#17 NOLA

NOLA

Trip Days 8-11
2006 May 5-9

In Mississippi, I had to give up the coastal route of US90 due to the bridges still out after being demolished by Katrina on August 29, 2005. Therefore, I hopped on I10 and rode into New Orleans.

Riding across Lake Pontchartrain from Slidell and into New Orleans.

Apartment complexes, damaged and abandoned, lined I10.

In New Orleans, everywhere you look, you see signs of the devastation wrought by Katrina and the floods. Reading the messages painted on the buildings by the rescuers, gives one a sense of eavesdropping on the pain and anguish of those that live/lived there.

These are the battle scars that the city displays as a small sign of what New Orleans has lived through.

Along a few streets you can see where some have managed to obtain a FEMA trailer (or provide their own trailer) so they can set up in their yard or driveway and begin the long, emotional task of starting over.This is one house ... horrible to see, but the reality is this is just a corner. What's worse is that every street, every corner has its own horror story. It is just inconceivable to drive through neighborhood after neighborhood and see this kind of destruction corner after corner, street after street. Of all the houses that floated away from where they had set for decades and cars that were left askew in unexpected positions ... This was a very odd sight.
A motorcycle was found, still in an upright position with its flat rear tire buried in what was once mud and silt. The landfills are full...where to go with the rest of the debris? So it piles up, higher and more widespread in what were once beautiful medians. Residents have come to expect to find things in odd places...buses, bulldozers, boats...A boat left in the median since the flood. The background is the famous St. Roch's Cemetery. All around are signs of people making do the best they can.
Situations that wouldn't have been tolerated before Sept 2005, now hardly raise an eyebrow.
This bus has an electrical extension cord running across the street. They apparently make use of extended outdoor living space...when the mosquitoes aren't too many.With the city police overworked and understaffed, neighborhood residents have banded together to look after their own.

Cafe Du Monde is back in operation serving coffee and beignets.Looking down the street toward the Farmers Market in the French Quarter.

This is a small coffee shop, Marigny Perks, less than two blocks from where I was staying with my friend. I hung out here a couple hours in the morning while I caught up on emails.
Worth noting: New Orleans, ALL of New Orleans, is now a wireless hot spot. My friend's single shotgun home in the Marigny neighborhood near the French Quarter. The photo is fuzzy from the N'awlins humidity on the lens. After staying several days in New Orleans visiting with my friend, it's time to move on down the road to TEXAS!

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