Road Trip – New Orleans Impressions

When I visited here eighteen months ago, six weeks after Katrina, I was understandably depressed. I spent most of the week helping my sister throw away a lifetime of flood-soaked possessions and wrapped up that week with my Mother’s funeral. I drove around the town where I spent the first twenty seven years of my life in complete disbelief that week as I took in the utter devastation.

Today I’m just ANGRY.

ANGRY ANGRY ANGRY ANGRY ANGRY!!!!!

I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO DIRECT ALL OF THIS ANGER.

I drove into town through New Orleans East, a part of town that was nearly 50% wetlands even before the storm. Seeing the inhabited part opened the door to my ANGER. Signs of rebuilding on one side of I-10 included several bright, sparkling new car dealers. Signs of rebuilding on the other side are almost non-existent… just mile after mile after mile of uninhabited apartment buildings with broken windows, intermingled with mile after mile of uninhabited houses with boarded up windows. Occasional new construction and FEMA trailers are sprinkled through the area along with one brand new bright orange apartment complex.

ANGRY THAT ALL OF THIS HAPPENED? MAYBE ANGRY THAT A YEAR AND A HALF AFTER THE HURRICANE THIS MASSIVE PART OF THE CITY DOESN’T LOOK MUCH DIFFERENT THAN IT DID A MONTH AFTER KATRINA?

As I took the exit onto a main boulevard through Lakeview, the neighborhood of my youth, I saw something that is very different from when I was here last … there are no trees in the wide median on Canal Blvd. Those massive oaks were a defining characteristic of this street and they all died. New skinny trees have been planted and perhaps a future generation will enjoy them.

ANGER AND DEPRESSION!

The worst was yet to come. I knew my sister’s house, the little Dad-built cottage we grew up in, had been jacked up another 4 feet. I knew the houses on either side had been torn down. But I still wasn’t prepared for the shock of seeing this!

DEPRESSION AND ANGER.

There are ten vacant lots on her block alone. There are fewer than ten occupied houses in her block, and some of those occupants are living in trailers while their houses are rehabbed.

WHO SHOULD FEEL MY ANGER? FEMA? ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS WHO APPROVED SHODDY WORK ON THE LEVEE? CITY OFFICIALS IN THE 1930S AND 1940S WHO THOUGHT THE MARSH LAND NORTH OF DOWNTOWN WOULD MAKE A GREAT PLACE FOR NEW HOUSING? MY DAD FOR BUILDING HERE EVEN THOUGH HE KNEW THE WHOLE NEIGHBORHOOD WAS THREE FEET BELOW SEA LEVEL?

I admire my sister’s tenacity and determination to help rebuild Lakeview. I praise her neighbors who have already moved back in. They are all pioneers in their own way.

I have a less flattering opinion about the wisdom of moving back there but my sister doesn’t need to hear that from me. She needs my support. This is really all she has.

She is lucky. What about those two hundred thousand New Orleanians who have not returned? Many of them can’t return.

I’M ANGRY AND I WANT TO BLAME SOMEONE.