(NOTE: All pictures in this diary were taken by me on Christmas Day 2009.)
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Remnants of home that had been fully submerged in the Lower 9th Ward |
Preview
"This here was all underwater", he stated matter-of-factly in a deep New Orleans accent. "The peoples, they was trapped and had to go up and break out of their houses onto the roof."
I looked at the house he'd slowed in front of. It was a modern-day ruin, an artifact of one of the greatest tragedies in modern American history. To its right was a cement slab - in front of it were more cement slabs.
"These were all peoples here and they houses. They was houses everywhere before the storm, but now they gone."
Indeed. This is Christmas Day in the lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, four years and four months after Katrina.
Much more after the fold.
Introduction
Mr. RenaRF and I travel with my parents at Christmas time each year. The typical trip is about four days and three nights. One year, it was Las Vegas. Another it was Miami's South Beach. This year, it was New Orleans.
We love New Orleans - we've been there many times, but not since Katrina hit. What makes New Orleans attractive to us is the rich culture and the musical and culinary traditions that arise out of the culture. As musicians ourselves, it's nearly impossible to find music we appreciate that doesn't have some of its roots in the New Orleans musical culture. The Neville Brothers - Dr. John - so many others - all have influenced what we love about and within great music.
After arriving on 12/23/09, we left our French Quarter hotel and decided to take a walk up Bourbon Street. Yes, I know - it's a touristy place. But on our past trips, you would find gems tucked into shotgun storefronts on Bourbon Street. You'd peer into a nightclub, adjusting to its sudden darkness, and spy - way in the back - some musicians on an impossibly small stage. You'd venture in a few feet and hear authentic zydeco or New Orleans jazz blues. The place wouldn't be packed, but it would be populated with music lovers appreciating the talent that they had stumbled upon. You'd get drawn in. This happened for us in years past in block after block of Bourbon Street, club after club. There was too much great music to realistically take it all in in a short-ish trip. We would always leave New Orleans feeling like we hadn't been able to take in all that was worth hearing or tasting.
Yet this trip down Bourbon Street - it was different. In years past, there were a few staple "adult entertainment" establishments. Rick's Cabaret was one. Some club that's been there for ages that featured live sex shows was another. I recall maybe one or two others as well. Yet this trip - Bourbon Street was overflowing with adult entertainment establishments. Larry Flynt owns two adult clubs and one adult store on Bourbon. Rick's has opened a second establishment. Scores has opened on Bourbon. A host of others were present in every block.
Clubs that we had previously associated with live music had switched to karaoke bars and DJ nights. One club sported a mechanical bull while the DJ shouted over the music. We heard a few bands (a very few) coming out of a few clubs, and most were pretty marginal top 40 or rock bands. We only heard two bands the whole time we were there that were clearly composed of longtime local musicians, and one one of those was the gem that was so prevalent and prominent in trips past.
It was... sad. I knew why, of course. The storm displaced hundreds of thousands of people, many of them lower income. I had read where the recovery and rebuilding efforts didn't expand to those lower income neighborhoods (specifically, the Lower 9th Ward), where many musicians had made their homes. I always feared that ignoring these parts of New Orleans in the rebuilding effort would permanently alter its underlying culture in a negative way, and this trip has shown me that my fears were warranted.
I knew, after a day and a half of endless souvenir shops, strip clubs, and karaoke bars that I had to witness for myself the root cause of the change. I had to see the Lower 9th Ward for myself - and so Mr. RenaRF and I set off with a willing cab driver to tour those areas most desperately affected by the storm.
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2-story home that had been under 16 feet of water in the Lower 9th Ward |
Christmas in the Lower 9th Ward
(NOTE: I made two separate trips into the Lower 9th on this trip. The first was with my parents, and Mr. RenaRF stayed behind. The second was just Mr. RenaRF and I and a cab driver who, we learned, had been in New Orleans through Hurricanes Betsy, Camille & Katrina. What follows is primarily from the cab ride we took, but many of the pictures were taken on the trip with my parents hours before. Conversations in quotes are to the best of my recollection as I didn't record anything. :D)
"So how fast did the water rise?" asked Mr. RenaRF.
"Well, the storm came in the early morning. We thought we was ok but then by 6 or so that night the water started coming. Some peoples said that they had 3 feet of water in they houses by 8 and it just kept on rising."
"Where were you?" I asked.
"Well, I was over to the Convention Center."
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Search markings on front of home in Lower 9th Ward |
My face just dropped and my mouth fell open. "You were
at the Convention Center?"
"Well, yes. I was there on about five days and then I got on a bus cuz we couldn't get to our houses and we couldn't stay there. I got off the bus in Austin at another convention center."
Mr. RenaRF doesn't know all the details of Katrina. He knew them as it was happening, of course, but time has faded his recollection of the events. I explained to him that the Convention Center in particular was hell on earth in New Orleans in the days following Katrina. I reminded him that the pictures of bodies in wheelchairs and garbage and people crammed inside or laying on the ground outside was the Convention Center. The significance wasn't lost on Mr. RenaRF.
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Demolished house still stands in the Lower 9th Ward |
"So how long were you in Austin?"
"Well, on about 7 or 8 weeks. First three weeks in the shelter at the convention center. The mens would have to take showers between 5 and 7 and the women between 7 and 9. They real nice to us, and then they found some housing for us to go to. Was there another four weeks or so and then I came home."
"What was it like when you came back?" I asked.
"Well, it was bad. Didn't have no electricity for 10 weeks or so after. It [Katrina] was a good news / bad news thing for me though. I needed to remodel the house and I had insurance. But it took so long for them to pay and then all the contractors were just ripping people off. I paid rent for 15 months after I came back and had three groups working on the house and then disappearin' before the work got done."
He did, eventually, get the work completed on his house and he moved back in.
Mr. RenaRF was still stuck on the Convention Center: "So you were one of those guys we saw on TV outside of that place?"
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Debris from a demolished elementary school in the Lower 9th Ward |
"Well, yes. We was all up inside there."
Mr. RenaRF: "What was it like inside? Did people help each other?"
"Well, yes. You know, the news showed peoples looting and everything but they was nothing for peoples to eat. Lots of those came back to the Convention Center and if they had a pack of cookies or something, they shared it with peoples who had no food. What peoples who have no food gonna do? They gonna loot. But they tried to help us at the Convention Center."
We drove for a little bit more, and then he continued unprompted:
"You know, when we was over to the Convention Center the only thing that saved us was when the big national news came in and showed what was happening to the world. Local news was there, but no one payin' attention. When CNN and all came in, we started getting some help."
I commented: "I'll never forget when General Russell Honore came in. It was the first time I felt like someone was helping."
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A FEMA trailer sits outside of a home in the Lower 9th Ward |
"Well, before he come the Army come and they had guns and they pointed them at us like we was criminals. They gave water and that packaged food, but they sat there like we was in prison. When that General came they started treating us like we was human again."
We rode for a little bit longer, each block revealing devastation equal to the block before it. The taxi we were in was actually a minivan, and I commented to my husband that the water would have fully engulfed the car twice over with another 4-6 feet of water on top of that to boot. It's impossible to convey what it must have been like. Being physically in the 9th Ward and seeing the damage helped make some of it real - but still, much of what must have been reality defies imagination.
"You know, we've been here more than a few times and we always come because we love the culture," said Mr. RenaRF. "It's different this time - like the city has lost some of its soul. Do you think it will ever come back?"
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A string of demolished homes |
"Well, it comin' back. It was like 300,000 peoples who left and went other places. A lot of them was renters and they places destroyed and landlord didn't rebuild. Other places just abandoned and the city took 'em due to unpaid taxes. Lot of peoples who own they home come back and start rebuilding. Still FEMA trailers in some places, but they even tryin' to take those as peoples still tryin' to rebuild they home. You give peoples a way to come back, they come. They need schools and electricity and a place to live, though. You give them that, they come back."
Right then we came into a rare area of new looking houses all grouped together.
"These that guy - what's his name? I can't say it - Britt..."
"Brad Pitt?" asked Mr. RenaRF.
"Yeah. That's it. These the houses he been building."
Of course, my camera decided to be uncooperative at that very moment. But what we saw were somewhere around 8-12 green, environmentally-friendly homes built by Brad Pitt's Make it Right foundation. They were like a small beacon of hope in a sea of ruin in the Lower 9th Ward (check the link to see pictures of these homes).
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Empty lots where homes used to be |
As we passed the Pitt homes, we came up to the Industrial Canal itself, at the site of the breach.
"This where all they water come in," said our cab driver.
We turned a corner and drove along one side of the canal and then turned back to where neighborhoods had been - this area showed the greatest amount of devastation so far during the trip.
"See all they land? All that used to be peoples and they houses. When the levee go, they flood the fastest. Most peoples still here in this area died in the flood, it happen so fast. Now they just land there, no houses and no peoples. Something like 1,000 of the people died in the storm was down here in the 9th."
The Aftermath is Continuing
We didn't only tour the Lower 9th that day. We also went over into St. Bernard's Parish and to other affected areas of the city. We drove around the I-10 interchange that so many of us know from the aerial picture where much of it was under water. We saw shards and fragments of blue tarps flapping from the eaves of homes, destroyed and abandoned for over four years.
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Ruined, abandoned hom in the Lower 9th |
We didn't see another school outside of the demolished one pictured. You had to go quite a distance to St. Claude or another major thoroughfare to find any kind of retail, and most of that consisted of gas stations, convenience stores, and fast-food joints.
I didn't see any animals. There were rebuilt homes peppered in among the ruin - and what was alarming was that one home would be there, rebuilt, sitting right next to another that was still in ruins with the spray paint indicating that two bodies had been recovered from that location. It was like spotting life among ghosts - it was eerie.
As we were originally driving out to get to the Lower 9th, the driver was pointing out - well in advance of arriving at the really devastated areas - buildings and businesses that remained unopened. Some businesses - especially large chains with the financing to do so (e.g., Lowe's, Home Depot, McDonald's) were rebuilt and re-opened... but the smaller, clearly local businesses, while cleaned up, remained boarded up and dark.
"Do you think it will ever come back?" I asked.
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One of countless homes that still bear the search effort markings |
"Don't know. We have to have the tourists and if we could get a few big conventions, we come back. But without that, this city die."
Save New Orleans
There is no doubt in my mind that New Orleans is a city on a precipice. Parts of it are "back" - the tourist parts, the parts that involve money. But much of it remains appallingly, embarrassingly destroyed more than four years after the storm went through. It is so crystal clear to me that New Orleans - the REAL New Orleans - cannot return until and unless ALL of New Orleans is rebuilt.
My biggest fear is that the city and developers are sitting on the abandoned properties in the Lower 9th and other places and waiting to develop it into something it wasn't before. I can close my eyes and picture malls and Orlando-style City Walks and casinos arising in places where the working lower- and middle-class used to live. If that happens, the essential New Orleans will be lost. I'm not interested in what arises in its place if that comes to pass.
Another Christmas tradition in our family over the past few years has been to forgo gifts. Instead, we make donations in each others' name to worthy charities. Here's where my money went this year:
The St. Bernard Project - This non-profit is rebuilding homes one by one in St. Bernard Parsih.
Make it Right - This is Brad Pitt's organization rebuilding environmentally friendly green homes in the Lower 9th Ward.
Habitat for Humanity's Musician's Village - This non-profit is focused exclusively on providing affordable housing to NOLA musicians so that it can retain its rich musical culture.
Tipitina's Foundation - Immediately following Katrina, Tipitina's Foundation helped NOLA musicians by providing them with instruments and equipment that had been lost in the flooding following the storm. Now, it's focused on providing instruments and musical education to NOLA school children.
These are only a few of the organizations working in and around New Orleans to restore its culture and diversity. I'm more than happy to add additional organizations that anyone finds worthwhile.
Don't let New Orleans be forgotten.
Update [2009-12-27 16:47:52 by RenaRF]: THANK YOU for putting this on the rec list. I know times are tight - but it would really be wonderful if a few could find in their hearts to make a Katrina-related donation to whichever organization they feel is doing the real, hard, largely anonymous work to bring back New Orleans.