… Or Oregon, California, Ohio, wherever you’re not likely to be in the way of a direct hit. For me, it was simple, and while it was more comfortable than it was for the millions of people actually in Biloxi, Gulfport, or New Orleans, it was by no stretch easy.

I do not review comics very often typically because the reviews, good or bad, are obsolete after a few Wednesdays or after a few web comic updates. Even “big events” like the death of Captain America aren’t a big enough deal for me to report on because, just as I predicted at the time, he joined the ranks of those who stole Phoenix’s shtick and recovered. And this is coming from someone who loves reading and writing comics.

What do comics have to do with Hurricane Katrina? To those who don’t have loved ones who’d been there, and even to those of us who do, the web comic and graphic novel media have once again proven effective means of bringing a distant reality much closer to home, daring us to not only face the stories of those who survived- and a few who didn’t- but to actually see what they experienced and to take all the time we need to really grasp what’s before our own eyes.

On a more fun note, some panels also include links to information on New Orleans music, events, food, and even a recipe for the Sazerac, but I digress. Overall, After the Deluge pulls no punches. Some of the comments I saw on the web comic from Katrina survivors mentioned the difficulty of reliving their experiences as they read it or the newly available print version, but also how important it is nonetheless to remember and share what really happened.

I could not agree more on both counts, as I relived my own family’s comparatively tame experiences trying to keep track of what was happening. It began with my children showing a precociously dark sense of humor in nicknaming any news or weather report from the Gulf Coast “The Uncle Dan Show.” When a teacher giving a lesson about weather mentioned that Hurricane Katrina was shaping up to deliver an especially bad blow to New Orleans, my daughter piped up, “My uncle’s down there!” The resulting outpouring of prayers and support from the kids’ school and our church proved very important to us. For one thing, they helped keep us calmer when other people would make ignorant and judgmental remarks about why he didn’t evacuate. (He stayed for the same reason a lot of others did- lack of transportation.) The prayers and well wishes were even more helpful over the long and increasingly terrifying week we spent trying in vain to call my brother-in-law or find out if any agency knew he was okay.

“For five or six days until I evacuated it was just a survival sort of thing,” the book quotes Daniel as saying. “I remember at one point on the fifth day, it hadn’t occurred to me until then that there were people who probably thought I was dead or thought I could be.” I understand that. If you, like the people chronicled in these two books, have to spend every waking moment just trying to survive and help others do likewise while your society crumbles around you figuratively as well as literally, calling your relatives to let them know you’re all right will take down time you may simply not have. Knowing that Dan went through just that, however, does not make it any easier.

Years later, after stays in Idaho Falls and Portland, Daniel moved back to New Orleans. He still shows signs of survivor’s guilt and post-traumatic stress. The little dog rescued in the aftermath of the hurricane that now lives with my mother-in-law still startles over seemingly nothing. And every time we see news of another hurricane heading up the Gulf, my husband, in-laws, and I urge Dan to get out and bite our collective nails for those who cannot. We also hope and pray constantly that the mistakes on every level of government leading up to Katrina, its aftermath, and the resulting social breakdown never happen again.

There is no doubt in my mind that Katrina has left a permanent mark on my family. These books will ensure that it stays with everyone who reads them for the rest of their lives, too, and that’s exactly how it should be. Natural disasters will continue to happen, but as long as we remember how bad Katrina was, we would be better prepared and more likely to minimize the human suffering when the next storm makes landfall.