[Terra Nola documents the long-distance love affair between a New Yorker and New Orleans.]

Try as we may, most of us will never know exactly what it felt like those first few hours, days and weeks after the levees were breached. We may understand the impact of that situation, and we may empathize with those who suffered through it, but having not been there most of us simply cannot do anything but imagine what it must have been like to go through such an ordeal.

This past August, as it is with most summers here in NYC, we experienced Mother Nature's bizarre antics with the weather. This time the heat and the insane amount of rain we received at least contributed to a steam pipe explosion in midtown Manhattan. Ok, you say, so how could something limited to a two or three block radius that didn't even affect people's homes (just their places of employment, mostly) be compared to the aftermath of Katrina?

Well, it can't--at least not on the same scale. But my husband worked in a building literally right in front of where the explosion occurred. As a result of the explosion, the checks for asbestos and other testing to determine the cause, my husband wasn't able to get into his office for a whole business week.

He was in the process of writing the first of three papers about the situation in New Orleans, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the infringement on the human rights of the people in the Gulf Coast region. Unfortunately for him, all of his research, which he'd been painstakingly putting together, was in his office. The steam pipe explosion occurred on a Wednesday. His paper was due the following Tuesday.

I find that situation both interesting and ironic. His professor did as well, after he emailed her from our home computer to advise her that he would not be able to get his paper in on time, or even part of it, or even have a discussion with her about it, due to the forces of nature.

So it is with New York. People don't think we're partial to the effects of the weather, but that's simply not true. Obviously, we felt very little impact compared with what those who went through Katrina survived. That said, my husband was essentially rendered immobile by what happened. He started to really understand, on a more personal level, exactly what it meant to be immobilized.

His research was inches thick. As you might imagine--and this could be a good thing or a bad thing--there have been more books and articles and blogs and the like written about Katrina than perhaps any other event in U.S. history (except maybe the Kennedy assassinations?). Some might find comfort knowing that the ever-lasting written word--or millions of them--has been devoted to this subject.

Words can only accomplish so much, however, as we all know too well. My husband's entire office was shut down, as was the building and all the establishments on the surrounding blocks. I can't estimate the amount of money and resources lost over that time in that particular area.

Multiply that by the hordes and we can start to picture what Katrina meant for the economy of the Gulf Coast region. My husband started to think, "what if that had been my home, not just my office?" and the grim picture became a little more clear.

I'm not saying that what my husband went through this past summer for one week was in any way on the same scale as what happened to the good people of New Orleans in the summer of 2005. I'm just saying that my husband--and I--got a glimpse into the soul of what happened. For a brief moment he walked in the shoes of those affected, even if not on the same scale.

Obviously, my husband lost no one and nothing but time, really, to that event. But the steam pipe explosion did give him--and maybe the rest of New Yorkers--pause, when they might have otherwise let yet another Katrina anniversary pass by with little notice.

I wouldn't know for sure, but I hope that the experience put a little more heart into my husband's paper. He certainly would have ammunition to give it an edge that it would have lacked had nothing happened.

We'll see. His final grade has yet to be posted. Hopefully, he got an "A."

Pic of steampipe explosion by quodlibetor.