This week, everyone's talking about Hurricane Katrina.

Put emphasis on those who died, survived, or are somewhere in between.

I've come a long way in being able to talk and write about Hurricane Katrina. I used to find it paralyzing, as if I couldn't breathe when I reached for the words. Like I was still trapped in that room in south Mississippi, the water rising as the wind pushed it in from the window sills. I had never seen water do that before, and I had been though quite a few hurricanes by that point.

Tomorrow, I'll be publishing a piece longer than I've ever written before about the storm and how it still shapes who I am today. How it lingers in the high-water lines, engrained itself into our vocabulary, and festers like an untreated wound.

The term “a survivor” resonates less than “the maimed” or “the scarred” or “the alive but still there.”

I’ve already seen several pieces published this week from “outsiders” in the lead up to the 20th anniversary tomorrow. I found tremendous difficulty in reading them beyond the first few paragraphs. And these were decent articles written by people I admire. I found myself being slightly judgmental. “Who are you to speak on this?” I asked myself.

It may seem strange to gatekeep trauma. Perhaps it's irrational, even inappropriate. But if you weren't there in the wind, water and the heat that followed, you may sympathize, even empathize, but you'll never truly understand.

Perhaps that’s how trauma works. If the gun wasn’t pointed at you, how could you possibly understand what it was like to look down the barrel? Of course, even that reference is personal for me.

I pause when this feeling rises and remind myself that Katrina changed the world, that it signified a tidal shift in people’s awareness of climate change and its accompanying rage, and that the least we could ask of our tragedy is that it be used to prevent future suffering.

After all, that’s what I’ve dedicated my entire life — my education, research and career — toward doing. Preventing the next preventable tragedy.

I’m working on giving space to those “outsiders.” I still ask that you seek out the voices of the people who were there — and those that, physically, mentally and spiritually still are.

My piece will come out tomorrow at 11:10 am Central Daylight Time - twenty years to the minute Katrina began her landfall in Mississippi.

Once it’s live, you can use this link to read it (I’ll send out an email tomorrow, as well).