No energy to write or process, but here's a few pictures from the start of a "Gut".
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Sunday, June 25, 2006
2006 Summer Adventure #1
The obvious perk of being a teacher is having the summer months off to do whatever you want. I have resisted the easy way to occupy my summer months, teaching summer school. Usually, I am all about planning my summer months way in advance, most probably because what I’ve wanted to do was easily identified. As of April, I still had only one week accounted for; the rest being a list of possibilities. But about six weeks ago, everything fell into place and my summer plans came together. The first of my adventures of the summer has me in New Orleans doing a week of volunteer work with Hands On New Orleans. A big shout out goes to Hans W. for directing me toward this organization.
I arrived in New Orleans and had the good fortune to get into a cab driven by a Vietnamese immigrant named Lou. In the fifteen minute ride from the airport to the church in which the volunteers like myself will be staying, we struck up a conversation that led Lou to take me my own personal tour of the destruction of New Orleans. Over the course of our hour and a half together, I learned that Lou came to the United States in 1976 and landed in Oklahoma. At some point, he made it to New Orleans, living in the now famous Lower 9th Ward. At some point in the early 1990’s, he went back to Vietnam, got married and had two kids. At some point, he moved them to New Orleans and in time he bought a house in the suburb of Metarie. Lou, like most immigrants, loves the United States and has pretty negative opinions of the African-American population. He said that he through hard work and intelligence was able to buy a house in the suburbs therein lies a pretty sweeping implication. The most interesting, and ear-opening statement Lou made was his belief that the US Government’s post flood response was good, “really great” were the words I remember him using. I asked him to repeat what he said, and I got the same response.
Lou’s personal Katrina evacuation story goes as follows. The day before the hurricane hit, because he had his own car, he got on the freeway and went nowhere. Eight hours before the brunt of the storm, he drove to Baton Rouge. From there, he drove him and his family to Houston. After a week, he drove back to New Orleans and wasn’t allowed to come back so he went to San Diego to live with family members. After two months, he returned back to New Orleans at the beginning of December 2005. I asked why he came back. His response, “because it’s home.”
Coming into the city of New Orleans from the west, once you enter the city, you begin to see houses that are abandoned. There are lots of missing doors and windows and lots of piles in front of homes. It is quite easy to determine how the repopulation of New Orleans is going by simply looking for the white FEMA provided trailers that sit in the driveways and front lawns of homes that have had their owners/renters return. According to Lou, one has to provide proof of occupation and a FEMA trailer was yours. It’s hard to tell what percentage of the homes have trailers in front, but in the Western part of New Orleans, flood damaged, but not in the thoroughly devastating way as seen in pictures of the Lower 9th Ward, it’s about 50%.
Lou took me directly to the 9th Ward where the percentage of FEMA trailers is around 10%. The crossing over the Industrial canal, we entered the Lower 9th Ward, and saw total destruction.
You want to know how high the water level was during the flood? The blue house in this next photo gives a pretty clear idea that it was above the heads of the average person.
Moving east out of the Lower 9th, one crosses into St. Bernard Parish. It is a suburb but since it’s geographically contiguous with the Lower 9th, it too was flooded. In Lou’s words “you go 20 miles and it looks the same.” The sole difference here in St. Bernard Parish is the local officials mandated that FEMA trailers were not to be located on the property of the homeowner. Instead, the trailers are required to be placed together in specifically designated public areas.
A St. Bernard Parish Trailer Cluster/Park
An enterprising St. Bernard Parish government official decided to try and help the parish financially by declaring a part of the Parish “the” hurricane debris trash heap.
As we circled back towards central New Orleans, we got to glimpse the state of New Orleans East. According to Lou, a pair of racially different but economically successful groups inhabits this part of the city. One is upper middle class African-Americans. This group lives the American suburban dream, living in gated subdivisions full of McMansions.
The photo isn’t great and doesn’t show these huge homes that have no inhabitants or sign of life. Even though these homes look inhabitable, I get the sense from Lou’s ramblings that because of the lack of any services, it’s just too hard to try and live here.
The second group in this part of New Orleans is a community of some 70,000 Vietnamese immigrants. Lou thinks that a community of Vietnamese located themselves here because the bayou landscape looks a lot like their homeland. Lou said that a common story here is that many of the residents here got mortgages to buy homes. With that mortgage came the requirement to carry insurance, including flood insurance. Through hard work and thrift, many of these people paid off their mortgages early and didn’t continue carrying flood insurance. Their predicament now is the loss of their homes, but no money to start to rebuild.
I asked Lou whether or not his home was flooded. He said no. I then asked whether or not a higher income level meant you had a higher probability of not being inundated with floodwaters. I asked this because the high rent Garden District and French Quarters were not flooded (the damage in these areas were predominantly wind related). Again, his answer was no. He said it was all luck. The breaches in the levee occurred where they did and didn’t discriminate in whomever’s home it damaged. It’s just that the famous tourist areas and upper income areas were far from the breach. He told me that he was lucky. During times of heavy rains, his home floods as the water level rises, but that the flood from the levee breach occurred on the east side and he lives west of the city. He totally believed that luck played the biggest role in his still having a home.
What is going to be fascinating is to watch the rebirth of these communities. As a teacher of Economics, it truly will be watching an economy grow from scratch. For example, the Home Depot in New Orleans East just opened its doors again last month. We all can imagine what role that will play in getting people to be able to make the repairs to their homes to come back.
I saw so much in the hour and a half that Lou drove me around. I thank him for being willing to show me the devastation and to share with me his opinions. It’s his heartfelt belief that most of the people will return. It might be 5 years until even 50% of residents will return, but in the end, Lou thinks they will. Even for the African-Americans of the Lower 9th Ward, who have the biggest hurdles to overcome. They too will return, Lou said, because the displaced residents are living on the land of their ancestors, freed slaves.
I arrived in New Orleans and had the good fortune to get into a cab driven by a Vietnamese immigrant named Lou. In the fifteen minute ride from the airport to the church in which the volunteers like myself will be staying, we struck up a conversation that led Lou to take me my own personal tour of the destruction of New Orleans. Over the course of our hour and a half together, I learned that Lou came to the United States in 1976 and landed in Oklahoma. At some point, he made it to New Orleans, living in the now famous Lower 9th Ward. At some point in the early 1990’s, he went back to Vietnam, got married and had two kids. At some point, he moved them to New Orleans and in time he bought a house in the suburb of Metarie. Lou, like most immigrants, loves the United States and has pretty negative opinions of the African-American population. He said that he through hard work and intelligence was able to buy a house in the suburbs therein lies a pretty sweeping implication. The most interesting, and ear-opening statement Lou made was his belief that the US Government’s post flood response was good, “really great” were the words I remember him using. I asked him to repeat what he said, and I got the same response.
Lou’s personal Katrina evacuation story goes as follows. The day before the hurricane hit, because he had his own car, he got on the freeway and went nowhere. Eight hours before the brunt of the storm, he drove to Baton Rouge. From there, he drove him and his family to Houston. After a week, he drove back to New Orleans and wasn’t allowed to come back so he went to San Diego to live with family members. After two months, he returned back to New Orleans at the beginning of December 2005. I asked why he came back. His response, “because it’s home.”
Coming into the city of New Orleans from the west, once you enter the city, you begin to see houses that are abandoned. There are lots of missing doors and windows and lots of piles in front of homes. It is quite easy to determine how the repopulation of New Orleans is going by simply looking for the white FEMA provided trailers that sit in the driveways and front lawns of homes that have had their owners/renters return. According to Lou, one has to provide proof of occupation and a FEMA trailer was yours. It’s hard to tell what percentage of the homes have trailers in front, but in the Western part of New Orleans, flood damaged, but not in the thoroughly devastating way as seen in pictures of the Lower 9th Ward, it’s about 50%.
Lou took me directly to the 9th Ward where the percentage of FEMA trailers is around 10%. The crossing over the Industrial canal, we entered the Lower 9th Ward, and saw total destruction.
You want to know how high the water level was during the flood? The blue house in this next photo gives a pretty clear idea that it was above the heads of the average person.
Moving east out of the Lower 9th, one crosses into St. Bernard Parish. It is a suburb but since it’s geographically contiguous with the Lower 9th, it too was flooded. In Lou’s words “you go 20 miles and it looks the same.” The sole difference here in St. Bernard Parish is the local officials mandated that FEMA trailers were not to be located on the property of the homeowner. Instead, the trailers are required to be placed together in specifically designated public areas.
An enterprising St. Bernard Parish government official decided to try and help the parish financially by declaring a part of the Parish “the” hurricane debris trash heap.
As we circled back towards central New Orleans, we got to glimpse the state of New Orleans East. According to Lou, a pair of racially different but economically successful groups inhabits this part of the city. One is upper middle class African-Americans. This group lives the American suburban dream, living in gated subdivisions full of McMansions.
The photo isn’t great and doesn’t show these huge homes that have no inhabitants or sign of life. Even though these homes look inhabitable, I get the sense from Lou’s ramblings that because of the lack of any services, it’s just too hard to try and live here.
The second group in this part of New Orleans is a community of some 70,000 Vietnamese immigrants. Lou thinks that a community of Vietnamese located themselves here because the bayou landscape looks a lot like their homeland. Lou said that a common story here is that many of the residents here got mortgages to buy homes. With that mortgage came the requirement to carry insurance, including flood insurance. Through hard work and thrift, many of these people paid off their mortgages early and didn’t continue carrying flood insurance. Their predicament now is the loss of their homes, but no money to start to rebuild.
I asked Lou whether or not his home was flooded. He said no. I then asked whether or not a higher income level meant you had a higher probability of not being inundated with floodwaters. I asked this because the high rent Garden District and French Quarters were not flooded (the damage in these areas were predominantly wind related). Again, his answer was no. He said it was all luck. The breaches in the levee occurred where they did and didn’t discriminate in whomever’s home it damaged. It’s just that the famous tourist areas and upper income areas were far from the breach. He told me that he was lucky. During times of heavy rains, his home floods as the water level rises, but that the flood from the levee breach occurred on the east side and he lives west of the city. He totally believed that luck played the biggest role in his still having a home.
What is going to be fascinating is to watch the rebirth of these communities. As a teacher of Economics, it truly will be watching an economy grow from scratch. For example, the Home Depot in New Orleans East just opened its doors again last month. We all can imagine what role that will play in getting people to be able to make the repairs to their homes to come back.
I saw so much in the hour and a half that Lou drove me around. I thank him for being willing to show me the devastation and to share with me his opinions. It’s his heartfelt belief that most of the people will return. It might be 5 years until even 50% of residents will return, but in the end, Lou thinks they will. Even for the African-Americans of the Lower 9th Ward, who have the biggest hurdles to overcome. They too will return, Lou said, because the displaced residents are living on the land of their ancestors, freed slaves.
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