Images of New Orleans Neighborhoods Part Seventeen: Lower Ninth Ward

This is the seventeenth in a series of images of New Orleans neighborhoods taken in February 2010 the weekend before the Super Bowl victory and two weeks for Mardi Gras. I certainly did not have time to cover them all but this series will provide a glimpse of the city that I hope you will want to visit.

I have been moving clockwise around the city in this series, starting in the French Quarter. The initial areas I covered were along the Mississippi River and received relatively little damage from Katrina. Then as I moved away from the river to the West End and City Park the damage was much greater.  The Lower Ninth Ward was the hardest hit and remains an area that is in need for more support to finish its recovery. It is also an area that many well known people such as Fats Domino grew up and still live. The first record I ever bought as a kid in the 1950s in New Orleans was a Fats Domino record and I remain a strong fan. My father was pleased that I picked a local artist. 

I visited the Lower Ninth Ward in April 2006 and March 2007.  On the first visit the area still looked much like it did right after Katrina. There was destruction everywhere. Large areas look like the aftermath of a war, with blocks and blocks of empty shells of homes or completely flattened buildings. The messages painted on the sides of homes after the initial searches about the status of the people and animals inside remained on many homes.

At first I was not planning to go to the devastated areas as I did not want to “tour” other people’s misery. But then after talking to so many people affected, I decided that I should see these areas first hand. The people that we talked with afterwards appreciated the fact that we took the time to do this and see the state of their city. It certainly had an impact as the vastness of the destruction cannot be conveyed through television or pictures. I was appalled, ashamed, angry, and saddened that a city in this country was allowed to remain in this condition for so long.

On the 2007 visit there was some minor improvement but most of the damage remained.  The pictures below are from the 2007 visit. I had many more pictures from this visit but my hard drive crashed and I lost them. I wrote about these visits in two posts: New Orleans Update Part One: the Paradox of Two Cities and New Orleans Update 2007 Part One: the Paradox of Two Cities Remains.

According to the Wikipedia, “As of March 2009, hundreds of houses have been rebuilt and dozens of new homes have been constructed. While there is a long way to go residents are returning home.”  Even with this progress there remains a long way to go.  Build Now is one of the organizations that is working to help people rebuild homes but there needs to be more government help to address the massive scale required. 

     

New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward After Hurricane Katrina site shows many pictures including Fats Domino’s home.  David Metraux's site shows Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans, LA: Hurricane Katrina Aftermath in Photographs - January 2006. The site, Rebuilding the 9^th Ward has a slide show with narration.

 
 
 

Comments

[Mick Mather]

I don't have an answer for disaster relief, natural and otherwise, but I do know that the government is not it. The two or three day delay of Presidential leadership during Katrina pales in comparison to the delay and ignorance of our sitting President and the current disaster faced by Louisiana and the Gulf Coast.