why does this happen?  What have any of these people ever done to warrant such unbelievable destruction?  What are we going to do now?  Will we rebuild?  Will we relocate?  How are we going to survive?  How are we going to pay our bills which will not come because there is no one home and the Post Office is probably holding the mail anyway?  Even if I get a bill, the mailing address is in New Orleans and no one is going to receive it.  Then the Big Question!  Why was I spared this destruction?  I am no better than any of the people whose homes were devastated. 

As I write this second Nugget I have no answers to any of these questions.  I am simply grateful that it was not Diane and me sitting in the Superdome or treading water in New Orleans.  Is that selfish?  Maybe so, maybe not but it is what I am thinking.

Throughout this entire ordeal, I have a tremendous sense of pride.  First in the U. S. Coast Guard of which I was a member for twenty years.  You have to admit, they look great on television.  I have been out of the Guard since 1985 and I still get goose bumps when I see a Coast Guard Cutter or Helicopter go by.  Today I have a new sense of pride in the men and women of the organization I currently work for, Keller Williams Realty.  I am confident that in the future, I will experience those same goose bumps whenever I see a Keller Williams Realty yard sign or advertisement.  There is the same unique oneness with each other that I experienced as a member of the Coast Guard team.  For those who are reading this and have not served in the Coast Guard or work with Keller Williams Realty, you will have to take my word for this – it is truly special.

So I am now back in Birmingham, (the power is still out in Slidell), not knowing what the future holds nor does any of my crew.  Uncertainty abounds everywhere yet there is a feeling that all will be well if I just let it go wherever it wants to go.  That there is a higher power that already has a course for me and my crew to follow and that I ought to just let it happen.  I know I should look for signs; something that is there right in front of me but if I allow my mind to dwell on the disaster, I will fail to see it or worst, fail to act upon it.  There is no such thing as a coincidence!  Things happen for a reason.  Why was my home spared?  Who knows?  Why my neighbor’s home so severely damaged, again who knows?

I do expect that there will be another Nugget to come when time wears on and patience wears thin.  How will I feel a month from now?  Will I be angry or excited?  Will I look upon this as a learning experience or a personal tragedy?  Will I be a better or worst person because of it?  Who knows; maybe so, maybe not!  Only time will tell but I do believe in the universal law of attraction; you become what you think of most.  So if I am not very careful, I am destined to become a golf ball!