A story and photos from New Orleans - March 2006
In March I made a trip to New Orleans, Louisiana, aka NOLA. This is where my mum’s cousin Halina and her husband Igor live and run businesses. I went for one week, to visit, relax, party and check out one of my favourite cities after the devastating hurricanes Katrina and Rita and subsequent floods that destroyed parts of the southeast United States including Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, the Gulf Coast and Florida.
I arrived at Louis Armstrong International Airport. It is run down and old, with very limited facilities. My plane had quite a lot of young university student passengers who were coming to New Orleans to volunteer during their Spring Break, for the clean-up effort. The taxi ride to my cousins home uptown was an interesting start to my view of the city. Major arterial roads that had been flooded six months earlier were lined with large stores, chain restaurants and petrol stations that were closed, empty and boarded up. There were bent signposts and missing street names. But as we travelled through the Garden District towards Uptown you wouldn’t have even known that a disaster had taken place here. Luckily, Halina and Igor’s home, an apartment in a high-rise building next to Audubon Park and the zoo suffered only minor damage to its roof from the hurricane winds.
Much has been written on the internet about Hurricane Katrina and the devastating effects on New Orleans and surrounding areas. Rather than me go into detail, I found this link with some very easy to read and fascinating information about the disaster.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina
During my week, I met loads of interesting people, learned about the recovering city, spend some quality time with my cousins and made a few observations. This was my fifth time to New Orleans and I’ve always noticed that it was a very patriotic city. American flags were commonly found flying in front of houses and businesses all over the city. This time, there were no American flags to be seen. There were many banners and flags for the resurrection and rebuilding of NOLA. From my own perspective I have often found N’awlinians to have a laid back attitude. This time, I could tell the people I met and spoke with were traumatised. They are still struggling to come to terms with the things they went through during the disaster and the aftermath of shock and dismay at the loss, destruction and anxiety of rebuilding their lives. But the greatest strength of the people of this city, those who have returned to rebuild their lives, is their determination not to let anything or anyone, including the US Government, get in their way of resurrecting their homes and businesses. There have been many poor decisions made by people taking charge, people who should have been in charge, and those who had little or no other choices. There are so many tales of courageous act of bravery, rescues and survival. There is survivors guilt for those who didn’t suffer much damage to their homes, but have friends, colleagues and neighbours who lost everything, including jobs. Less than half the population have returned to New Orleans. Out of 3,000 bars and restaurants, only a few hundred had reopened. Out of 1,200 beauty salons, only 80 had reopened. Demolition and construction are the employment drawcards. So many businesses are desperate for more workers.
Now keep in mind that along with tragic loss of so much, some of the loss was seems a little less tragic. Look at my pictures, taken from Igor’s car as I was driven through some of the devastated areas. (Sorry, some are blurry and some may seem boring). If you look closely enough, the first pictures are of the poorest areas including 9th Ward. As you trawl through the pics, look closely and the water lines on some of the houses. We drove from the poorest neighbourhoods to the wealthiest and all were damaged without consideration. When the levees broke, the water could not distinguish poor from rich. Water rose so quickly and then it stayed, taking weeks to fall, hence the different lines on the houses. The 9th Ward should not be rebuilt. It was in a disastrous state before the flooding. With new laws on height regulations for new houses, there is still nothing to stop this from happening again. Will there ever be?
How does a country like the USA, superpower, richest country on earth, allow it’s inhabitants to live in such poverty and then react so poorly to a disaster that most do not consider to be a natural disaster? So many questions.
I love New Orleans and I hope, with all my heart that the rebuilding of the city will be far less painful than its destruction. There are many, many parts of the city that have survived well. Many areas suffered tremendously from human destruction such as looting and vandalism and theft.
I arrived at Louis Armstrong International Airport. It is run down and old, with very limited facilities. My plane had quite a lot of young university student passengers who were coming to New Orleans to volunteer during their Spring Break, for the clean-up effort. The taxi ride to my cousins home uptown was an interesting start to my view of the city. Major arterial roads that had been flooded six months earlier were lined with large stores, chain restaurants and petrol stations that were closed, empty and boarded up. There were bent signposts and missing street names. But as we travelled through the Garden District towards Uptown you wouldn’t have even known that a disaster had taken place here. Luckily, Halina and Igor’s home, an apartment in a high-rise building next to Audubon Park and the zoo suffered only minor damage to its roof from the hurricane winds.
Much has been written on the internet about Hurricane Katrina and the devastating effects on New Orleans and surrounding areas. Rather than me go into detail, I found this link with some very easy to read and fascinating information about the disaster.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina
During my week, I met loads of interesting people, learned about the recovering city, spend some quality time with my cousins and made a few observations. This was my fifth time to New Orleans and I’ve always noticed that it was a very patriotic city. American flags were commonly found flying in front of houses and businesses all over the city. This time, there were no American flags to be seen. There were many banners and flags for the resurrection and rebuilding of NOLA. From my own perspective I have often found N’awlinians to have a laid back attitude. This time, I could tell the people I met and spoke with were traumatised. They are still struggling to come to terms with the things they went through during the disaster and the aftermath of shock and dismay at the loss, destruction and anxiety of rebuilding their lives. But the greatest strength of the people of this city, those who have returned to rebuild their lives, is their determination not to let anything or anyone, including the US Government, get in their way of resurrecting their homes and businesses. There have been many poor decisions made by people taking charge, people who should have been in charge, and those who had little or no other choices. There are so many tales of courageous act of bravery, rescues and survival. There is survivors guilt for those who didn’t suffer much damage to their homes, but have friends, colleagues and neighbours who lost everything, including jobs. Less than half the population have returned to New Orleans. Out of 3,000 bars and restaurants, only a few hundred had reopened. Out of 1,200 beauty salons, only 80 had reopened. Demolition and construction are the employment drawcards. So many businesses are desperate for more workers.
Now keep in mind that along with tragic loss of so much, some of the loss was seems a little less tragic. Look at my pictures, taken from Igor’s car as I was driven through some of the devastated areas. (Sorry, some are blurry and some may seem boring). If you look closely enough, the first pictures are of the poorest areas including 9th Ward. As you trawl through the pics, look closely and the water lines on some of the houses. We drove from the poorest neighbourhoods to the wealthiest and all were damaged without consideration. When the levees broke, the water could not distinguish poor from rich. Water rose so quickly and then it stayed, taking weeks to fall, hence the different lines on the houses. The 9th Ward should not be rebuilt. It was in a disastrous state before the flooding. With new laws on height regulations for new houses, there is still nothing to stop this from happening again. Will there ever be?
How does a country like the USA, superpower, richest country on earth, allow it’s inhabitants to live in such poverty and then react so poorly to a disaster that most do not consider to be a natural disaster? So many questions.
I love New Orleans and I hope, with all my heart that the rebuilding of the city will be far less painful than its destruction. There are many, many parts of the city that have survived well. Many areas suffered tremendously from human destruction such as looting and vandalism and theft.