New Orleans (Part 1)

Just caught a flight out of New Orleans this morning back to NYC. I spent a week there with my cooperating teacher, Nathan Turner, and our Katrina class from Beacon High School. There were about 40 of us total who left the city on Friday at about 1:30pm. Eight States, three days, two snow storms, and one flat tire later we arrived in Lousiana on Sunday afternoon.







Our driver, Bill, (on the left) an ex-alcoholic who sobered up and raised two daughters by himself, has been driving this bus all across the United States since 1993 and trucking aide to Cuba, Katrina victims, and to the Chiapas in Mexico working with Pastors for Peace



Before Katrina the lower ninth ward, a predominately black neighborhood, had the highest percentage of home ownership in the entire United States and was built literally by previous generations of the families living there.
Members of the POC , the organization we were working with, explained to the students that Hurrican Katrina actually missed most of New Orleans by 80 miles. Residents of the lower ninth ward went to sleep the night of the hurricane relieved that the storm had missed them only to wake up to flooded homes and broken levees. There have been countless testimonies from members of the community who heard explosions near the river in the middle of the night. The neighborhood was inundated, in what POC claimes, was a plan to get rid of the residents. There has rumors of clearing the area and building a golf course.

A year and a half later, the area looks like an abandoned war-zone. Displaced families are not allowed to return due to alleged hazardous chemicals left behind. However many of the projects that we saw had minimal water damage only about 2 feet high that could be easily repaired. The Housing Authority of New Orleans, who claim to be helping rebuild the city, have boarded up the doors and windows of several projects and posted flyers that threatened to arrest and even imprison people who tried to move back in.

Here are a few pictures of what is left of the homes and schools:









Our group of students spent the week gutting houses and a large high school in an effort to rebuild the community so that people can move back. We were required to wear tyvex suits, helmets, gloves, goggles and respirators. After 5 long days of labor, the 40 of us felt overwhelmed at the amount of work there is still to be done.





If anyone wants to see more pictures, let me know I can e-mail them to you.