SEATTLE – Antony McDonald lost everything when Katrina slammed his hometown of New Orleans 7 years ago. After wandering around the south, he finally found a home in Seattle.
“Thank God for the citizens of Seattle,” said McDonald who owns Marcela’s Creole Cookery, a slice of New Orleans in Pioneer Square named for his wife.
McDonald, his sister and mother were in the Superdome the night Katrina slammed ashore.
“It started pouring rain inside,” McDonald calmly recounts of what he calls, “A very bad scene, very bad.”
McDonald and his relatives were evacuated the next day, and the women were relocated to Seattle.
McDonald was reluctant to follow. It was the weather, he said, “I didn’t set to well with me.”
A string of jobs here and there that didn’t work out left McDonald at a crossroads 5 years ago. So he “Took the plunge,” as he puts it. It stuck.
Now McDonald is proud to share the cuisine and culture of New Orleans with Western Washington.
McDonald says New Orleans has changed since Katrina, but then again he says New Orleans is a city that is constantly evolving. With Isaac bearing down on the Crescent City, he says those who are still down there are prepared.
New Orleans, the care-free live and let live gem on the Mississippi, and the people who call her home, don’t take anything for granted anymore. Katrina made sure of that.
