New Orleans Experience

Last weekend I was in New Orleans for a conference and was able to participate in a community service clean up. It has been 20 months since Katrina and it seems like things should / would / or could be further along. But, then you hear the numbers and realize the size of the problem: over 250,000 homes were damaged or destroyed and over 1 million people were displaced. Everyone that wants to rebuild are trying to hire the same contractors, plumbers, electricians, and buy the same supplies. That is if they are lucky. Many others are still trying to reach resolution with their insurance companies. We worked in a neighborhood near the 17th Street Canal where people's homes had 8-12 ft of water. This part of town has 11,000 homes - of which only about 20% of the residents have returned. There are empty lots where homes literally floated off their foundations. Others where the home has now been demolished. There are completely rebuilt homes. And many, many homes that look basically the same as they did right after the storm. I didn't take too many pictures, but here is one of where the levee broke. You can see the old levee wall on the right and the temporary rebuild on the left. The Army Corp of Engineers still has not yet decided on what the permanent fix will be. Here's a house that is completely gutted: This is the house right next door and it has been rebuilt: We worked on cleaning up trash/debris on a main road in the neighborhood, starting to rebuild a neighborhood park and cleaning out the yard of a neighboring house. A guy in the neighborhood came over and thanked us. He said that it really means a lot when people help them because they are all so consumed trying to rebuild their own lives and homes that they cannot even begin to focus on some of the small things like the trash or the big things like the park. Here's a look at the start of the new park: They are saying it will take at least 5 years to rebuild this whole neighborhood and that is just a section of New Orleans. One of the things that really struck me was realizing the lasting impact of the storm. In the local newspaper and on the TV newscasts at least 2/3 of the stories were linked to to the storm in some way. There was a story about a foster child who had been with the same family so long he called the parents mom and dad. After the storm they made the decision that they had to focus on their own children and could no longer be a foster family, even to this long-term child. So, he is back into the foster system. There were many stories about the housing market and one on the signs of post-traumatic stress disorder in children. The list goes on.