Walker Percy’s Hurricane Theory: An Existentialist Hope for Survivors of Katrina

by Deborah Burst

By Northshore standards I'm considered a local, not a native, living here for more than 20 years, across Lake Pontchartrain thirty miles north of New Orleans, Louisiana.  Most of us are transplants from the Big Easy seeking refuge under a canopy of piney woods and fresh water streams, pioneers carving homesteads and building new schools, the best in the state. But the people kept coming, so we rallied to save our greenspace and then Hurricane Katrina barrelled her way through our heartland. Tens of thousands of people rushed to higher ground on the Northshore to build a new...