enigma

by Chris Rose, Columnist, The Times-Picayune

“True story: Three years ago, on the Saturday before the storm, I was in line at the Winn-Dixie on Tchoupitoulas Street and the woman in front of me told the guy in front of her that her cousin knew a guy who lived across the street from Nash and he said that Nash’s car left his carport the day before and hadn’t returned.

“If Nash is leaving, I’m leaving,” she confidently proclaimed. And it was good enough for me, as well. I left my accumulation of batteries, candles, duct tape and water in the grocery cart and walked out of the store, drove home and told my wife: “We’re leaving.”

Then, this past Tuesday, I was in a little grocery by Tulane University and the beer delivery guy burst into the place all wigged out and started telling everybody to leave town immediately. The clerk asked what he was so worked up about and he said: “I got a friend who lives up the street from Nash and he said Nash left town!”

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I still hear the sound of local TV meteorologist Nash Roberts in the background talking about wind speed and barometric pressure. He first appeared on TV in New Orleans in 1948, when there was only one TV station, and he was the first full time TV weatherman in the South to use radar on television weather reports.

He always warned of a specific hurricane path that could flood the city. Long after he retired, a hurricane named Katrina took that exact path, and for the first time in his life, he evacuated. He is still alive (age 90) and still well-known to baby boomers from New Orleans. (Click here to read or watch a recent interview with him)

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