Tour of Hurricane Katrina Damage

We did an extensive tour of the 9th Ward, St. Bernard's Parish, and the 17th Street Canal area in New Orleans thinking that even thought it has been 2 years since the hurricane that there would still be lots of damage evident. That was not the case at all, especially in the 9th Ward and St. Bernard's Parish. Not once did we have an “OH MY GOSH” moment when we saw something so devastating that it took our breath away. Actually, just the opposite was true. We saw very little damage considering that the entire area was under 8-12 feet of water.



There are still many FEMA trailers in use in people's yards and some houses have been condemned and others abandoned. But the lack of visible damage was amazing. Every street that we drove on had construction crews at work repairing homes and numerous homes had obviously been repaired. We came to the conclusion that because the damage was caused by flood waters not wind that the damage to most homes was on the inside and therefore not visible.


The 17th Street Canal area was flooded when Lake Ponchartrain broke through a levee. Some of this area was under as much as 18 feet of water. This is where we saw the most damage. It is an area of very nice homes and where the most abandoned homes seemed to be. Again, construction going on everywhere you looked.


More pictures of our time on the road can be found at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/scarp54

That's enough of this blog stuff for now.
Time to go get a Po' Boy or Muffeletta sandwich. We gotta get out of here!!!!!