Two national tragedies a lot to mentally digest in the span of four years

THERE IS NOTHING quite like a catastrophe to really hammer homehow inconsequentially we lead our lives.

It's not our fault, really. We're just going about our dailybusiness. We didn't know something really awful was going to happenat that moment. But the realization that something terrible hashappened -- is happening -- is such a sharp rebuke, it's hard not tofeel, well, stupid.

When New Orleans was drowning in dank, putrid floodwaters andthousands of people were losing their homes, losing their lives, Iwas standing in the foyer of the Log Cabin Caffe in King's Beach atLake Tahoe. The line was long, and there was a wait list. I wasannoyed. But at least I was next on the list.

Then a harried, overwhelmed waiter paged through the list andbarked out a name. It wasn't mine. Outrage. That was supposed to bemy table. Does he know he's reading off the wrong page? What is theworld coming to? Hey, you, scoot down so I can sit on a chair atleast and wait.

Eye roll.

Fuming, I turned my back on the table that would soon be enjoyingits super large breakfast burritos and turned to the front page ofthe newspaper.

It was the Wednesday before Labor Day weekend. The understanding,perhaps the underestimation, of Hurricane Katrina's wrath was justbeginning. Col. Joe Spraggins, director of the Harrison CountyEmergency Management System was quoted as saying Gulfport, Miss.,looked like Nagasaki, referring to the nuclear bombing in Japan thatsaw its 60th anniversary less than a month earlier.

I continued to read. It seemed New Orleans, which had been thoughtto have escaped Katrina, hadn't. Two levees had broken, water wasrising, 10,000 refugees needed to be moved from the Superdome,thousands more were feared dead or dying and my table was ready.

It was a sobering moment.

I know I'm not alone in being in what I guess is the right placeat the wrong time and feeling incredibly out of touch, if notinsensitive, about it.

When the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was bombed in OklahomaCity, my editor watched the early news coverage while on theStairmaster at the gym. Six years later, that same editor heard aboutthe terrorist attacks and the crumbling New York City Twin Towersthrough a voice on her answering machine.

Finding out that way seems awfully trivial, she says, inretrospect.

For my own part, I was awake when the first plane flew into theWorld Trade Center North Tower on Sept. 11, 2001. I had just walkedinto the gym, and the woman at the check-in desk was standing mutelyand watching the television screen. She took my membership number andturned back to the screen.

I wasn't sure what was going on, but I was there for a workout. Igot on one of the bikes with Internet access and television. You hadto pedal to make the TV work. I pedaled for two hours as I watchedwhat was happening in Manhattan.

At the time, I rationalized not getting off the bike becausepedaling the stupid thing made the TV go. But I'm not proud that Igot my whole workout in that day.

There have been a lot of tragedies, catastrophies and horriblywrong things that have happened in life. But I suppose the imagesfrom the Gulf Coast have resurrected the memories of images fromSept. 11. They had different causes, but their outcomes are sosimilar. Broken people. Broken buildings. Broken spirits.

They are two national tragedies, one slow to dull in our minds,the other searingly fresh. For a nation that thinks it lives on EasyStreet, it's a lot to mentally digest in the scant span of fouryears.

I've tried to do my part. Back on Sept. 11, 2001, when I wasfinally done with that idiotic workout, I stood in a somber line withmy husband Brian to give blood.

And this time, moved by the anguish in Kanye West's off-scriptappeal and the sadness in Harry Connick Jr.'s ragged voice on NBC's"A Concert for Hurricane Relief," we donated to the Red Cross.

But it doesn't erase my own actions or behavior at a time ofdistress, whether they were intentional or not.

I feel stupid.

You can e-mail Candace Murphy at cmurphy@angnewspapers.com or callher at (925) 416-4814.