One awesome thing about three girls living together: amassed, we now have 7 Netflixes coming to the house. Rifling through the pile in the living room, I found one of Jaunt's- Trouble the Water.
It's been just over a year since I was in New Orleans, and the reverberations are still reverberating. I still read and watch anything I can get my hands on that addresses Katrina and the aftermath, still email with people I met down there asking for updates, and still look for ways that things are improving and how mistakes might not be repeated.
Trouble the Water is, so far, the single most terrifying body of footage about Hurricane Katrina I have seen. You can look at stills of damage, you can view helicopter shots of people swimming through dirty levy water, and you can hear stories, but until you see that water rise from the viewpoint of a handheld gripped by someone lodged in the upper beams of their attic, I don't think you can really get your mind around the devastation of that storm. And, as if I couldn't be more enraged about the aftermath, the story continues to unfold nastily and frighteningly.
Showing posts with label Hurricane Katrina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hurricane Katrina. Show all posts
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
Spike Lee's "Requiem"
Damn.
DAMN.
New crush: Wendell Pierce. Native New Orleanian, star of The Wire and now Treme lends his commentary to Spike Lee's infinitesimally-researched documentary.
Every time I think I get some scope of JUST HOW complicated the situation is/was....
Below is just an excerpt. In the actual documentary, there is footage that is beyond disturbing.
Example: British journalists stumbled upon a home filled with un-minded children. Where's Mom? "She needs air to breathe," a child explains, pointing the journalists to dead Mom lying in her bed, hooked up to an oxygen machine that ceased to work when the power went out.
Wrap your head around that.
DAMN.
New crush: Wendell Pierce. Native New Orleanian, star of The Wire and now Treme lends his commentary to Spike Lee's infinitesimally-researched documentary.
Every time I think I get some scope of JUST HOW complicated the situation is/was....
Below is just an excerpt. In the actual documentary, there is footage that is beyond disturbing.
Example: British journalists stumbled upon a home filled with un-minded children. Where's Mom? "She needs air to breathe," a child explains, pointing the journalists to dead Mom lying in her bed, hooked up to an oxygen machine that ceased to work when the power went out.
Wrap your head around that.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Episode Two and Karma
Episode 2 of Treme brought up an interesting point last night: the volunteer aspect of the equation.
It's easy, I suppose, to try and absorb the tragedy, to educate oneself and immerse oneself in the goings-on. But the narrative cannot be made wholly real because of one blatant, glaring point: You. Weren't. There.
It's not your story.
It's not your home.
It's not your city.
But no one would ever make the mistake of saying: It's not your fight.
"We really appreciate what you're doing for our city," people say. And they do. But of course, they're wary of outsiders coming in and trying to claim the disaster for their own. And there is certainly some degree of skepticism involved ("Oh, you get to take a week off from your regular life, come down here, clean up a little of the mess and go home to your stable home and job and family and feel like you are alleviated of some liberal, white guilt.")
But the point is, we wouldn't be watching Treme if we didn't feel involved in some way. If we hadn't, somehow, gotten sucked into these collective stories. And maybe we got involved, to whatever degree, because there is something so realistic and believable about it. New Orleans may not be our home, and Katrina may not have been our personal un-doing. But our homes are just as fragile, our lives just as transient as anyone elses. And we know, deep down, that we're not really all that safe from anything. A freak car accident, a mugging, a collection of random cells gone rogue and metastasizing. We dig our fingers into the dirt of New Orleans because we know that people would dig theirs right back in ours if something went terribly wrong.
Or, at least, we hope so. You put out into the world what you hope to get back. It's a radically simple karmic theory but, in my experience, It. Works.
It's not tit for tat. Make no rookie mistake on that.
But it's an energy, it's something you're buying into. A general way of being in the world. Opening your world view to encompass the losses of a few hundred thousand people in a city sixteen hundred miles away might mean you smile at strangers. It might mean you hand a homeless man a five dollar bill (and then have a panic attack for ten minutes worrying that he's headed straight to the liquor store, but whatever) or it might mean that you turn off the incessant inner-monologue you have going on to listen intently to a friend who desperately needs your ear. Not your advice, not your opinion, just your ear.
The changes I have seen in my life in the past year or so I directly attribute to this attitude I've developed. This moment of having a choice at every second of every day as to who you're going to be, and how you're going to act. You don't have to gut or rebuild houses to put something good out in the world. You could just hold a door open for a stranger, send a card to someone you love telling them that, or make eye contact at a crucial moment. You consistently choose to be the best person you can be, the most honest and aware and kind, on a moment-to-moment basis.
I digress.
Anyway...still in love with Treme. And the music....delicious.
It's easy, I suppose, to try and absorb the tragedy, to educate oneself and immerse oneself in the goings-on. But the narrative cannot be made wholly real because of one blatant, glaring point: You. Weren't. There.
It's not your story.
It's not your home.
It's not your city.
But no one would ever make the mistake of saying: It's not your fight.
"We really appreciate what you're doing for our city," people say. And they do. But of course, they're wary of outsiders coming in and trying to claim the disaster for their own. And there is certainly some degree of skepticism involved ("Oh, you get to take a week off from your regular life, come down here, clean up a little of the mess and go home to your stable home and job and family and feel like you are alleviated of some liberal, white guilt.")
But the point is, we wouldn't be watching Treme if we didn't feel involved in some way. If we hadn't, somehow, gotten sucked into these collective stories. And maybe we got involved, to whatever degree, because there is something so realistic and believable about it. New Orleans may not be our home, and Katrina may not have been our personal un-doing. But our homes are just as fragile, our lives just as transient as anyone elses. And we know, deep down, that we're not really all that safe from anything. A freak car accident, a mugging, a collection of random cells gone rogue and metastasizing. We dig our fingers into the dirt of New Orleans because we know that people would dig theirs right back in ours if something went terribly wrong.
Or, at least, we hope so. You put out into the world what you hope to get back. It's a radically simple karmic theory but, in my experience, It. Works.
It's not tit for tat. Make no rookie mistake on that.
But it's an energy, it's something you're buying into. A general way of being in the world. Opening your world view to encompass the losses of a few hundred thousand people in a city sixteen hundred miles away might mean you smile at strangers. It might mean you hand a homeless man a five dollar bill (and then have a panic attack for ten minutes worrying that he's headed straight to the liquor store, but whatever) or it might mean that you turn off the incessant inner-monologue you have going on to listen intently to a friend who desperately needs your ear. Not your advice, not your opinion, just your ear.
The changes I have seen in my life in the past year or so I directly attribute to this attitude I've developed. This moment of having a choice at every second of every day as to who you're going to be, and how you're going to act. You don't have to gut or rebuild houses to put something good out in the world. You could just hold a door open for a stranger, send a card to someone you love telling them that, or make eye contact at a crucial moment. You consistently choose to be the best person you can be, the most honest and aware and kind, on a moment-to-moment basis.
I digress.
Anyway...still in love with Treme. And the music....delicious.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Treme
Oh. My. God.
I know I said I was going to break from all things New Orleans for a spell, but I poured myself a glass of pinot grigio this evening and sat back with Treme.
Oh, David Simon....you have cast a spell on me.
Everything, from the shotgun houses to the greener-than-green palms, the clapboard, the second line (so-called because after funeral processions; after the mourners and hand-wrenchers; there is a long-standing tradition of a "second line" brass band playing joyful celebratory hymns and ditties with the express purpose of "celebrating" the life of the deceased), the Mardi Gras Indian, the X's on the houses, the "Red beans and rice even though it ain't Monday," the mold in the opening credits, and the music-oh the music- sweet bluesy-jazz-zydecho. Spot-on, Simon. Spot-freaking-on.
"How's your house?" people inquire, as casually and common-place as "How's life?" People displaced to Baton Rouge and -gasp- as far as Jefferson Parish (highly inconvenient by taxi to anywhere action might be)...
Oh, David Simon.
Treme is, after only one show, already signed on for a second season. People are committed to this post-Katrina New Orleans thing, and David Simon's Midas touch certainly helps.
Watch it. Find it, watch it, live it.
I know I said I was going to break from all things New Orleans for a spell, but I poured myself a glass of pinot grigio this evening and sat back with Treme.
Oh, David Simon....you have cast a spell on me.
Everything, from the shotgun houses to the greener-than-green palms, the clapboard, the second line (so-called because after funeral processions; after the mourners and hand-wrenchers; there is a long-standing tradition of a "second line" brass band playing joyful celebratory hymns and ditties with the express purpose of "celebrating" the life of the deceased), the Mardi Gras Indian, the X's on the houses, the "Red beans and rice even though it ain't Monday," the mold in the opening credits, and the music-oh the music- sweet bluesy-jazz-zydecho. Spot-on, Simon. Spot-freaking-on.
"How's your house?" people inquire, as casually and common-place as "How's life?" People displaced to Baton Rouge and -gasp- as far as Jefferson Parish (highly inconvenient by taxi to anywhere action might be)...
Oh, David Simon.
Treme is, after only one show, already signed on for a second season. People are committed to this post-Katrina New Orleans thing, and David Simon's Midas touch certainly helps.
Watch it. Find it, watch it, live it.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Absolute Zero
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
- Emily Dickinson
This happens all the time now.
I'm standing in a house, which I somehow recognize as my own although it looks nothing like any house I've ever lived in. I'm standing in the living room of sorts, and everything is upside down. Furniture tossed and landed sideways, broken, pieces of it everywhere.
Suddenly, the walls begin to bloom. Circles of mold, near the intersection of wall and ceiling, begin to bleed across the wall in dusty, gray-green patterns that look wet to the touch. The mold begins to overtake the house.
And then there's a creaking, moaning sound, and it happens. The water: it's coming. I can hear it, like a freight train, barrelling forth with its terrible velocity. The windows shatter, and it comes pouring in. Great brown waves, bubbling with toxic fury. The water is pouring in, and I am standing in the middle of the room, and I am alone in a house that is filling up with water.
It picks me up, and I reach for anything. My hands touch wall and go straight through, the plaster crumbling between my fingers, the mold oozing out. This house is already in a state of advanced decay. I know that I will not get out and, in my dream, it doesn't seem to matter. Everything in my life is in this house, and everything is destroyed, so what's the point?
I wake up with my hands clenched in fists held so tightly against me that they are asleep. Pins and needles in my forearms and hands and fingers. I've awoken with one of those audible gasps that you hear yourself make and have to wonder, for a moment, if you're still dreaming.
It's come to this: I'm dreaming about Hurricane Katrina.
I've always had the same recurring stress dream: tornadoes. Always the same scenario: black sky, wind whipping, giant tube of anger and electricity bearing down on me. I am always trying to get away. Sometimes I'm in a car, sometimes I'm on foot, but always, always it's going to get me and suck me up and pull the air out of my lungs and kill me. I almost always wake up just as my feet leave the ground. I've had this dream for as long as I can remember.
And now? A moldy, ruined house with water rushing in. Everything is gone. And the worst part- I don't even try to get away.
Because that's the bigger fear, isn't it? The fear of losing everything? The fear of aloneness and loss of family, friends, house, and any little tiny thread of security that binds us to this sometimes terrible and inexplicable world. And there are moments when we see how painfully thin those ties are, like spiderwebs slick with dew. We accumulate more possessions and ideas and experiences in the hope that these things will weigh us down, give us heavier footing. But there are moments when the water rushes in, and we see how dangerously close we can come to losing everything.
But everything isn't lost, it never is, there are always more webs reaching out and as our hands flail around in this world there is always something to grab onto, even just momentarily. And if we let go, just open our hands and let the water come and admit defeat, something will reach out for us. Because life isn't like nightmares. Thankfully.
I am petrified of absolute zero. Like those burn victims who live but whose faces are marred beyond recognition: how do they go on? Loss of sense of self, loss of all ego, loss of any solid footing on this earth. Or people who lose entire communities and family members to natural disasters. How would you even begin to pick through the mourning process? Losing a house, and all that is contained within. The grief would be overwhelming.
Even more than all that, I am afraid of losing the core essence of myself. Mental illness, some neurological misfire...sometimes the damage is invisible; there is no flood, no fire, but everything is gone just the same. A wind snuffing out a candle, poof, nothing but a thread of smoke remains.
But it's like that moment in Mean Girls (Whatever, totally one of my favorite movies.) when Lindsay Lohan's character, Cady, is participating in the Mathletes contest and suddenly gets it. The line is approaching zero, it's getting closer and closer, but "The limit does not exist! The limit does not exist!"
The limit does not exist. If you do not allow it to.
There will always be something. Some thread. Some lifeline, some gossamer strand of hope. Because we're humans, and we look for meaning in fricking everything. You can lose everything, you can scrape your feet on rock bottom and feel the horrible weight of failure and loss bearing down on you like 80 metric tons of debris-infected water, but you will still hope.
"Hope is the thing with feathers," Emily Dickinson wrote. Perched on the soul, singing it's little heart out even if no one is listening.
I'm thinking maybe it's time to take a little break from reading 1 Dead in Attic and working on this presentation that has me reviewing slide after slide of water, mold, and ruin. I have the luxury of taking a step back and disengaging and, if this is working it's way into my dreams and waking me up again and again through the night, then I'm thinking I need a bit of a break.
If I'm lucky, maybe I'll go back to nightmaring about tornadoes. Or the naked dream. That's another classic.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Times Like Th(e)se
times like those
a low-land home
heaven and earth filled the room
'til the windows broke
children rose
J. Tillman, Marked In the Valley (Year In the Kingdom)
Special thanks to Jackal who has always provided me with uncanny soundtracks for whatever thoughts I'm presently chewing upon.
a low-land home
heaven and earth filled the room
'til the windows broke
children rose
J. Tillman, Marked In the Valley (Year In the Kingdom)
Special thanks to Jackal who has always provided me with uncanny soundtracks for whatever thoughts I'm presently chewing upon.
Monday, March 29, 2010
NOLA Presentation
On top of gearing up this week to write a syllabus with Lee for a class we're teaching next month (NEXT MONTH. AS IN- "MAY." WTH.) and scrambling to do my taxes (how did I fall so behind on that this year?) I'm also writing two articles about New Orleans for submission and putting together a presentation to give in Annapolis on the 25th about the work we did.
One of the group members sent around this video which quite informatively explains a day-by-day time line of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent levee break. Although it might skirt some controversial issues, it's done by National Geographic and gives a pretty unbiased account.
Busy, busy, busy. Also got a job lead. Things are feeling good.
Also, I asked Josh for another funny Tumblr to rival Michael Buble Being Stalked By A Velociraptor (bee-tee-dubs, I was at the gym this morning and almost fell off the treadmill whilst sprinting as his song "Just Haven't Met You Yet" came on VH1 and I kept mentally inserting the snout of aforementioned velociraptor into each frame), and he sent me this. Ever so often, Josh and I have a distinct disconnect between what we find funny.
**ADDENDUM**
Josh's reply:
Fine, fine oh Trivia Lady - I will do my best to not disappoint you further with links not as funny as Michael Buble being stalked by Raptors...if I should come across a blog about Harry Connick Jr being pursued by rabid kittens or collages of David Hasselhof+ Buddist Temples+Ramen noodles I will forward them tout suite.
**ADDENDUM NUMBER 2**
I believe Josh wins this round.
One of the group members sent around this video which quite informatively explains a day-by-day time line of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent levee break. Although it might skirt some controversial issues, it's done by National Geographic and gives a pretty unbiased account.
Busy, busy, busy. Also got a job lead. Things are feeling good.
Also, I asked Josh for another funny Tumblr to rival Michael Buble Being Stalked By A Velociraptor (bee-tee-dubs, I was at the gym this morning and almost fell off the treadmill whilst sprinting as his song "Just Haven't Met You Yet" came on VH1 and I kept mentally inserting the snout of aforementioned velociraptor into each frame), and he sent me this. Ever so often, Josh and I have a distinct disconnect between what we find funny.
**ADDENDUM**
Josh's reply:
Fine, fine oh Trivia Lady - I will do my best to not disappoint you further with links not as funny as Michael Buble being stalked by Raptors...if I should come across a blog about Harry Connick Jr being pursued by rabid kittens or collages of David Hasselhof+ Buddist Temples+Ramen noodles I will forward them tout suite.
**ADDENDUM NUMBER 2**
I believe Josh wins this round.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
A Brief Word About Complications
My intention is to get all of the photos up this week (a lofty goal since it's beginning to look a lot like spring, and my attention span goes directly outside where it wants to be for the next 3-4 months), but I do very quickly want to point out something that was mentioned the other day.
I was called out for my supposed "misunderstanding" of the Katrina situation and for falsely attributing post-Katrina damage to the storm itself instead of noting that the bulk of damage came from government neglect of the levee structure or faulty engineering.
But here's the thing- my limited knowledge still tells me that the entire situation is such a perfect storm of complications, it's impossible to isolate one single aspect as "The Thing" that was the tipping point of damage. Even putting aside all the difficulties of evacuation, the socio-economic problems, the poorly up-kept levees, and all of the things that made headlines there are still other problems that contributed to the damage. Over a hundred years ago, loggers and watermen began changing water patterns which led to the complex series of canals and dams that keeps the Mississippi where it belongs and created a more direct route from Lake Ponchartrain to the Gulf. All of these land-moving initiatives and bridge innovations were crucial in the early planning of central New Orleans, but ultimately man's taking over of nature has a price.
Some of the problems with flooding came from storm surge coupled with a man-made change in water flow patterns. Even if the levees had held, it would have been a problematic situation.
In hind sight, I'm sure, we'll find many times over that our man-ipulations (see what I did there? How clever!) of nature upset the natural balances and flows that keep everything where it should be. There are some theorists who conjecture that the recent spike in violent hurricanes is due to changing global weather patterns which; although periodically throughout recorded history these anamolies occur; some attribute to global warming and other indications of our presence on this earth.
I am not comfortable with camping out in any one facet as "The Thing" that tipped the damage from terrible to catastrophic. In all of the infinite complexities, there were failures and coincidences and things both in and out of peoples' control that went wrong.
This is not unique to New Orleans. Inner-city problems in most urban areas, are complex issues of power balance, natural resources, generational poverty, antiquated laws, and a host of other aspects that contribute. Toss in an unanticipated natural disaster and it's chaos.
There is still so much for me to read and learn about this situation. But I did want to point out that I'm not on board yet, and possibly won't be, with isolating any one particular aspect. It's all intertwined, it's all crucial, and it's difficult to mete out responsibility in that fashion.
More photos of glorious Crescent City to come this week! I miss it terribly already.
I was called out for my supposed "misunderstanding" of the Katrina situation and for falsely attributing post-Katrina damage to the storm itself instead of noting that the bulk of damage came from government neglect of the levee structure or faulty engineering.
But here's the thing- my limited knowledge still tells me that the entire situation is such a perfect storm of complications, it's impossible to isolate one single aspect as "The Thing" that was the tipping point of damage. Even putting aside all the difficulties of evacuation, the socio-economic problems, the poorly up-kept levees, and all of the things that made headlines there are still other problems that contributed to the damage. Over a hundred years ago, loggers and watermen began changing water patterns which led to the complex series of canals and dams that keeps the Mississippi where it belongs and created a more direct route from Lake Ponchartrain to the Gulf. All of these land-moving initiatives and bridge innovations were crucial in the early planning of central New Orleans, but ultimately man's taking over of nature has a price.
Some of the problems with flooding came from storm surge coupled with a man-made change in water flow patterns. Even if the levees had held, it would have been a problematic situation.
In hind sight, I'm sure, we'll find many times over that our man-ipulations (see what I did there? How clever!) of nature upset the natural balances and flows that keep everything where it should be. There are some theorists who conjecture that the recent spike in violent hurricanes is due to changing global weather patterns which; although periodically throughout recorded history these anamolies occur; some attribute to global warming and other indications of our presence on this earth.
I am not comfortable with camping out in any one facet as "The Thing" that tipped the damage from terrible to catastrophic. In all of the infinite complexities, there were failures and coincidences and things both in and out of peoples' control that went wrong.
This is not unique to New Orleans. Inner-city problems in most urban areas, are complex issues of power balance, natural resources, generational poverty, antiquated laws, and a host of other aspects that contribute. Toss in an unanticipated natural disaster and it's chaos.
There is still so much for me to read and learn about this situation. But I did want to point out that I'm not on board yet, and possibly won't be, with isolating any one particular aspect. It's all intertwined, it's all crucial, and it's difficult to mete out responsibility in that fashion.
More photos of glorious Crescent City to come this week! I miss it terribly already.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Duly Noted
Thanks to the New Orleans Ladder for linking to my post and for pointing out that much of the post-Katrina damage was due to structural weaknesses as opposed to anything that the storm actually did.
My knowledge of the logistics is, admittedly, a mere drop in the ocean. I couldn't even begin to explain all of the facts surrounding Katrina and, as they referenced it, "The Federal Flood of New Orleans." I tiptoe around these issues knowing that my ignorance of all of the facets of the shattered glass situation certainly creates a specific lens through which the situation is being viewed. I am open to "schooling myself," which is part of the reason I'm here.
The rhetoric in any situation that involves such touchy subjects is always tricky to navigate, especially because as human beings we assign so much meaning to words and how they are used. Please understand that none of my commentary about Katrina is value-laden in the sense that I openly accept my knowledge limitations on the subject.
At the same time, I would like to point out what the New Orleans Ladder blog also kindly took the time to do: this is a grateful city that welcomes volunteers and interest with open arms. Everywhere we go, we are recognizable by our paint-splattered clothes and sawdust in our hair, and everyone is happy to have us. The hospitality here has been overwhelmingly gracious, and I thank NOL for taking the time to not only comment on my blog, but point out some viewpoints and considerations new to me and also to recognize that these conversations are keeping the dialogue open and alive, as it should be.
My knowledge of the logistics is, admittedly, a mere drop in the ocean. I couldn't even begin to explain all of the facts surrounding Katrina and, as they referenced it, "The Federal Flood of New Orleans." I tiptoe around these issues knowing that my ignorance of all of the facets of the shattered glass situation certainly creates a specific lens through which the situation is being viewed. I am open to "schooling myself," which is part of the reason I'm here.
The rhetoric in any situation that involves such touchy subjects is always tricky to navigate, especially because as human beings we assign so much meaning to words and how they are used. Please understand that none of my commentary about Katrina is value-laden in the sense that I openly accept my knowledge limitations on the subject.
At the same time, I would like to point out what the New Orleans Ladder blog also kindly took the time to do: this is a grateful city that welcomes volunteers and interest with open arms. Everywhere we go, we are recognizable by our paint-splattered clothes and sawdust in our hair, and everyone is happy to have us. The hospitality here has been overwhelmingly gracious, and I thank NOL for taking the time to not only comment on my blog, but point out some viewpoints and considerations new to me and also to recognize that these conversations are keeping the dialogue open and alive, as it should be.
Friday, March 19, 2010
New Orleans: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
There's so much to think about. Which, I suppose, was mostly the point of doing something like this.
I've talked to so many people over the past week and it got to the point where I started taking notes to remember all of the stories I've heard. It's like asking someone where he or she was when he or she first saw the televised images of 9-11 or heard about Kennedy being shot: everyone has a story to tell.
In my efforts to collect my thoughts, I started taking notes. Jotting down little key words to remember specific stories and incidents. And so, I'll relate them to you here with some explanations. Also, some of these stories correspond to pictures in earlier blog entries. I'm not nearly organized enough (or with the luxury of enough time) at this point to make the connections, but hopefully some logic abounds.
Notes:
- Architecture schools from all over the US have jumped on board to design new homes, especially in areas like Brad Pitt's Make It Right project (which we walked through as part of our 9th Ward tour the other day) and Harry Connick Jr and Branford Marsalis's Musician's Village (which we also saw and is also located in the 9th Ward.) The homes are re-built with new specifications to withstand Category 5 hurricanes and floods which, in the Make It Right area meant raising the houses on stilts up to where the roof lines used to be. Additionally, aesthetics are considered as crucial as logistics, which is part of what makes these projects unique. Architecture schools have churned out creative, compelling designs (see "Completed Homes Gallery" on the Make It Right page) with interesting details, the way New Orleans architecture was meant to be. On top of all of that, many of the homes are built in eco-friendly ways with sustainable energy intake.
- The X's on the doors are a part of a city-wide audit that was done in the days and weeks immediately following the hurricane. Each quadrant corresponds to a different piece of information: the date, the unit conducting the search/audit (which began as a Search and Rescue effort but soon dematerialized into a count as few were found in later weeks), any structural hazards, and whether or not anyone was found (alive or dead.)
-Other information painted on houses: the ASPCA left notations of pets that were picked up. "Two Dogs," and "Black Cat" are clearly labelled in two of the pictures from one of my previous posts. Pets were not allowed in any of the shelters, and most people were forced to leave them behind if they could not make other arrangements. A make-shift animal shelter was set up near the public morgue and volunteers posted pictures of found pets on the Internet in the hopes that owners would be searching. As late as two years after Katrina, owners were still trickling back into the city and, joyfully, coming to reclaim pets that had been thought long dead and gone.
For all of the horrific stories about Katrina, for all of the death, poverty, and social issues, there are scattered stories of hope and love.
-One of the problems associated with the disbursement of federal aid and insurance claims is closely linked to social issues in terms of poverty, primarily the fact that often houses changed hands in the event of a death (passed from parent to surviving children, for example) with no actual legal transfer of deed. In fact, the deeds for many of the houses were lost, destroyed, or simply non-existent after years of impoverished circumstances. This was merely one tiny hiccup in the massive and painful hemmorhage of things gone wrong and the sudden visibility of all of the problems an urban area can have.
-Approximately 1,500 people perished directly from Katrina, about 100 of which were never identified or claimed. New studies have revealed that extensive stress, depression, and other post-traumatic ailments may be behind thousands of other deaths that followed in the weeks, months, and even years after the storm.
- Big plants, such as Coca Cola, in a hurry to get workers back on the job and producing would have huge installments of FEMA trailers placed on site to accomodate workers and families. In a massively counter-logical way, big businesses helped push local businesses back into existence as families would move back to the area to reclaim their jobs and need local businesses for food, gas, etc.
-The entire city was closed to residents in the weeks following Katrina and those who came back either had to have some form of legal identification that merited entrance to the city. Of the people we have spoken with, most of them created some sort of fraudulent identification and/or fabricated lie to get past the National Guard to get home to see what was left of their houses.
- The water that breached the levee in the Lower 9th Ward and up by the 17th St Canal stood until early October, ebbing with the tidal pulls of the Gulf. Houses still have clearly marked water lines, starting at the gutters and moving down, foot by foot, as the water was drained and/or pumped out. In the weeks following Katrina, the weather was at record highs. Which meant that every house full of water was also a house full of water and standing at between 80-95 degrees with high humidity. Even homes in which only the first floor was flooded needed to be completely gutted and renovated (provided the force of the water hadn't knocked the house fully off its foundation, which was common) because of mold. The mold attacked and destroyed everything; every wall, every stitch of furniture, every book, every floor board, every lamp, everything. When houses were gutted, not a thing could be saved as everything was in such a state of rot and decay by the time the waters receded.
-Things that require electricity: mortuaries and aquariums, among others. Mortuaries lost power and corpses rotted in record time. The aquarium could no longer oxygenate the water, and every living thing inside died. The tanks had to be emptied, scrubbed, and completely re-stocked. Fortunately, however, most animals in the Zoo made it safely through the storm.
-Other thing that requires electricity: refrigerators. There was a massive shortage of refrigerators available for purchase in the New Orleans area for up to a year later, because residents were unable to return to their homes for weeks after Katrina and, when they did, found bio-hazards residing where their cold cuts had been. Most residents did not bother opening the refrigerator door ("I had just gone fishing," one man joked) but duct-taped it shut and simply put it out on the corner for bulk pick-up. One family finally purchased a refrigerator in Baton Rouge online, rented a U-Haul, and drove up to get it. Even in the movement of the refrigerators, "juice still leaked out." I am told that I cannot imagine the stench, the disgust of it all. I had some visualization that, eventually (because in homes that were gutted, refrigerators remained untouched for 6 months to a year post-Katrina) the food would simply rot to a point of non-existence but, apparently, this is an uninformed viewpoint. The food is still there, a year later, unrefrigerated. Vomit.
-There is much talk of Hurricane Katrina being an "equal-opportunity flood," meaning it wiped out poor and rich homes alike with no thought to socio-economic circumstances. However, this completely perverted term is highly contraversial and, in many cases, offensive. Yes, a storm surge that breaks down a levee wall is just as apt to wipe out a multi-million dollar mansion as it is a shot-gun house, but who do you think has insurance to rebuild? Who do you think has enough money in savings to temporarily re-locate while contractors can rebuild? Many who lost their homes in New Orleans simply had no where else to go, no options, no money, and nothing left without the collateral of a house.
"Why didn't they evacuate? What, were they going to leave bed-ridden Grandma, climb into the family car with money and food, and go stay in a Best Western?" someone noted. An evacuation requires a back-up plan, something that is considered a luxury.
Additionally, Hurricane Katrina occurred towards the end of the month when many welfare families are stretching out the dregs of that month's check. The last few dimes and dollars rattled around as meteorologists urged people to leave, and the subsequent storm caused a major red tape earthquake and long delays in issuing checks and other forms of government help.
-There is, and perhaps always will be, a major debate over public housing. To re-build or not to re-build being the central question, and yet another tiny sliver of the massively-complicated latticework of post-Katrina problems. To be fair, however, public housing is a major debate in any urban city, its very existence bringing with it a host of questions and problems. As of yet, and this is only according to my sources so I could be wrong, none of the public housing that was destroyed in Katrina has been rebuilt. Neighboring cities, such as Houston, have absorbed many of the displaced and are now seeing social issues arise because of this.
My knowledge of Katrina was limited to the rhetoric issued mainly by the Associated Press and other news outlets, but the drama continues and is far more complicated than I had previously understood. It seems that under every rock there is another issue, another problem, another facet of the vastly complex underpinnings of this particular national disaster. Although Katrina was certainly not the first or last hurricane to devastate any area of the US, it has certainly become one of the most hotly debated for the sheer fact that it unearthed a seemingly-unsurmountable number of problems with urban areas in general. A severe gap in the population between the haves and have-nots, an immediate call to address issues that this city (and it is in no way unique in this fashion, because most-if-not-all cities suffer from the same sort of helplessness when it comes to some of these problems) had, for years, swept in layers under forgotten rugs.
Although I'm coming a bit late to the party, and although my understanding of the situation is changing by the day (if not by the minute/hour), I am slowly attempting to grasp the complexity of everything and try to make some sense of it.
And it's not all bad, certainly. Crime rates are down, the spirit of the city is infectious, and volunteering is at an all-time high. Where local and federal governments have failed, again and again, to provide aid for citizens, private and indepedent groups have stepped in. This is a great time for guerilla volunteering, for community, for working to re-build a city with a past as spicy and sweet as its delicacies. There is endless culture here, and Katrina has fueled creativity for a new generation of artists working to make sense of the catastrophe through art, music, and literature. There is hope here, certainly, and a belief that the problems are not insurmountable, the damage not permanant, and spirit still alive and well.
And, of course, there are drive-through daiquiris, and bowling alleys with live zydeco music, and po'boys, and red beans and rice, and pralines, and palm trees. There are those things too.
I've talked to so many people over the past week and it got to the point where I started taking notes to remember all of the stories I've heard. It's like asking someone where he or she was when he or she first saw the televised images of 9-11 or heard about Kennedy being shot: everyone has a story to tell.
In my efforts to collect my thoughts, I started taking notes. Jotting down little key words to remember specific stories and incidents. And so, I'll relate them to you here with some explanations. Also, some of these stories correspond to pictures in earlier blog entries. I'm not nearly organized enough (or with the luxury of enough time) at this point to make the connections, but hopefully some logic abounds.
Notes:
- Architecture schools from all over the US have jumped on board to design new homes, especially in areas like Brad Pitt's Make It Right project (which we walked through as part of our 9th Ward tour the other day) and Harry Connick Jr and Branford Marsalis's Musician's Village (which we also saw and is also located in the 9th Ward.) The homes are re-built with new specifications to withstand Category 5 hurricanes and floods which, in the Make It Right area meant raising the houses on stilts up to where the roof lines used to be. Additionally, aesthetics are considered as crucial as logistics, which is part of what makes these projects unique. Architecture schools have churned out creative, compelling designs (see "Completed Homes Gallery" on the Make It Right page) with interesting details, the way New Orleans architecture was meant to be. On top of all of that, many of the homes are built in eco-friendly ways with sustainable energy intake.
- The X's on the doors are a part of a city-wide audit that was done in the days and weeks immediately following the hurricane. Each quadrant corresponds to a different piece of information: the date, the unit conducting the search/audit (which began as a Search and Rescue effort but soon dematerialized into a count as few were found in later weeks), any structural hazards, and whether or not anyone was found (alive or dead.)
-Other information painted on houses: the ASPCA left notations of pets that were picked up. "Two Dogs," and "Black Cat" are clearly labelled in two of the pictures from one of my previous posts. Pets were not allowed in any of the shelters, and most people were forced to leave them behind if they could not make other arrangements. A make-shift animal shelter was set up near the public morgue and volunteers posted pictures of found pets on the Internet in the hopes that owners would be searching. As late as two years after Katrina, owners were still trickling back into the city and, joyfully, coming to reclaim pets that had been thought long dead and gone.
For all of the horrific stories about Katrina, for all of the death, poverty, and social issues, there are scattered stories of hope and love.
-One of the problems associated with the disbursement of federal aid and insurance claims is closely linked to social issues in terms of poverty, primarily the fact that often houses changed hands in the event of a death (passed from parent to surviving children, for example) with no actual legal transfer of deed. In fact, the deeds for many of the houses were lost, destroyed, or simply non-existent after years of impoverished circumstances. This was merely one tiny hiccup in the massive and painful hemmorhage of things gone wrong and the sudden visibility of all of the problems an urban area can have.
-Approximately 1,500 people perished directly from Katrina, about 100 of which were never identified or claimed. New studies have revealed that extensive stress, depression, and other post-traumatic ailments may be behind thousands of other deaths that followed in the weeks, months, and even years after the storm.
- Big plants, such as Coca Cola, in a hurry to get workers back on the job and producing would have huge installments of FEMA trailers placed on site to accomodate workers and families. In a massively counter-logical way, big businesses helped push local businesses back into existence as families would move back to the area to reclaim their jobs and need local businesses for food, gas, etc.
-The entire city was closed to residents in the weeks following Katrina and those who came back either had to have some form of legal identification that merited entrance to the city. Of the people we have spoken with, most of them created some sort of fraudulent identification and/or fabricated lie to get past the National Guard to get home to see what was left of their houses.
- The water that breached the levee in the Lower 9th Ward and up by the 17th St Canal stood until early October, ebbing with the tidal pulls of the Gulf. Houses still have clearly marked water lines, starting at the gutters and moving down, foot by foot, as the water was drained and/or pumped out. In the weeks following Katrina, the weather was at record highs. Which meant that every house full of water was also a house full of water and standing at between 80-95 degrees with high humidity. Even homes in which only the first floor was flooded needed to be completely gutted and renovated (provided the force of the water hadn't knocked the house fully off its foundation, which was common) because of mold. The mold attacked and destroyed everything; every wall, every stitch of furniture, every book, every floor board, every lamp, everything. When houses were gutted, not a thing could be saved as everything was in such a state of rot and decay by the time the waters receded.
-Things that require electricity: mortuaries and aquariums, among others. Mortuaries lost power and corpses rotted in record time. The aquarium could no longer oxygenate the water, and every living thing inside died. The tanks had to be emptied, scrubbed, and completely re-stocked. Fortunately, however, most animals in the Zoo made it safely through the storm.
-Other thing that requires electricity: refrigerators. There was a massive shortage of refrigerators available for purchase in the New Orleans area for up to a year later, because residents were unable to return to their homes for weeks after Katrina and, when they did, found bio-hazards residing where their cold cuts had been. Most residents did not bother opening the refrigerator door ("I had just gone fishing," one man joked) but duct-taped it shut and simply put it out on the corner for bulk pick-up. One family finally purchased a refrigerator in Baton Rouge online, rented a U-Haul, and drove up to get it. Even in the movement of the refrigerators, "juice still leaked out." I am told that I cannot imagine the stench, the disgust of it all. I had some visualization that, eventually (because in homes that were gutted, refrigerators remained untouched for 6 months to a year post-Katrina) the food would simply rot to a point of non-existence but, apparently, this is an uninformed viewpoint. The food is still there, a year later, unrefrigerated. Vomit.
-There is much talk of Hurricane Katrina being an "equal-opportunity flood," meaning it wiped out poor and rich homes alike with no thought to socio-economic circumstances. However, this completely perverted term is highly contraversial and, in many cases, offensive. Yes, a storm surge that breaks down a levee wall is just as apt to wipe out a multi-million dollar mansion as it is a shot-gun house, but who do you think has insurance to rebuild? Who do you think has enough money in savings to temporarily re-locate while contractors can rebuild? Many who lost their homes in New Orleans simply had no where else to go, no options, no money, and nothing left without the collateral of a house.
"Why didn't they evacuate? What, were they going to leave bed-ridden Grandma, climb into the family car with money and food, and go stay in a Best Western?" someone noted. An evacuation requires a back-up plan, something that is considered a luxury.
Additionally, Hurricane Katrina occurred towards the end of the month when many welfare families are stretching out the dregs of that month's check. The last few dimes and dollars rattled around as meteorologists urged people to leave, and the subsequent storm caused a major red tape earthquake and long delays in issuing checks and other forms of government help.
-There is, and perhaps always will be, a major debate over public housing. To re-build or not to re-build being the central question, and yet another tiny sliver of the massively-complicated latticework of post-Katrina problems. To be fair, however, public housing is a major debate in any urban city, its very existence bringing with it a host of questions and problems. As of yet, and this is only according to my sources so I could be wrong, none of the public housing that was destroyed in Katrina has been rebuilt. Neighboring cities, such as Houston, have absorbed many of the displaced and are now seeing social issues arise because of this.
My knowledge of Katrina was limited to the rhetoric issued mainly by the Associated Press and other news outlets, but the drama continues and is far more complicated than I had previously understood. It seems that under every rock there is another issue, another problem, another facet of the vastly complex underpinnings of this particular national disaster. Although Katrina was certainly not the first or last hurricane to devastate any area of the US, it has certainly become one of the most hotly debated for the sheer fact that it unearthed a seemingly-unsurmountable number of problems with urban areas in general. A severe gap in the population between the haves and have-nots, an immediate call to address issues that this city (and it is in no way unique in this fashion, because most-if-not-all cities suffer from the same sort of helplessness when it comes to some of these problems) had, for years, swept in layers under forgotten rugs.
Although I'm coming a bit late to the party, and although my understanding of the situation is changing by the day (if not by the minute/hour), I am slowly attempting to grasp the complexity of everything and try to make some sense of it.
And it's not all bad, certainly. Crime rates are down, the spirit of the city is infectious, and volunteering is at an all-time high. Where local and federal governments have failed, again and again, to provide aid for citizens, private and indepedent groups have stepped in. This is a great time for guerilla volunteering, for community, for working to re-build a city with a past as spicy and sweet as its delicacies. There is endless culture here, and Katrina has fueled creativity for a new generation of artists working to make sense of the catastrophe through art, music, and literature. There is hope here, certainly, and a belief that the problems are not insurmountable, the damage not permanant, and spirit still alive and well.
And, of course, there are drive-through daiquiris, and bowling alleys with live zydeco music, and po'boys, and red beans and rice, and pralines, and palm trees. There are those things too.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
The Tour
Busy, busy, busy day of more siding in the morning and then, this afternoon, a tour through New Orleans including the Lower Ninth Ward, 17th Street Canal, and other hard-hit areas of the city. Pictures to tell the story for now until I have time to write.
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