When most of us go on holiday we aim for places of natural beauty, iconic landmarks, trendy cities, shopping valhallas or cultural meccas. New Orleans certainly ticks many of those boxes, throwing in the extra “party-central” tag for good measure. But, this city also wears scars.
Sculpture reminding about Hurricane Katrina – the eye is the centre of the circle.
In late August of 2005 the state of Louisiana was hit by Hurricane Katrina. The city of New Orleans and its parishes were severely affected by this natural disaster. At the time I was travelling in New Zealand and I remember watching it all on the news from there. And you can apply any of the words that any of us would have felt at that time while viewing the scenes transmitted by the many news channels: horror, sadness, angst, helplessness and so on. But, there’s an inevitable detachment, however empathic you are, when you see these events from the comfort of your dry, living room.
When I originally planned to come to New Orleans it was clear in my mind that I wanted to find out more about how the city had been affected by Katrina and try and see the areas hit by it as I had no real sense of the area damaged either in severity, its location or its size. I did my usual reading and found where the worst areas were and was all set to go out there and wander, as I usually do. However, last week I was chatting to a guy in a restaurant and we were talking about interesting things to see and I mentioned wanting to go to the ninth ward (one of the seriously affected areas). His eyebrows effected an instant lift and he told me I should not, under any circumstances, venture that way alone to “wander”. He was very informative and was telling me that when Katrina struck his firm sent him and six other guys down driving huge fuel trucks into the area – there was no petrol of any kind in the city available for use – under a full military escort! He gave me a pretty clear view of how dire the whole situation was on the ground.
Once I’d spoken to this man it became clear that common sense should prevail and I began looking into organised tours to take me. I found several and booked myself on one. And so, yesterday, I made my way down to the Mississippi river bank and boarded by coach for the tour. It was a very small bus with a maximum of twenty tourists. In the midst of all my searching for a tour I came across the fact that the authorities have been clamping down on what is permissible with regards to tours looking into areas hit by the hurricane. Local people living in these areas have found footage of themselves on youtube and the like. So numbers are now kept small and fines are readily dished out to companies that don’t follow the rules. When I read this I nearly didn’t go on the tour. The thought of being perceived as a “gawker” didn’t sit well with me. I emailed the company and they said we would not be allowed off the coach and we didn’t stop anywhere for people to have a long look at any specific homes/characters. It assuaged my guilt enough for me to pay up.
The tour was eye opening as you come away realising that yes, the hurricane was awful and caused a great deal of destruction with the high winds and so on. But, the true disaster came about because of the failure of the water/levee systems in New Orleans. Nearly every levee in the area of New Orleans was breached! Now, logically I understood what this meant. But it was only when I saw exactly how this statement worked that I fully grasped how horrendous this was.
If you look at the photo on the left you can see the water in the canal and the wall to the side. These walls were meant to obviously hold the water back. However, they were not built deep enough into the ground so, when the water levels rose and pushed back at them they were ripped out of the ground and, if that was not bad enough, they also damaged the levees as they were being pulled out. The result was huge breaches in the walls protecting neighbourhoods from the water just metres away from them. In the photo you’ll see the white part of the wall and a more yellow brick. The yellow brick is all the new rebuilding – and that’s a lot of new brick!
The other incredible thing to witness was the fact that as you sit on the coach looking out towards the canals you can see the water and the walls and then, on either side of the walls, the houses. And the water level within those walls is seriously higher, even on a beautiful, sunny day, than the level of the ground beyond the walls. Thus, when those walls and levees broke the surge of water must have been the stuff of nightmares.
While travelling on the coach, the guide pointed out a couple of houses with markings on them – marks that were pretty near the roof lines. She explained that these were made by the rescue services/ordinary citizens in boats who were travelling along checking for survivors. The date is on the top, a note made regarding utilities, numbers rescued and directly under the date, number of dead found. Very harsh.
As we drove we could see that many areas are now back on their feet. But there were still reminders of it all with buildings left abandoned such as they were after the destruction. Either owners could not afford to rebuild or moved away and restarted their lives elsewhere. The city authorities have a very long and convoluted process, apparently, to demolish an existing building even if it is in an obvious state of abandon. This makes the neighbours who have rebuilt and have to live with the constant reminder next door rather unhappy. In a curious side note, the population of New Orleans dropped considerably after Katrina with people moving away and then never returning.
I was grateful that the streets were quiet and we hardly saw anyone around who we might have offended by being there. I can understand to my core why this has elements which are just plain wrong. But it also makes better sense now (self-justification, maybe?). I can see just how the whole system broke down. I can’t get my head round how the water defence systems weren’t better (the Army Core of Engineers was sued as they built the levee system) but that’s being addressed already by the authorities. In Louisiana nearly one thousand six hundred died in Katrina. The monetary damage overall was over $108 billion. The rebuilding has taken over eight years and is still not fully finished.
When you sit in the French Quarter and eat beignets it’s easy to forget what this area has gone through. Move away the shortest of distances and you see that the scars are still there in the city’s psyche, like a keloid scar, raised and fiery and a constant reminder of the damage suffered.
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Losing Sight of the Margin 