Thank You
It’s august, and with august this year comes the 5 year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina that decimated the south on August 29th, 2005. If you are a fan of the blues, you already know of the many old blues men that sold their soul at the crossroads in Mississippi. Personally, I sold mine in New Orleans.
My first trip to New Orleans happened in March of 2005. Nothing out of the ordinary really. It all started on a Saturday night drinking with some friends. After a few tall brews we all realized we had the next few days off from work.
“Let’s drive to New Orleans fellas. I’ve never been.” I asked.
Everyone agreed that it could be fun, so we set out the following Monday, driving straight threw the night. I still fondly remember the effects of sleep deprivation kicking in as we crossed the I-10 bridge between Lake Pontechartrain and Lake Borgne. As we hit the boggy wetlands a car came flying down the highway in the opposite direction and then suddenly and violently whips into the air spinning and flipping. And then quickly disappears in a wink. It was about this time I decided we should find a place to stop very soon, god have mercy on us if the black shadow people came swooping in afterwords to chase us.
Our day and night in the French Quarter was by no means anything more extravagant then any other tourist that has visited the city. We saw the cemeteries, enjoyed coffee at Cafe Du Monde, and drank beer freely from plastic cups whilst walking around the quarter.
Night falls, and our consumption of alcohol increases. At one point some frazzled hippie chick steps from out of the side streets asking if we would have any interest in purchasing some high quality LSD from her. How ever scoring drugs from a random vagrant in an unfamiliar city seemed a little far away from the intent of our trip. Thus we passed. Later on in the evening another vagrant arises from the dark corners spouting some gibberish I barely remember, all I can say for sure is he kept trying to get me closer to god, wanted to hug me. Fortunatly a cop and my 2 friends watched on with a near snarl ready to bring this guy to his knees if he tried anything. After leaving this shit bagger, we walked the streets. From door to door, bar to bar. Nothing but the sweet sound of music. Every genre, from classic New Orleans jazz, to Pink Floyd cover bands. The spectrum was had.
Let’s just say I was sold.
So my time was done, time to go home. but in reality it felt like i left a home. Shortly after I found some new found freedom in my life. Freedom to wander and travel to the hearts content. It goes with out saying that finding property in New Orleans was on my mind.
For months I scoured the classifieds looking for a place to call home. A place where I could find my own little piece of swamp land, Absorb the culture, and be content with things.
Then Katrina Hit.
The Monday morning Katrina hit I was glued to the news.
“What will happen to this fair city?” I asked myself
Indeed, what would happen. Report after report came in. Nothing good, only bleaker and bleaker reports of the situation in the crescent city. My boss at the time informed me his father had been laid up in the Sheridan Hotel for a ball dancing convention. Midweek he chartered the closest Cessna to fly down and pick up his father after uptown was evacuated.
That following weekend my boss, a couple of his friends and myself piled into his SUV to drive to Las Vegas on a 9 day trip.
The entire way we stayed tuned steadily to satellite radio for reports on the city. It took the better part of 4 or 5 days to get over the guilt.
Guilt weighed heavily in my mind at the time. My city, one that I knew so little of at the time, but spoke to me so dearly was underwater and drowning. People were dying. Envisions of people lost and stranded on the highway, at the Superdome, etc.
My father has a boat. I had 9 days free. Why am I driving in an SUV getting 7 miles to the gallon when I could have hitched my fathers boat to the truck and plucked people of their rooftops.
To this day it is something I will never live down.
January emerged, and the thought had not left my mind. My son was also in dire need of a reality check. Ya know, something to remind him of how precious everything we have is.
The city had just recently opened up. The floods had passed. And although Rita came back as a reminder, she too had made her mark and moved along.. People could, once again, roam the streets of New Orleans.
We drove steadily through the night, with only a brief stop at a Nashville Waffle House, and a frightening moment filling up for gas in a Montgomery, Alabama gas station in the ghetto. Instead of taking the usual route, which would be taking I-59 in Birmingham, we decided to take I-65 straight down to Mobile.
As the sun slowly risen over the gulf coast in Biloxi, we awoke to an extreme site. Upon arrival I stopped at a small shell station just north of the train tracks that had helped as a natural buffer against the storm surge.
I asked “How have things been since the storm?”
Which she simply replied with “It’s not been the same. There is nothing left”
Indeed it wasn’t.
We proceeded and hit Highway 90 which follows the Gulf Coast from Florida to Louisiana. Turning onto the lonesome highway we were greeted with what once was a mighty gambling barge. At least a football fields length sitting 100 feet up on shore. My best guess given the terrain is that there was once a building where the skeleton of this barge remained. For this was no mighty vessel any longer. All that was left was the lower extremities. The violent power that would be require to wash ashore this size of vessel and take everything over 5 feet from the hull is unimaginable.
Mile after mile, foot after foot. It was pure destruction. To our left a novelty pirate ship replica sat just off the coast. Most of the wood had been ripped from its bows. To our right, nothing but lot after lot of a few front steps and a foundation and this went on for miles. Well to be fair, this went on forever.
Eventually we made it to New Orleans. As we came over the draw bridges and interstate that sits high above the city we were met with seas of blue tarps covering the roofs and homes of what was left.
Our trip started with a drive threw Elysian Fields and the Treme neighborhoods of the city. One of the most striking images I had remembered from the coverage of the hurricane was that of a lone body sitting out in the median by the circle foods just near the I-10 underpass. So that was our first stop. The waters had sense receded, and the body no longer lay in the street. Yet I held the copy of Time with the 2 page fold as I stared down the same scene. Chilling to say the least.
After that we rolled into the lower 9th ward. On our way we passed threw the upper ninth ward. Even here the desperation was felt. Driving down Claiborne Ave we passed a desolate strip mall with a person sitting in despair in front of its shattered windows. As we passed I pulled out my camera to take a picture. Which was returned with a simple middle finger. “Fuck You” he proclaimed. And to be honest, why would you blame the fella. I still had a home, I still had everything near and dear to me. This man had nothing. All he could do was sit and bide his time in front of the the shambles that lay before him.
The lower ninth ward was no better. Actually it was worse. The city had only been opened for a few months. Demolition crews were just slowly trickling in.
There was nothing.
Really, nothing. Not a god damn thing. This is what Hiroshima must have looked like after the war. Water lines 20 feet up on houses. Cars and boats, mostly likely miles, from where they originally called home. One of the most striking things was seeing houses on top of cars. Most specifically seeing a truck turned upside down with a house on top of it. Houses where half way in the middle of the street.
We then rode to Lake View which sits just south of Lake Pontechartrain. Nothing was better here. It was merely the endless view of hopes and dreams washed away.
Even in the french quarter it was hard pressed to find a living establishment without the ominous X telling you how many were found dead and how many were found alive.
Treme
January 2006
Lakeview
Lower Ninth Ward
Lower Ninth Ward