New Orleans -- Walking around the French Quarter last month, you could be fooled into thinking that Hurricane Katrina was a momentary anomaly, something that happened and was forgotten about. Canal Street is seemingly bustling downtown, and turning off onto Bourbon Street, the party goes until 5 a.m.
Wow! Everything's fine... if you're a tourist. But take a bus up to the Lower Ninth Ward and you'll be relieved of your traveler's naivete' as well as your belief in American equality.
The bungalow in the photo above is just an example of what the whole area looks like, four years after the flooding that resulted from the broken levees just after Katrina struck. Much of this place has been forgotten, whitewashed with a new presidency that has yet to directly address getting the infrastructure here put back in place.
To be fair, though, the last administration just said "let them eat cake." ...
This collection of images shows the devastation faced by the people of the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which struck on Aug. 29, 2005.
Katrina - Before and After
Cars travel over a bridge crossing the Industrial Canal to the Lower Ninth Ward July 18, 2006, in New Orleans. A year earlier, two men paddle in high water. (Mario Tama, Getty Images)
Residents walk through floodwaters on Canal Street in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. A lone street car waits a year later. (Bill Haber, AP)
Hurricane Katrina evacuee Kimi Seymour, takes a break along Interstate 10 as she walked along the highway with a shopping cart of possessions after Katrina. (Irwin Thompson, The Dallas Morning News / AP)
Residents inspect damage left by Hurricane Katrina in Biloxi, Miss. (Robert Sullivan, AFP / Getty Images)
Rhonda Braden walks through the destruction in her childhood neighborhood, Aug. 31, 2005 in Long Beach, Miss. (Rob Carr, AP)
Katrina victims carry merchandise from downtown businesses in New Orleans. (Eric Gay, AP)
A woman and her child wait with hundreds of other flood victims at the convention center in New Orleans. (Eric Gay, AP)
People walk along Interstate 10 near the Louisiana Superdome early on Aug. 31, 2005, in New Orleans and a year later traffic flows down the same road. (Melanie Burford, AP)
The destroyed Hyatt Regency hotel, left, is shown next to a statue in New Orleans and the way it appeared a year later. (Mario Tama, Getty Images)
Young Tanisha Belvin holds the hand of fellow Hurricane Katrina survivor Nita LaGarde. (Eric Gay, AP)
The residential streets around here had once been instant waterways during the flooding. But the waters are gone and instead, there are desolate looking streets, quiet and eerie. Some empty houses still stand, some have collapsed in on themselves either during the flood, or sometime in the years after.
Empty lots are replaced by tall grass, packs of feral dogs can still be seen, there's even a staircase sitting there with no house.
But the thing that strikes you most is the people. You know, the ones Kanye West said George Bush didn't care about? Actually they're mostly black, but not all black and George Bush didn't care about any of them. It's funny how tragedy has a way of erasing racial boundaries, if there were any to start.
Anyway, if you go to the neighborhood, they don't mind telling you what's happening. They don't mind telling you about their pain, about the neglect that frankly never would have happened in San Francisco or Boston. I walked up to a group of guys, it was 97-degree weather, and I asked a stupid question: how could this have happened?
They had to laugh to keep from crying.
To be fair, the area was never Peyton Place. There had always been a high crime rate there, and that hasn't changed despite the drop in population. But for those folks it was home, hood, flood, whatever.
"The waters got up to the upstairs windows," one told me. "It wasn't the storm that did it. The hurricane came and went. The next morning was sunny, clear. But all of a sudden, water started pouring in from the Industrial Canal. Before I knew it I was damn near drowning."
The brother told the story as vividly as if it had happened yesterday and in a way it did, because since September, 2005, time has stood still here. The flood of water has been replaced with a flood of beauracracy, FEMA paperwork needing to be filled out, money running out for state aid. And that little thing called the recession, well, it's hard to tell if that's being felt around here because while the rest of the country was doing moderately well, there was no place for NOLA to go but up.
So what's the solution? What do we do? Really this isn't the first area America has let turn into a Third World country. So should we wait on President Obama to make the fix? That's a tough one. Not that New Orleanians are sorrow cases, quite far from it, and they are as resilient as anyone in our history. But the area still needs emergency aid, humanitarian aid and needs structuring and investment. But more than anything else, it needs its people to keep talking. Keep telling the story to people like me who wander around looking for the truth.
Even a truth I wasn't prepared to hear.
Comments: (301)
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By: Tired of Poor ME attitude on 8/27/2009 9:35AM
It has always puzzled me, you own neighborhood is decimated, trash and crud all over the streets. Why, after 4 years, don't the people that are FROM that "community" clean it up on their own? I have seen severe storm damage in other areas that required considerable work to get back into shape and it was the COMMUNITY that did most of the work. They did not wait for someone else to do it and then hand it back to them. If they gave a $hit they would be there working. Not sitting in a Fema Trailer and being a burden on everyone else. Where is Nagin in all this? Chocolate city indeed.
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By: truth b told on 8/27/2009 9:44AM
Typical IGNORANT attitude.
Obviously you live in an ivory tower, completely sheltered from the world around you, which leaves you in a position to judge others based on your simple minded suppositions.
For your information, this isn't just a thunderstorm that knocked down a few trees. This was a MAJOR disaster that took out entire neighborhoods.
It's been hard to rebuild because so many people left and did not come back. Those who did return don't have the resources because they LOST everything.
That's not to say there aren't people making an effort. Several local organizations are still trying to pick up the pieces against amazing odds.
But you seem to feel that this can automatically be done in just a few days, making it clear that the only "tragedy" you've ever had to withstand is your mom not putting enough jelly with your peanut butter sandwich.
Get a life, loser.
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By: rob on 8/29/2009 8:29AM
I understand your point completely. The people there could do a lot more than they have been over the last 4 years. The community could clean things up and make it home again. Maybe they wouldn't be able to rebuild their houses for a lack of money, but they could clean the neighborhood up at least, that would be a start. Tear down the houses that are falling apart making the neighborhood look like trash. Organize town meetings. Discuss ways to make the place better. If they got out as a whole things would be different and I would have a different opinion about it. I do believe that they are sitting around waiting on a government handout though. Once they get the money, what would they do with it? I'm sure a ton of it wouldn't go on making their neighborhood a better place to live!!
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By: Michelle on 9/21/2009 7:20AM
you've obviously never been to New Orleans, and until you do, you can never understand. This isn't just a community, it's a whole city; a city that has more history than just about every city in our country. The city itself has a somewhat lethargic feel to it, but the people are far from lazy. Generational homes passed down make up a majority of the lower 9th ward, these homes were completely destroyed. These are the people who couldn't get proof of ownership of their homes for insurance even if they could afford it; theses are the people you look down on with your hateful remarks. These are people. You should go there, walk through downtown, then through the French Quarter, and then through the 9th ward...then comment back and let me know if you still fell so strongly about whether or no these people deserve our help.
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By: Tired of Poor ME attitude on 8/27/2009 11:27AM
Yeah, I get it, it was and is a big mess. Yeah I get it, it is a lot of work. It was a lot of work to build it in the first place. I live in the northeast. We had Ice storms in the dead of winter. Lost power for over a week with temperatures under 5'. Without power you have no water, heat, septic or lights. House's water pipes burst, heaters froze and broke apart. People had no place to live instantly. Trees fell and kept people from leaving their houses to get to someplace to stay.
There were no Fema trailers, red cross, government programs to get people whole again. There was the COMMUNITY, neighbors taking in and helping neighbors. Trees were cleared, power eventually restored, houses repaired and it all happened under the radar, no national news coverage, no riots, no looting.
I never implied it could be done in a few days. 4 Years is not a "few days". My point is, get off your asses and help yourself. You want to defecate in your own yard, I guess that is your right, just don't ask for someone else to clean it up.
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By: Lynn on 8/28/2009 12:49PM
Most of the people I KNOW from the Lower 9th Ward are not lazy. If there's any lethargy going on around there, it's probably from depression. Who wouldn't be depressed if the home and community they'd grown up in for generations almost became a memory. Get REAL my friend, I'm not trying to jump all over your case ... but the majority of people I know work hard for the little they have. Alot of them work in lower paid jobs like construction, bus driving, etc. but they WORK. There's only a handful I've met who'd meet the description of lazy needing to "get off their asses". PLEASE check out your facts first. Spend some time in the area. Get to know the people and their struggle ... it's a HARD life for most of them!
Lynn in New Orleans, LA.
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By: Peggy Bell on 8/29/2009 8:46AM
I too am tired of the woe-is-me attitude coming out of New Orleans. OK, so the 9th ward was devastated by the sinking of the levies that had had water creating ditches under them for years. Why do you think the pumps were there?
The 9th ward got drowned because the fill under the levels was not the proper grade while the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast got the Heck kicked out of it by Katrina. Major bridges at both ends of the Coast were accordion pleated. Whole towns were flattened. Central buildings like Post Offices, Police Stations and Courthouses in at least five cities were either gutted or stripped to bare ground - BUT - did our mayors spend the weeks/months after the storm blasting the feds on National TV? Did Coast residents sit back and whine. Heck no! They and we were all too busy putting our world back together. All of the debris and worthless houses were gone within months. Once the public cleanup was completed, whichever owners refused cleanup right-of-way got their properties cleaned up anyway and they got billed for it.
After four years, South Mississippi is well on it's way back so why can't New Orleans and Louisiana manage to clean up one ward?
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By: Poor but Proud on 8/29/2009 10:14AM
I have to agree. We had the ice storm of '98 I believe, we had the damage from Isabel and Gaston, but we cleared our own mess and the community came together, we kept our property insured and we made it habitable until the insurance check came to pay for the repairs, life is full of the unexpected. Government is taking to much from our pockets and the mentality that Government should babysit us is what justifies the plundering of our paychecks. Government should only protect the country and ensure interstate commerce. The rest of our money should stay in our state and communities and we should look out for ourselves and our neighbors!
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By: MS Coast on 8/27/2009 12:20PM
The town where I live in MS still shows the scars of Katrina, also. We had maybe 8,000-10,000 residents before Katrina. Much smaller than N.O. and it's still going to take us years to recover and rebuild.
The title of this article says that N.O. is a forgotten city. What about the MS Gulf Coast? I don't want to downplay what happened because it was very sad, but what happened in N.O. was avoidable. What happened in MS was not avoidable. If you didn't know any better, you'd think that Katrina hit New Orleans. It did not.
I love N.O. and I hope everyone can return to their homes one day. I know that since we still have years to go here at home, N.O. must have many more years, also.
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By: Lynn on 8/28/2009 12:48PM
Friend, the whole Gulf Coast that went through Katrina is being forgotten, not just New Orleans. There's a bunch of little communities all over that got washed away by floodwater. The disaster dealt disaster to at least three states!
Lynn in New Orleans, LA.
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