November 18,2005 — The Clarion
ARTS & LIFE
Page?
Feature:
BC student returns to home in New Orleans area
by Tom Cowan
Staff Writer
Over thanks giving
break I returned home to New
Orleans for the first time since
Hurricane Katrina. 1 was finally
able to see for my self what had
been described to me for nearly
three months. While it was com
forting to see most of the inner
city intact, 1 was discouraged by
the immensity of what seemed
to be irreparable damage across
the city’s residential areas. The
constant sight of these ruins
gave me a sense of uncertainty
that is shared by so many people
who still call New Orleans home.
Among the least damaged
parts of the city are downtown
and the French Quarter; these
are the oldest parts of the city
house and neighborhood
stayed dry and undamaged.
In my home neighborhood
called Old Metairie, the water
level was high enough to total
two cars in our driveway, but
unlike most houses, our first
floor was high enough to stay
dry. Every house in the city dam
aged or not, has been market by
spray-painted exes and various
symbols signifying the visita
tion of search and rescue teams.
Most of the city has taken on a
junkyard like appearance with a
loss of its characteristic sub
tropical plants, people and col
ors. Like the houses, many trees
which remain standing appear
lifeless. The dead plant life
seems more characteristic of
nuclear war than hurricane dev
astation; it causes me to wonder
which are for the most part on
higher ground. In the uptown
area the damages vary from
block to block. Any structure
which was weak before the storm
seems to have met its end. The
downstairs apartment of my
mother’s uptown house was
flooded enough to cause a com
plete rearrangement of furniture,
which needless to say did not
need to be put back into place or
even replace because the neigh
borhood is likely to be declared
imminent domain. Only about a
alfmile away my grandmother’s
how much of this disaster
should be considered natural.
Several of my friends who
stayed in the city during the
storm said they were relieved at
how little damage the storm
seemed to have done immedi
ately after it passed. It was not
until the next day on Tuesday
August 30, that the I?* Street
Canal broke open in the Lake
View area and spilled its water
across the city. The levee en
gineering flaws are believed to
have involved loose soil and
sheet piles which was not
driven deep enough into the
ground. The New Orleans Lon
don Canal and Industrial Canal
met similar fates and flooded
most of the eastern half of the
city such as the upper and lower
9''’ Ward. These three canal levee
breaches caused flooding that
consumed 75% of the New Or
leans metropolitan area. The city
saturated in a cesspool of its
own swage and industrial waist
for 2-3 weeks.
The lawless chaos and vio
lence that ensued during this
time has long vanished and the
true extent of it seems to have
only been recorded in the ac
counts of those who were there.
One interesting fact I learned
was that among the very first
people to entered New Orleans
after the storm were heavily
armed privet security forces,
such as Israel’s Instinctive
Shooting International. They
were paid to protect wealthy
neighborhoods such as
uptown’s Audubon Place.
While there are no more Is
raeli mercenaries in New Orleans
there is still a considerable po
lice and National Guard presents.
They do not seem to have much
left to do except patrol. No longer
crime ridden, many nighttime
streets seem quit and rural often
without street or traffic lights.
The city’s population has only
returned to between 60,000
100,000 people, less than a quar
ter of its pre-Katrina population.
Much of the city can literally be
described as a ghost town con
sidering the number of people
who died there. The Louisiana
death toll for Katrina was re
cently counted at 1076. The
city’s damage estimate is be
tween 60 and 80 billion.
New Orleans and much of
Louisiana has a reputation for
lazy and corrupt politics. This
used to be almost laughable for
many nonpolitical New Orleans
locals, but today is a new era with
a serious demand for reform.
Above all is the call for a hurri-
, cane proof levee system. With
the next hurricane season
quickly approaching, history is
in the making as the city
rushes to achieve this goal.
photos hy lorn Cowan