In 2008, board member Nancy Sharon Collins published a presentation about when “the grid” goes down, as it did in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

1. Technology: What Happens When the Grid
Goes Down.

3. Introduction.

5. In April of 2004, after 27 years working and
living in lower Manhattan, my husband and I
left. We put everything in storage
except my studio that remained.
My books and files;
over a hundred fifty hand engraved dies
and five cartons larger than me containing
vintage onion skin paper, would
wait in the North until we relocated
somewhere down South.

6. As we left, I could still recall
that morning four years earlier.
I never saw the first plane hit but my friend
down the hall watched from her bedroom
window. The second plane, ultimately
making that grotesque mark,

7. occurred while I was inside. It was
only a gigantic cloud I saw, later, where the
Towers had stood.
When newspaper delivery
resumed in our cordoned-off West Village
neighborhood, my husband removed the
dreadful stories from The New York Times
so I would not have to see them.

8. Although we lived so close the great Twin
Towers were part of my sky,
I have never seen the scenes
that most of America saw for days
and weeks following 9/11.
Even now I am delighted
that we do not own a television.

10. Part One:
Before.

12. July, 2004:
We fell in love with southern Louisiana.
June 2005:
We moved into our new home
in Covington, Louisiana.

13. Covington is in what local people call
the “Hill Country” in Louisiana.
To the east and north is considerable
tree farming. It is a unique spot;
at seventy feet above sea level
the land is also copiously
covered with picturesque trees.
It is about fifteen miles north of
Lake Pontchartrain.

14. New Orleans is just south of
Lake Pontchartrain and virtually on
the Gulf of Mexico. It is below sea level
which is why it is called
“The City Beneath the Sea.”

16. August 26 2005,
my best friend Jeff called from Miami
imploring me to look on the internet.
My husband recalls that
was when my face went green.

23. After Katrina,
Gorilla graphics were everywhere.
Relief workers “tagged” houses as they
were searched leaving marks describing
what was found and who had searched that
particular property.

25. The ubiquitous “spoiled”
fridge became a popular substrate
for writing.
(An untended refrigerator with no electricity
gets mighty fragrant in Summer so
was discarded.)

28. They even became
the subject of
an awarding winning book
that was marketed in a plastic bag.

30. Hand painted signs sprang up
everywhere advertising everything from
demolition to cheap divorces.

32. Even in “nice” neighborhoods
crime and looting were rampant.

36. It was a sad time.

39. We evacuated for two weeks then were
without power for six more.
Phone and internet came back three
months later.
Our ritual every morning was to get
ice, refill the ice chests and get gas
for the generator.

40. I got the ice and tended the food. My
husband John took care of the fuel.
Once this was secure I would drive to school.

42. I drove back and forth from our
gasoline generator driven house to this
fancy new Mac lab on a campus
where I was suppose to
teach typography. The university
was in another parish and was not
badly hit, they had power and
city water.

45. The university for whom I taught
was very proud of their
new technology so everyting
we did in the lab was about those machines.

47. In class, staring into the back sides of
monitors all I wanted to do was reach
around those TV screens
and be able to look
truthfully at my students’ faces.
What was I teaching?

48. Because all the hard and software in the
world doesn’t help that much
without electricity.

50. Part Two:
After.

53. By the time we got home local
firemen had chain sawed the fallen
trees so we could access the road.
(We love firemen.)

55. Every morning my husband rose before
dawn. He photographed our yard
capturing the morning light, then
would photograph again at nightfall.
He documented our yard for three weeks.
Then, he picked up the chainsaw.

62. Part Three:
Then what?

63. As a teacher I like to remind my students
that one mission in our
professional lives should be to help society,
not just make groovy graphics for
something which is tantamount to flat
screen TV.
As I know this story best, here is
one of the things that I did.

64. My own engraving dies and onion skin paper
had been moved to our house two months
before Katrina. For the most part
everything was fine.

65. But I knew of a
specialty printer in New Orleans that was
flooded by Katrina and Rita. His plant took
five feet of water and he was forced to go
out of business.
Three quarters of that business had been
letterpress. Eventually most of it would
be sold for scrap.

66. The rest of the printing business consisted
of die cutting, some bindery equipment
and a little commercial engraving.
I learned that only two thirds of the
steel cabinets housing these plates
were flooded, meaning, one third of
them and all of the dies
did not take water.

68. November 2005, my husband and I went
into New Orleans to retrieve the dies.
Armed military personnel patrolled the streets.

74. We were able to save about 300
engraved copper plates.
They are now in the permanent collection of
the Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies,
Southeastern Louisiana University Archives
and Special Collections,
Hammond, Louisiana. Information
about them is being entered into the
Collection’s data base which is
available to the public.

75. It was not until November 2006
that I was able to recover
the half inch thick steel dies, some of
which are over a hundred years old.

80. To me, each idiosyncratic letter,
each imperfectly cut line; those funny
sugar cube size blocks
of half inch thick steel wrapped so
preciously they scream of a
special language,
specific time and a now familiar place.
I am thrilled that two collections
understand the artistic, historic
and sociological value that I see in them.

81. The beautiful (or crude) hand engraved
monogram dies, the quirky club
and company seals will be in the permanent
collection of the Louisiana State University,
Hill Memorial Library, Special Collections,
Baton Rouge, Louisiana in the Fall.
(The curator is a typophile
and book arts nut.)

82. Part Four:
What I learned.

84. What does happen when the grid
goes down?

85. When our own systems begin to fail,
important things are what we learn to
appreciate and to what we should aspire.
The words, “hello,” “please and thank you”
are of great importance. A cheerful nod or
smile is equal in worth to a pound of gold.

86. I’ll tell you what
happens when the grid goes down; truth,
beauty and human
compassion should rule the world.
We can not always make it so.
But we can try.

88. Part Five:
Epilogue.

89. Saturday, July 28, 2007.
NPR announced that according to the
U.S. Postal Service, two thirds of
New Orleans is back.

91. Finale:
Special Thanks
(in no particular order.)

92. Steve Matteson & Ascender Corporation
John Bielenberg & Kodiak Starr: Project M
Samia Saleem: Degrees of Separation
Leif Steiner of MoxieSozo;
The Hurricane Poster Project
and Robynne Raye: Modern Dog
for being the first contributor
Bill Drenttel: AIGA Katrina Relief Taskforce

93. www.displaced.designer.com
Erik Kiesewetter & Patrick Strange:
Constance
U.S. Post Office, Covington, LA:
for taking on the mail of four parishs and
making everyone feel okay
Firemen everywhere
Red Cross

94. Tom Varisco: designer/photographer
“Spoiled” for lending me his tagging visuals
Elaine Smythe: Louisiana State University
Library Special Collections
Dr. Keith Findley: Southeastern Louisiana
University Special Collections

95. Mike Wyshock:
State University of New York at Oneonta
National Guard
NPR
Bob Marshall: Times-Picayune
Dr. Steven Nelson: Tulane University
Congressman Charlie Melancon

96. Kennth White who manned the
other end of the phone in Memphis.
Tamye Riggs for her heart felt interest
in New Orleans where a splendid,
rich history of type still abounds.
John Collins for his documentation of
our yard that for a while resembled fields
of fallen dinosaurs.
© 2007 Nancy Sharon Collins