What's wrong with this picture?

Or maybe I should ask what is missing. Okay, I’ll let you in on the secret: no “X” on the front. No indication that this neighborhood was checked for people or animals during the dark days of early September.

The city is full of the marks, including uptown and downtown houses outside the flood zone, and even businesses large enough to have a corporate office in Minnesota. The most interesting business I have seen marked is a national drug store chain on St. Charles, which is a bit mystifying. Did they expect to find a family of three in there? Or a senior citizen who spends the nights living in the back of a shiny store?

Many areas with a foot of water or less, areas with streets high enough to get out on, had folks pounding on doors and shining flashlights in windows; why not us?

My street is smack in the middle of the flooded area. Five feet of water on our street.

My neighbor who stayed said she started to worry when the water was as high as the toilet. She was rescued by another neighbor who was woken by the sound of his roof ripping off and water pouring in. He grabbed a canoe and came and got her. She said the water in the street was up to her neck by that point, and rising.

They got out, and they were the last ones on our street around, so all got out. The streets behind us, well, I don’t know, but I have not heard of any found bodies, so it seems we all got lucky. I say lucky because no one checked. Those X marks are nowhere to be found in my immediate neighborhood, with dozens of low-income seniors and disabled people as regular residents.

Other houses in my neighborhood are not as high as mine, which is 3 1/2 feet up. Some are much closer to the street, and it is not hard to imagine water rising in a house with a five-foot-tall little old lady inside who has no plan.

The folks who swam to the bayou and waited for rescuers felt they were not important enough to save. Those are their words.

Hell yes — thank you to all who came (or stayed) and rescued. We thanked you many times from where we were safe and warm while our city and neighbors were drowning.

But I can’t help but see another indication that our city and country has not figured out how to spread the support to all. Pre-hurricane, we had grown used to being between two identified neighborhoods and using the roulette wheel for city services. Spotty garbage pickup, unreliable electricity, flooding on an August day, having to explain to city officials where we were and how to get there. We are not the only neighborhood that has this problem in New Orleans by any means; this is the way things work in so many areas of the city. We are luckier than most since we have caring businesses that watch out for us and fight for services for us. But still — it’s disheartening.

I don’t want an X next time, cuz I don’t want a next time. But, maybe everyone should just get an inflatable raft and a trap door in the attic, since that will be the only way we can be sure that all have the same chance.