Spring Break
The Solemn Song of New Orleans
Almost a Year and a Half after Hurricane Katrina, Lives are Still Ruined by the Aftermath
Tom Shields
Issue date: 3/8/07 Section: Opinion
The colors were running. It looked like a Picasso painting at first: unfamiliar. Underneath the reds and blues streaking down the film, there were dark faces. The water had made it this way, a distorted reality. It was a family portrait, transformed.
Almost 18 months after Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans, the French Quarter and downtown areas are back in business, but the neighborhoods surrounding the city remain time capsules of the fateful date of Aug. 29, 2005. Besides the white FEMA trailers that grace some driveways as temporary housing for residents, nothing has changed. Insurance companies refuse to pay for water damage, and the federal government has turned a blind eye to its own people. New Orleans residents have been displaced, most leaving the state of Louisiana to find work in Texas, Mississippi and even Virginia to find ways of supporting their families and saving money to rebuild their houses, for it seems their FEMA checks will never arrive.
I still can't get my thoughts around what I saw; the carnage was endless. Rusted water marks (some over six feet) still decorate house siding as a somber reminder of Mother Nature's fury and of our own country's bureaucratic nightmare. Roofs caved in, cars disregarded, personal effects untouched, followed up by spray painted X's where the houses have been searched and so many animals (or even worse, bodies) were found on the floor. Can this really be America?
Jessie Goodman, a native to New Orleans for almost his whole life, is his street's elder. He is a town oracle rich in experience and knowledge, the guardian of North Rocheblave. He knows everyone and everyone knows him, as he sits on a folding chair, arms crossed, staring out into the destruction in the New Orleans sun. "I lost a lot of cousins," he said matter-of-factly. "A neighbor called me up and says 'you have a cousin named Peterson?' I said, 'Yes,' and he told me, 'I just saw him floating face down on the corner of there.' " He paused. "There is a nicer way to say that he had passed."
Almost 18 months after Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans, the French Quarter and downtown areas are back in business, but the neighborhoods surrounding the city remain time capsules of the fateful date of Aug. 29, 2005. Besides the white FEMA trailers that grace some driveways as temporary housing for residents, nothing has changed. Insurance companies refuse to pay for water damage, and the federal government has turned a blind eye to its own people. New Orleans residents have been displaced, most leaving the state of Louisiana to find work in Texas, Mississippi and even Virginia to find ways of supporting their families and saving money to rebuild their houses, for it seems their FEMA checks will never arrive.
I still can't get my thoughts around what I saw; the carnage was endless. Rusted water marks (some over six feet) still decorate house siding as a somber reminder of Mother Nature's fury and of our own country's bureaucratic nightmare. Roofs caved in, cars disregarded, personal effects untouched, followed up by spray painted X's where the houses have been searched and so many animals (or even worse, bodies) were found on the floor. Can this really be America?
Jessie Goodman, a native to New Orleans for almost his whole life, is his street's elder. He is a town oracle rich in experience and knowledge, the guardian of North Rocheblave. He knows everyone and everyone knows him, as he sits on a folding chair, arms crossed, staring out into the destruction in the New Orleans sun. "I lost a lot of cousins," he said matter-of-factly. "A neighbor called me up and says 'you have a cousin named Peterson?' I said, 'Yes,' and he told me, 'I just saw him floating face down on the corner of there.' " He paused. "There is a nicer way to say that he had passed."
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Alison Worth
posted 3/12/09 @ 7:25 AM EST
Thanks to author! I like articles like this about , very interesting.
Maria Ricard
posted 3/15/09 @ 10:12 AM EST
Good and interesting article, thanks!
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