New Orleans Eight Months Later

Earlier this evening I returned from a five day trip to New Orleans with the boyfriend. His family is from New Orleans and were happy to provide us a place to stay. We had a wonderful trip and his family is very nice. I really enjoyed getting to know them and spending time with them.

While we were in New Orleans we were able to see much of the city and surrounding areas. His sister basically gave us a Katrina tour. By no means is New Orleans back to normal. There are parts of the city that are abandoned. Many businesses haven’t returned. Everyone is looking for workers. The city far from recovery. The news reports of the damage do not show the real picture. You simply must see the damage up close to realize the devastation from hurricane Katrina. Here are some pictures from our trip.

Here’s a photo I took while in the car driving towards the city. You can see in the lower right hand corner all the FEMA blue roofs. There are still thousands of roofs that look like this.

Here is a photo shot from the car showing the Superdome. As you can see they are still working on fixing the roof. From the sign you can see they plan to reopen in September.

Here’s a photo of one of the levee breaks. You can’t see much but here you see them fixing the levee.

One of the areas we toured was St. Bernard Parish. As with all other areas touched by Katrina, a distinct water line can be seen on all the buildings. The line shows the highest point the water reached. It’s very eerie to see this line all over the city and outlying areas.

As part of our tour we went into the city. Here’s a photo of Charity Hospital. It was damaged so heavily there are plans to implode it. This will be a loss to the city because many of the city’s poorest residents were able to get their healthcare here.

After visiting the city we went to the lower 9th ward, which I’m sure you heard about during all the hurricane coverage. Here are some photos from the lower 9th ward. The place is abandoned. No one has moved back. Street after street is deserted. You won’t see any water lines because this entire area was under water. You can see the marks on the houses where the officials searched and left their findings on the buildings.

This is Fats Domino’s house. He lives in the lower 9th ward. He has begun to fix the damage to his house. You can see his trumpet player cleaning the fence.

The amount of destruction that took place is overwhelming.

This was just one of the many houses we saw with identifying marks showing that someone died right in their home. This house was different because family members and loved ones returned to create a memorial to Dorothy Holloman.

We went to many different parts of the city. This photo shows Ann Rice’s old house. She no longer lives here.

Here’s another view of the city from the car.

On Friday we went to the French Quarter. This is St. Louis Cathedral. You might remember George Bush standing on the lawn in front of this cathedral a few days after the hurricane.

Here’s a view inside St. Louis Cathedral.

While in the French Quarter, we went to the farmer’s market. Not many of the farmers have returned. Most of the shops sell tourist crap. Here’s the boyfriend looking at all the spices sold at one store.

Here’s just an interesting view out of the windows of the cafe where we had lunch.

Here’s one of the famous balconies.

Here we are at the famous Cafe Du Monde

Here’s the boyfriend enjoying the beignets and coffee. I had never had them before but thoroughly enjoyed them.

On the last night before I left we had a big traditional Good Friday feast at the boyfriend’s sister’s house. They had tons of crabs, crawfish, and gumbo. Believe it or not, I ate a crawfish and tasted some of the gumbo. I survived.

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