First thing in the morning we climbed into Gail’s rig and headed south toward New Orleans. This day will be an experience for me. Three years ago Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast. We spent four hours slowly driving through old neighborhood in Chalmetta in the San Bernard Parish and the different New Orleans Wards including Ninth Ward. We saw Gail’s house where she was when the levee system was breached. We spoke to an old neighbor who has since moved back into his house. But her old neighborhood was a ghost town of gutted houses with large government yellow posters with a large red “X” attached to house after house. We only saw one roofing crew at work and a hand full of contractors reclaiming buildings – after three years of the event. The hundreds of square miles of abandoned structures both commercial and residential amazed me. What is going on here?? Who is in charge? What has happened to the people?
Gail said that it was like visiting a morgue, pulling out the boxes and looking at people who use to have a life, a story, a connection. These countless gutted houses were the same; a story to tell, once a home………….
Link to more photos
No comments:
Post a Comment