Upper and Lower 9th Ward

Tooling around the 9th ward and east New Orleans is interesting to say the least. Lots of local tourists driving around taking pictures. Again, you have to see the devastation to believe it. It's easier to count the number of houses that have people living in them than to count the number of houses damaged.

We drove over Franklin Avenue towards the St. Bernard Parish line. They were working on the levee breach. We were quite surprised to still see barges and smashed houses still untouched. Below are two photos showing the area near the breach.

Note, you can see a chain link fence keeping people away from the repair efforts.

You would think by now the barge would be gone.

As we drove towards the parish line, we noticed there were people gutting their houses. We couldn't see water lines in this area. I wasn't until we came across this house that we realized they must have been completely under water.

The tires and debris on the roof really hit home. The entire street looked like this with the exception of the homes where people had begun cleaning up. Again, all of these photos are from 2/4/2006 not a month after the storm. You can see the grass is finally growing back. One of the early complaints was that there was grey everywhere. It is still in the streets, driveways and sidewalks but the lawns and plants are starting to come back.

This house has been checked 4 times. The X is painted each time the house is checked and there are date and unit numbers as well. This one apparently had a dog in it. This was a little eerie as you could see notes on the house like, 2 dead cat, dog footprints and other random notes. This house was checked almost a month after the storm. The reality is that many houses still have not been checked. They found a body as late at 2/2/2006. I'm sure there are a few more lurking around.

There were also some tent cities. Some tents, some tarps held up with wood. FEMA is providing water and MREs to these people but it didn't look like the best living conditions. It would be nice to have the media really focus on the rebuilding effort or lack there of. It is less than 100 days to hurricane season and we have tent cities and debris everywhere.