A Chicago Tribune writer saying
in an op-ed that she's praying for a storm to "reboot" the city the way Hurricane Katrina forced New Orleans to change has set off a swift and fierce Twitter backlash.
Kristen McQueary acknowledged "envy" is an unexpected response to Hurricane Katrina, which killed more than 1,800 people 10 years ago.
"But with Aug. 29 fast approaching and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu making media rounds, including at the Tribune Editorial Board, I find myself wishing for a storm in Chicago — an unpredictable, haughty, devastating swirl of fury," McQueary wrote Thursday. "A dramatic levee break. Geysers bursting through manhole covers. A sleeping city, forced onto the rooftops.
"That's what it took to hit the reset button in New Orleans. Chaos. Tragedy. Heartbreak."
Hurricane Katrina, McQueary wrote, "gave a great American city a rebirth." She concluded that the storm she hoped would hit Chicago was "a figurative storm."
"I can relate, metaphorically, to the residents of New Orleans climbing onto their rooftops and begging for help and waving their arms and lurching toward rescue helicopters," she wrote.
According to
the New Orleans Times-Picayune, some passages were revised and replaced, but reaction on Twitter to the piece was unforgiving:
McQueary's "metaphorical" wish didn't wash with Twitter users either:
One 24-year-old man whose family relocated to Chicago after the storm answered back, in
a column for Chicago Now:
"Kristen McQueary, let someone who suffered firsthand tell you that the experiences of New Orleanians trapped in their homes, on their roofs, in their attics, in the Superdome, outside the convention center, in assisted living facilities, in hospitals, on the streets, and in motels, hotels, and homes of friends and family across the country were — by no stretch of the imagination—enviable," David Kaplinsky writes.
"[I] might have been able to forgive her for her misguided and Ayn-Rand-esque idealizing of my hometown, if she had not simultaneously idealized and glossed-over the depth of suffering and pain that so many New Orleanians went through — including myself."
"And what you fail to see is that New Orleans succeeded despite these deep wounds and trials — not because of them," he adds. "Clearly, it would be an understatement to say this article has done a disservice to those who experienced Katrina and its aftermath."
In a tweet of her own, the writer responded to the critics:
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