Post Katrina: New Orleans Five Years Later

It has been interesting reading the mainstream media news reports and their select interviews with people from the New Orleans area on the fifth anniversary of Katrina as one who has had family living in the New Orleans metro area for over 30 years, and who visited that city often both before Katrina and then spent an extended period thereafter as a homeless Arizona refugee and whose parents medical conditions and concerns and other reasons led to an extended stay on and off from late 2006 through early 2010 and who was then in Baton Rouge, Louisiana for Gustav in 2008.

New Orleans has changed from a frequent long time visitor, but "outsider's" point of view, and it is a city still reeling from the effects five years later.

When I arrived in late 2006 for the Christmas holidays after storing what was left of my property after an enforced sale of my home in Arizona, even the area in which my family lives was much changed since I had not been back to visit for several years while parenting teens in the Southwest and due to numerous trips when younger and stretched finances also, were beyond entertaining with the usual tourist sites in their older years.

The area in which my parents live which is across the lake from New Orleans population had exploded, and traffic in the area worse than Phoenix metro area, which is saying something due to its huge growth from the 1960's, mostly due to all the residents of New Orleans that had fled their homes and decided afterward to sell and get what they could for their damaged properties and now commute from across the lake.

This was an area that was also heavily affected by the high winds of Katrina, but did not suffer the flooding after the levees "broke."

There is still much dispute there about what truly did happen that resulted in the breakage and lawsuits flying five years later over the homes that were flooded, many of which in poorer areas, with allegations that due to the rising Mississippi imposing danger to the bread and butter of New Orleans, the levees were "helped" to break in order to protect both the Quarter and the Garden District from extensive damage.

During that storm, my sister's husband, who also live in area, stayed instead of evacuating and purchased a generator and lived in their home for three weeks after Katrina hit, patrolling the neighborhoods with others in order to protect their homes and property from any further damage since the lake was also reported to be rising and there was such an influx of stranded people fleeing for weeks thereafter.

The sewage lines were also contaminated, so those that stayed ended up bagging their refuse and hauling it to parish dump sites for two months thereafter. The electricity and power was not restored for six weeks in their area, and even longer in parts of New Orleans.

My parents almost didn't leave. They had left in 1996 when there was another threatened hurricane and went to Mississippi, but returned after two days and my mother and father were in their early 80's so another "false alarm" trip for them was not something they were looking forward to at their advanced age. It took them 16 hours to make a normally six hour trip to another sister's house in another state further north.

Counting my parents and my two sisters' families, and their in-laws who had a home in Chalmette, one of the areas most affected by the levee breakage, there were all told 12 people and three dogs at their home for four weeks. My parents, both on medications, could not reach their doctor however did finally get refills on their prescriptions at a local pharmacy that was kind enough to waive the requirements for a doctor's okay on their refills.

They survived and had insurance and got a new roof, and two of their trees that were stripped away and damaged were removed by some volunteers from a local church, and they only applied for a small sum for the food which was contaminated that was in their refrigerator and pantry due to the power outage for those four weeks, although a few years down the road a large settlement crack in their bedroom appeared and as with many of the homes due to the amount of water there have been some have had further lasting effects in "sinking."

I stayed for Christmas, but had thought I might be able to make a fresh start in New Orleans as part of their restoration as a photographer/artist, and my own rather need to rebuild, so I left and took a small room in East New Orleans in one of the hotels that had been converted to weekly housing that was still left standing.

Most of those there were working for the government contractors on the repairs, and the parking lot was full of heavy equipment for the ongoing repairs.

In fact, in order to get into my room after leaving, I had to show identification since there was a National Guardsmen at the entrance who was charged with protecting the equipment from vandalism, not the security of the residents there.

The elevator did not work for the entire time I was there, which was over three months until that spring. The 7-11 on the corner had no power and was only open during the day, and all the food that needed refrigeration was in ice chests such as beer or soda. There were sea shells everywhere and as you walked through some of the neighborhoods there would be homes still standing untouched, while right next door several homes were missing. Toilet seats and other items were buried in the sandy ground throughout neighborhoods.

On one tour I made from East New Orleans to Slidell there were boats washed from the lake all the way across the highway. The Irish Bayou was devastated and the homes looked like haunted houses, abandoned. There was a Six Flags amusement park near the Chalmette exit that looked like it was right out of one of those horror movies, the huge wooden roller coaster was missing so much timber and the park abandoned.

Huge thirty foot car dealership signs were bent in half, and former large scale department stores closed and boarded up. That was in 2007, but on a trip back in 2008 and 2009, although most of the large debris had been cleared away, the vacant and abandoned homes and businesses for the most part remained.

Although right down the street was a reminder of "home."

In front of the local Home Depot there was a taco stand and cart, and day laborers waiting to be picked up to work on the repairs. For those that have left New Orleans, others have taken their place - many of them the illegals working for the government contractors, and also the large scale opportunists who have moved in to score post-Katrina. Similar to what occurred after the Civil War during the reconstruction, I would imagine.

Few in that area of New Orleans could afford to rebuild.

Many were fishermen, or Cajuns who lived along that swamp and who owned their own land, but had mostly small fishing shacks and shanties with their boats their most prized and expensive property. Many of those, of course, washed away during the storm. And most of their money went into providing for the repairs to their fishing boats, rather than their homes - and when you live in a swamp without air conditioning and a fisherman or shrimper, you aren't in your home very often to begin with.

New Orleans proper has changed, and the Quarter much less trafficked than in years past unless there is a Saints game going on.

The street artists and such that battled for space along Jackson Square are not as abundant, and many have been replaced by card readers and others. The costs of permits has gone up, so most of those that sketched or worked their magic in plein air landscapes are gone.

And there is a quota and "approval" process now for most of those that wish to work their art for those permits. The cost was out of my league, definitely.

The British have moved in and bought most of the housing and commercial buildings in the Quarter, since even many of the wealthy could not afford to keep their properties due to rising costs of insurance and other costs of ownership after the storm. And their currency, of course, is much greater than our own. Many working for BP and the government contractors working on those repairs with some of those major contracts.

New building standards also have been imposed for rebuilding which has prevented many from finishing the work on their homes, requiring many be built now ten feet off the ground, and insurance costs for those now "flood prone" areas once again are pricey.

And while I can appreciate Mr. Pitt's involvement in rebuilding, I'm just wondering how many are going to be able to even qualify for that low cost housing with the insurance costs and such as they are. And many even five years later are fighting with insurers, if their homes were mortgaged, over some of those repairs.

In addition to those new building standards, I was also informed that there have been new city ordinances passed which require those that own land in the flooded areas to either rebuild, or forfeit their land. It does appear that the developers have arrived and the city/state and developers just may be using Katrina as an excuse for one of the largest land grabs ever. Many cannot get bank loans or funding to even rebuild, although the developers can. Thus, the price of that land and property has been driven down even more so than what is occurring in the West and Southwest in those flooded areas.

Even the outlying areas have been affected along the River, since those beautiful restored plantations that were also stops for many a visitor to the area are also facing declining revenues.

And now, BP.

The South will rise again. But the character and those who made New Orleans what it was pre-Katrina are clearly being replaced by "foreigners" more and more.

Even the jazz sounds different.