Last Monday in New Orleans

First a word about today -- My sincere thanks to all veterans for your willingness and sacrifice.

Last Monday my father, brother, daughter and I attended my grandmother's funeral in New Orleans. We had a grave side committal service and afterwards a funeral in the church followed by a luncheon. This may seem a little backwards. But the cemetery is very limited as to when services can be accommodated and we had to work around their open hours.
The cemeteries in southern Louisiana have these rows of tombs set up like a pattern of city blocks, and this one is surrounded by an outside wall which holds more graves. This cemetery did not look like it had too much damage from hurricane Katrina. Many of the graves on the outside wall, however, were missing their stone markers. Here is where my grandfather is buried and my grandmother will soon be laid to rest. There are many generations in the tomb. I didn't think to check the date, but it must be nearly 100 years old if not older.

The cemetery is located in New Orleans' upper 9th ward. The lower 9th ward is the area we in Ohio heard most about on the news as the "hardest hit area."

We were not surprised anymore by the numbers of trailers in the driveways. In fact there were fewer trailers in this neighborhood. I'm guessing that is because these were many of the folks evacuated to the Superdome and relocated to cities in Texas. Many of them have not come back yet. There are still large tree branches strewn about. There are piles of garbage (carpets, appliances and furniture) laying around treelawns as evidence that another homeowner has returned and begun gutting his house. I took these photos around the cemetery neighborhood.This house was most certainly flooded with at least a couple of feet of water. The black spray paint is closer to the ground so the rescue team was in a boat on shallow water or on foot. The car port roof is gone. I could see through the front window that this home is missing some walls. The interior has been gutted. Thought I don't read Spanish, the yellow sign posted to believe this home is being fixed up. I take a photo of this house every chance I get. It was where my grandparents lived when my dad was a toddler. It was not pink then! That only happened in the last ten years. It was not divided into apartments then either. It looks like the downstairs rooms were fixed, but the upstairs still needs work. And this one is an example of the spray paint code on every dwelling in the ward. We never did figure out what the three quadrants that do not contain the date signify. This is the building across the street from the cemetery where their offices are located. It was completely destroyed. I believe a copy of all the records are stored in New York or some place like that, so the information can be recovered eventually.

Now back to the North Shore -- This was taken from I-10 on our way to Slidell, LA. That is just across Lake Ponchatrain from New Orleans. We are still over the water and approaching the shore. The beams sticking up from the water are stilts. Before the storm they held piers that ended at houses built upon the stilts, over the water. These piers extended east and west of the highway. Now every pier and every house is gone. Just the pilings are left. These were not residences, mind you, they were camp houses. But the loss appears devastating. They have been there as long as my Dad can remember. This is a neighborhood in Slidell. Same problems, bigger houses and no spray paint. These folks have to gut upstairs if they had roof damage, downstairs if they had flooding, and everything if they got the worst of it. These suburban areas might have bigger trailers, but they also have bigger piles of trash to dispose of. You can see some of it here. In my cousin's home the downstairs had to be gutted. And he needed new electrical boxes installed. His jetskis were in the garage and they floated on the water that came in. But the wave action bashed them into his electrical boxes and destroyed the boxes. More trailers, everywhere....

I hear there are lots of problems with having appliances replaced into a home and then being stolen the next day. Yikes!

I also found it strange to see hundreds of couches standing up on end in their factory wrappings like stockade fences around each and every furniture store that was open. A lot of couches will be sold there in the coming months.

On the way back to the airport Tuesday morning we realized that the space under the highway was crowded with junked cars. Blocks upon city blocks of cars with trunks and hoods open, crowded so close they were nearly touching. No doubt the wreckers that cleared the streets after the water subsided put them there months ago.