Independence Day in New Orleans

Happy Independence Day!

I’ve got access to the Interwebz here at the house and thought that I might as well use it to write an entry to let you know that I’ve made it here safe and sound, and found a place to sleep, and have been working and sweating my butt off for five days straight.

I haven’t been writing as much as I should in my notebook, but I do have some things down. I’ll type them up later. For now, I’ll just offer some introductory remarks on what it’s like down here.

First, it’s hot. Really hot. I ran back to the house well over an hour ago, and I am still dripping with sweat. I am dripping most of the day. At work, my shirt and underwear get soaked through after about five minutes. I sweat in the back of the truck, I sweat when I get out of a cold shower, I sweat while laying down on my sleeping bag… basically, I sweat all the time. It’s not fun.

So far I don’t have much of a sunburn, but that’s because I’ve been working inside, putting up plaster and sanding walls and ceilings. Even at 8:00 in the morning the sun is cruel and punishing, and feels like it’s burning holes through my skin.

I’m staying at 1800 Deslonde Street, which is in the Lower Ninth Ward, the section of the city that was hardest hit by Katrina. The Industrial Canal is a few hundred feet behind the house, and it’s where a barge apparently crashed into the levee, breaking it and sending a huge wall of water crashing into the area, washing houses off their foundations and into the streets (check out the Google Maps satellite imagery, which hasn’t been updated recently). The barge diverted water away from the house I’m in, and the one behind it, but almost everything else out here was totally destroyed. I guess that’s what happens when an entire section of a major city faces a huge wave and then sits under 13 feet of water for two months.

The devastation is unbelievable. Even after three full years, every neighborhood we drive through is never more than half-occupied. There are entire streets that you can walk down, entire neighborhoods we drive through, where there’s no one… just houses falling over, filled with the remnants of toxic flood water and people’s lives. Empty schools, neglected parks, no public services. Even the police aren’t patrolling yet: the Military Police have jurisdiction over our part of the city, and probably others.

Buildings that haven’t yet been demolished but that are also unoccupied, or haven’t been resided or repainted, still bear the marks of the search-and-rescue (or, more aptly in some situations, recovery) squads that searched the houses. There’s a big spray-painted X on the front of all such houses. In the top of the X is the date that the house was searched; these seem to vary from very shortly after the storm (in August) to a long time later, in late September. Other sides of the X may contain the inspector’s initials, the number of people found living, or the number of animals found alive or dead. In the bottom of the X is the number of bodies found.

There aren’t many marks in my section of town simply because there aren’t many buildings left standing. Most have been demolished, and all that’s left is some concrete slabs and cinder blocks. The yards are mostly overgrown with weeds and tall grass, the land is swampy with deep puddles, the roads have gaping potholes, and even the fire hydrant outside my house is still half-buried. A freight container sits on the lot across the street, and a few lots down is a house that looks like it might collapse on itself at any moment.

The levee behind the house has been rebuilt, which is good, because without it we’d probably be underwater. But there are obviously still concerns over whether the Army Corps of Engineers has rebuilt the levees up to spec, and whether they’ll provide protection in the next storm.

Overall, the place looks forgotten. The bridges are crumbling, the streets are in poor shape, and it looks to me like everything but the tourist-y downtown is still in much need of work. It’s a massive effort and there just aren’t enough people here to do what needs to be done. We’ve been working with Americorps on rebuilding a few houses, and another group called NOLA 100, and there are plenty of other groups in the area, but I just don’t think there’s enough people here to get this place back on its feet.

Anyway, I’m going to jump in a cold shower and go to bed. I’ll write more when I can; there’s obviously a lot to tell, and a lot that I’ve been thinking about. Consider these simply some preliminary observations.