Hurricane Katrina Remnants

A day in the Lower 9^th Ward

After four days and three nights walking around the main city area of New Orleans, I lucked out by meeting a woman who was going to help out with a non-profit organization in the lower 9^th Ward, one of the hardest hit areas of Katrina, which flooded much of N.O. You may have seen the footage on the news of a barge hitting a levy and pinning a school bus underneath it. The non-profit, Common Grounds (no affiliation to the Seattle Common Grounds), is located one block from this, where most of the homes were swept away off their foundations or else flooded and destroyed beyond salvage.

Julie, from the hostel, and I took a taxi to the Lower 9^th Ward and split the fair. The bus systems are still not running to many of the places they used to for lack of people who were displaced to other states or cities in Louisiana because of the hurricane. A bus did run there but we had no idea how far we would have to walk in the 90+ weather. I’ve never sweat as much as I did there; and this was only from walking around and talking to people in the few houses that have been built there.

Because I was helping out with the newsletter Common Grounds publishes, I was trying to find out if anyone had been fined yet under the city ordinance entitled ‘Sec 28-33 Duty to Mow Grass and Remove Debris.’

I was trying to find out if any of them had been fined for the city ordinance that fined property owners for not mowing their laws - $100 per day or something like that. Even if your house is gone or razed or boarded up, or a pile of wood, baby cribs, scattered household items, and you were re-located to Utah, you still get fined

Apparently, and this is all second

-hand information, so please don’t take this as the whole truth and nothing but the truth, the city wants to reposes land and is enacting crazy laws to do so. So people who suffered a major tragedy and who were sometimes split up within families and shipped to other states, and who may or may not have lost loved ones, were having insult added to injury.

Hurricane Katrina exposed the have and the have-nots. Remember the news where black people were called looters, even if they were trying to get water because they had none for days. But whites were described as just finding water to drink. There is a lot of detail I could go into, such as the delayed response of FEMA and Bush and the implicate racism involved, or the fact that the rescue of people in flooded areas was left to locals and Sean Penn, navigating boats and risking their lives to save people. But I will try to keep this account from becoming a book.

I could mention that the national response to the biggest national disaster the country has ever had came days after people’s homes were flooded and more than a thousand had died in their attics, from heat exhaustion or from drowning and other causes. But I don’t want to sound like the day I spent in the 9^th Ward effected me so much, like the woman mentioned below, who said to me she became an activist in August of 2005, the month Katrina pushed a surge of salt water up the Mississippi, depositing what seemed like

thousands of sea shells in this neighborhood. (see pictures)

These photos show: (writing one: the codes that the army corps of engineers or national guard put on the houses when they checked them -- they put the date, the district and how many people died there, if any. The red zero means no body died in this house.) (top and right photo: house foundations where the water took out the houses)

One woman I talked to, whose house Nancy Pelosi visited about a month ago, said she calls her neighbors in other states to help them mow their lawn, either by doing it herself or by hiring someone.

This is where this story gets a little interesting. Imagine a dozen or so young hippy-looking high energy idealists going around the ravaged neighborhood, using machetes to cut down weeds; now imagine broken down and smoke-emitting lawn movers utilized to save home owners from being fined the ludicrous amount the city could fine them for allowing their property to look unseemly, even though the place is deserted and property values are worth nil.

Without living in N.O.s there isn’t much I can do to help on a budget. But, I have volunteered to help copy edit Common Ground’s newsletter via email.

There wasn’t much I accomplished in a day for lack of contacts and adequate understanding of what was going on down there. Houses are being rebuilt though, thanks to Brad Pitt, who set up pink tents for each house to be rebuilt next door to Common Grounds. Remember that? Movie stars filling in where the federal government did not do much for the homeowners. The levies are being rebuilt, which is a whole nother story. I learned a lot from reading local newspapers, such as the hope of the reconstruction efforts, the contractors who are taking people’s money and running, and the hundreds of volunteers who care.

OK. That is enough about the politics. But aren’t most things political anyway?

The living quarters there reminded me of a certain staff cabin at Camp Don Bosco, which had a tilted toilet, nasty kitchen and staff coming in and out. In the lower 9^th ward, I stayed in one of the houses for volunteers in a room that smelled like a combination of vinegar and puke. There was some kind of experiment in large wine jugs that looked orange and murky and had condoms as lids. One room was the smoking room, a guy slept on one couch and kittens roamed around.

Progressive literature filled the bookcases and one bathroom almost made me puke. At least the other was ok.

The other option to sleep would have been in the main house and office building, with a bunch of bunk beds, but the volunteers were coming in and out and were planning on staying up and drinking.

Pretty much after that and the bohemian India House, I treated myself to a night in the French quarter in a nice hotel with a pool and clean room. I almost cried and almost took pictures to remember the feeling. But they had the brochure to keep so I didn’t take any.

Just in case any one from Common Grounds ever reads this: you are doing great work there for the community and I had a short, but informative stay.