On my second real day in New Orleans, Renee Peck, who is my boss (and Kat’s mom) took Carolyn, Kat, and I on a so called “Death and Destruction Tour.” At first I was a little apprehensive about catastrophe tourism. I thought that I would feel really voyeuristic turning the destruction into spectacle. In the end, however, I think that I learned enough during the tour that it counteracted my guilty feelings.
First, I want to try to portray exactly how far New Orleans has come. Or hasn’t come. Certain districts that were badly damaged by the floods were back in fine shape, but certain districts are still wrecks. The Metairie and Lakeview neighborhoods were definitely the best rebuilt of all the neighborhoods we saw. This may have been because the path of the floodwaters in these neighborhoods was often very random, leaving one block virtually untouched and the next block under four feet of water. Every once in a while there was a boarded up house or a house in the process of being renovated, but considering that they were all in need of being refurbished, these houses were in good shape. The houses in these neighborhoods are typical suburban houses with well-manicured lawns and trees. The houses in Metairie are especially gorgeous in the over-the-top, filthy-rich-mansion kind of way. These neighborhoods have recovered very well, to the point where it does not necessarily look like a natural disaster hit them, only as if they’ve suffered under the weight of the recession.
New Orleans East, Gentilly, and the 9th Ward are different stories. These three neighborhoods are bordered by the three spots where the levees were breached, so it is no wonder that they were the most destroyed. New Orleans East was the most recovered. Driving down the highway that bisects the neighborhood, however, made it seem like a ghost town. While half of the houses still lay in disrepair, almost all of the businesses were skeletons of what they had been. This part of New Orleans is literally isolated from the rest. Not even the hospital, which is instead a weed infested abandoned building complex, has come back to this neighborhood. We did not drive off of the highway, but seeing New Orleans East from the road was enough to get the feeling that even six years after Katrina, progress was creeping along. Gentilly is obviously still struggling. It is worse off than New Orleans East, but not by much.
There are still houses that have been left to decay and not been gutted or boarded up. The mark that the National Guard battalions left on the houses, which indicates when it was searched, who it was searched by, and whether there were any dead bodies inside, is still on almost every house. Both of these neighborhoods, however, still have people living in them with clean lawns and cars. It may take awhile, but these areas are on the road to recovery.
Compared to the rest of New Orleans, the 9th Ward is a wasteland. Weeds have overgrown the vacant lots and very few pre-Katrina houses are still standing, let alone visible. Old houses are still lying in shambles next to vacant lots with destroyed cars parked in the driveway. The 9th ward gives the impression that Katrina happened the other day. Despite the widespread lasting destruction, progress has been made. Many different charities have helped rebuild houses and the Make it Right Foundation (http://www.makeitrightnola.org), led by Brad Pitt, with the Musicians’ Village (http://www.nolamusiciansvillage.org) led by Habitat for Humanity have started to transform the neighborhood. I recommend checking out the websites, because not only are the houses really cool, but they programs are as well. Both require the owner to have lived in the 9th Ward and to participate either financially or physically in the reconstruction. The houses built by the Make it Right Foundation are very environmental, heated by geothermal energy, and powered by solar panels. One great thing about these houses is that the owners are guaranteed to have professional support in their upkeep. And they own their house. There is an interesting article discussing the pros and cons of this project, I recommend that you check it out. The article is called “Getting It Right: What is Brad Pitt Really Doing For New Orleans,” on www.good.is. While the houses are extremely modern (some of them, I must say, look kind of ugly) they are all inspired by traditional New Orleans architecture. In addition, and possibly most importantly, they are all raised off the ground to above the minimum footage required for flood insurance, and they are far more stable than the previous houses. This is crucial in the neighborhood that received some of the highest flood levels in the city.
The 9th Ward was the last place that we went, and while it still looks bleak and devastated, the brightly colored, newly built houses give the neighborhood hope. New Orleans is slowly repairing itself, some areas faster than others, but it looks pretty good. I’m going to take my next blog entry to analyze the rebuilding pace, most of which essentially comes down to socio-economic class. Many people think that they only places that were flooded were places where the poor lived. That is false. Katrina didn’t discriminate and poor and rich were flooded equally. The difference lies in their ability to bounce back.
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