What's the current state of New Orleans?

Factual Questions
1

What’s New Orleans like now, a year and a half after Katrina? I still don’t know what the extent of the damage was because of the way that the news media sort of didn’t really show what was going on there the entire time, so all I’ve heard is the rumors. As of the end of Katrina, I imagine the city to be basically destroyed, with major infrastructures like sewage, traffic, electricity, etc. to be majorly damaged or destroyed.

So what’s going on there, now? Is it a working city again? Is there still evident damage everywhere? Is it back up to speed?

2

Louisiana, last time I checked.

They’ve finally agreed on some sort of multi-jurisdictional mechanism for planning rebuilds, but work remains. The problem is that there is no tax base for the city, and at best a minimal base for infrastructure.

One faction wants to rebuild a new city, with minimal attention for replicating the old black hole of an underclass. One faction wants to pretty much replicate the old NO, with functioning welfare state, only this time with better protection from flooding. The environmentalists correctly point out that this is a perfect time to map out a buffer zone for the new NO, where possibly some wetlands might be re-seeded.

And enough of the ex-pat NO-bians have seen actual working state, county and city governments to recognise the old crap. Or not, since they re-elected Nagin.

3

Louisiana native and former New Orleans resident checking in:

The situation is very complicated but the core parts of New Orleans such as the French Quarter and Uptown were not devastated by Katina. They are functional now and New Orleans can now be visited as a pleasant tourist destination because those are the areas that most people want to see. The poor parts of New Orleans are absolutely devastated to this day and that extended out to parts of the suburbs. St. Bernard parish (county equivalent) had a rich history ranging from the Spanish colonial days and the whole thing area was basically destroyed and closed. Imagine if your county just had closed for business signs on it.

My little brother is a police officer in Baton Rouge. Out of everything that happened, the one thing that made me break out in tears was a newscaster saying “Broadcasting from Baton Rouge, now Louisiana’s largest city”. I don’t know what the census stands now but the migration and initial land grab slightly further upland in Louisiana was incredible.

The situation is a perfect contrast of positives and huge negatives. The devastation remaining equals or exceeds a nuclear blast but the core of New Orleans has found a way to reopen and survive.

4

My information is a little dated, but I spent August and part of September in New Orleans working with the public school system.

At that point, the Quarter, Downtown and uptown were in pretty good shape- they didn’t flood much, if at all, and the only damage was actual storm damage, which was pretty minor.

The rest of the city was in various stages of disrepair. East of the industrial canal, it was pretty much deserted, although there was a pretty good amount of rebuilding going on.

West of the canal, it was kind of strange- most areas weren’t all that damaged, but there were just no people, so things were falling into disrepair.

As a matter of fact, that was the biggest problem- you had a city pre-Katrina with a population about half a million people, and then post-Katrina was somewhere below half that. This meant that gas stations, grocery stores, etc… were kind of hard to find, and the hours were screwy sometimes.

5

There’s an article in yesterday’s New York Times that suggests that the population might top out at about half the pre-Katrina 440,000 total, and the ones most likely not to return are the poorest. (Other, more prosperous cities can better absorb the poor former residents of New Orleans.)

6

Although the mainstream media did not (to my recollection) do a thorough job of reporting New Orleans, the Spike Lee movie “When The Levees Broke” gives a good sense of the devestation, possibly an exaggerated sense. Worth the four hours, but obviously doesn’t concentrate on the good points.

7

Most services are available now just about anywhere you go. Things are still pretty dead east of the Industrial Canal. Most of that area was pretty run down before the Hurricane and I think that a lot of those people aren’t coming back.

The areas in New Orleans East that are coming back are largely Vietnamese populated areas in the newer nicer neighborhoods.

St. Bernard Parish, which was badly flooded and contaminated from the Murphy Oil Refinery, is slowly coming back. A lot of houses are going to be demolished down there, so there’ll be a lot of green space. The die-hard “Chalmatians” are back, some living in FEMA trailers while they slowly renovate their house. A lot of new people are going down there too it seems. Restored houses are selling for about what they were selling for before the storm.

The Ninth Ward where the worst of the flooding was seems to be repopulating the slowest. These houses are 100 years old and a lot of them were ready to fall down before the hurricane. This was one of the most poverty stricken areas of the city and the people aren’t coming back.

Our population was around 300,000 before the storm and now it’s around 120,000.

For a while, it seemed like all of the criminals had left, never to return. Then it seemed that the criminals had all moved out to the suburbs. Now, the murder rate for the first 22 days of this year is higher than it was in 2005…and we still have less than half the population.

Citizens of New Orleans are calling for Nagin’s resignation. There was a big rally last week in the Central City area and the locals voiced all of their problems. Nagin showed up wanting to make a speech and he was told that he would not be allowed to speak. They wanted him to sit down and listen for once. They’re calling for the military to patrol the populated neighborhoods, where the NOPD isn’t doing an effective job.

I’m fortunate to be in a suburb where crime hasn’t risen. It still seems to be as safe as ever here. All of the supermarkets and gas stations and restaurants are open. The only major difference is that there are far less trees in the neighborhood than there used to be.

Jason

8

That population before the storm was wrong. Last census, it was 484,000.

The 120,000 current population was from what I heard on the news last week.

This is in the City of New Orleans only, not including the rest of the metro area. No clue what that population is now. The census of 2000 said 1.3 million. I know a lot of the population shifted out of the city and into the suburbs, but I’d guess it’s down below a million.

9

I am living back within the city limits of New Orleans. I lived uptown before Katrina (near the Notre Dame Seminary near Nashville and Fountainbleau). I was renting with my wife and two kids. We evacuated to Lafayette, LA where I had some friends when Katrina was about to hit. I had worked at City Hall and knew the dangers of a direct hit on the city. I always evacuated whenever a hurricane got close. The house we lived in at the time got about 3 feet of water in it. It was in there long enough to ruin pretty much everything we had in terms of furniture and appliances. We wound up living with my friends in Lafayette for 5 weeks, while my school system (Jefferson Parish) decided what it was going to do about the school year. When I got the notice for work, we moved into my dad’s cousin’s house in Algiers (Bocage subdivision, on the West Bank of the Mississippi River, in a relatively undamaged, floodwise, part of New Orleans). There were 14 of my extended family living in that house for 5 months because all of us had lived in the city and were affected by the flood. Eventually, my wife and I found an apartment for rent in Metairie (the suburb immediately west of the border of Orleans Parish). We were paying $300 more in rent for a two-bedroom apartment than we had been paying for a three-bedroom house. We lived there until December 31 of 2006. We found a rental again in the city near the house where we used to live, but on the southern side of Claiborne avenue (near Broadway) where the floodwater did not get as deep. This neighborhood is, literally, a two-minute drive from where my parents live on Nashville Ave. on the northern side of Claiborne where they had gotten 5-feet of water in their house.

So, how is it now in the city? In this area, we have pretty much all the normal services again. My parents rebuilt their house and it is now finished except for a fence. The area where we used to live, which is where my parents still live (Broadmoor) is splotchy in that some houses are still abandoned and untouched and some are gutted and being worked on. There are some that are redone already, but that area is coming back steadily.

What I don’t think that many people in other parts of the country realize is the extent of the damage. Yes, certain core areas of the city were not as damaged, but VAST areas of residential property were put out of commission. If you drive around the city, you can see that parts are still unoccupied and look exactly as they did when the water left. If you go to UNO near the lake, or Lakeview near the 17th street canal breach and drive through those neighborhoods, it’s still just block after block of abandoned houses. There are dozens, if not hundreds of little strip malls and neighborhood grocery stores that are abandoned or being torn down. I’ve been through Chalmette and main roads are looking active, but when you go down the side streets, vast residential areas are still going through recovery.

But when I first did my big tour of the damage, (in late October 2005) nothing had prepared me for the 9th ward. A five-block radius area was devoid of houses right at the canal breach. Beyond that, houses were shoved up against and on top of other houses. Houses were in the street. It was like nothing I had ever seen. I took another trip through it in October of 2006. Some of it had been cleaned up, but I could still see some houses on top of each other. It’s going to take a long time to recover for those areas.

When I first came back to see how my house had made out 3 weeks after Katrina hit, we snuck past the national guard checkpoints because the mandatory evacuation order was still in effect for my zip code and all the zip codes in between. Driving down Earhart Blvd to Broad was eerie. It was like being in a real-life, end-of-the-world zombie movie. And when I got out of the car to check on the house, the weirdest thing (other than that ubiquitous after-flood smell that I am sure every other Katrina victim is familiar with) was the sound. He we were in the middle of a city and it sounded like we were in the middle of the wilderness. No sounds. Not even animals, birds, nothing. Just heat. It was freaky.

People express concern about the crime, but my wife and I wanted to be people who came back to help support the recovery of the city. We lived here during some of the worst crime periods and like every major urban area, you learn to avoid high-crime areas. We lived here all our lives. I am an uptown boy, my wife is from New Orleans East. I feel that if we make the commitment to live here again, we can help the recovery process. I’ve heard people from outside the city wonder why we’d want to live in a place that is prone to disasters like this, but I have to wonder if those same people would abandon their cities if a disaster hit their hometown. I know the risks. I’m not sitting here blaming the government or looking for them to bail me out. The handouts we have received are mainly furniture from family members and clothing from friends. I’m here and I am lucky enough to have a job again and we are making it work. One thing that did help take our minds off the recovery process for a while was the success (until yesterday) of the Saints. Again, speaking as a life-long New Orleanian, you can’t imagine what this area has been like since the Saints became red-hot. It really lifted the spirits of this area.

In summary, Katrina was extremely damaging to this area. Recovery will be a slow, long-term process. Some areas are active: mostly the well-known, tourist attraction areas. Vast areas are still recovering (mostly residential and historic neighborhoods). Life on a day-to-day basis is almost normal again for my family, but for several months we were living in a disaster area.

10

Is there a good source for information on the broader region, including the Mississippi coast and the smaller towns hit by Katrina? Any stats on total housing lost, people moved away for areas outside of New Orleans?

How much volunteer work/clean-up is still going on? I was unable to go last spring break, but I hope to do so this year.

11

Anyone have any details, including images, of the Chalmette National Historical Park (site of the Battle of New Orleans) and the Chalmette National Cemetery?

12

Nice first post, Shawn, by the way.

13

Bryan, in all honesty, I used to be a SDMB member years ago when it was free and I posted a few times back then. However, I have been lurking ever since and finally decided to take the plunge and pay for a membership. I had seen threads on New Orleans and finally decided to give my input on the situation.

If anyone would like an idea of what the New Orleans’ area looked/looks like, I would recommend the photographer Robert Polidori’s book titled “After the Flood.” It’s $90 U.S. and I bought it as soon as I saw it. It’s a large photo book filled with hundreds of photos of the houses and the damage the flooding caused. There are photos from Chalmette as well. However, one picture in particular on page 185 shows the only aerial view and it’s of a couple of square blocks of the 9th ward.

I would like to describe a little more of a slice of life here in New Orleans now. We were living in Metairie until recently and on my way to work each day, I would pass by Lowe’s on Veterans near Causeway and there would always be a couple dozen day laborers waiting in the parking lot. They are apparently looking to be hired by people buying building supplies so they can go gut houses or help rebuild.

As far as the employment situation goes in the area, there seem to be many fast food places and eateries and shops that still need people. Just today, I saw a sign at the gas station on the corner of Transcontinental and Vets offering monthly bonuses to new employees in addition to $9 an hour wages. However, it seems to me that there is a Catch-22 in this situation. Many traditionally minimum-wage businesses need workers to meet the demand of residents moving back, however, people who might take these jobs need places to live and the few places that are available have skyrocketed in cost because of the loss of so much residential area.

There are a few places like Wal-Mart that used to be open 24 hours, however, since the storm, I don’t know of any stores that have returned to the 24-hour schedule. When we first moved back in early October of 2005, there were hardly any stores or fast food places open. We’d get excited when we’d see reopening activity at nearby store. This was on the relatively damage-free westbank of New Orleans. At first, fast food stores would be open for only a few hours a day. And this was months after Katrina hit. And there were limited menus. For example, Burger King on Gen DeGaulle in Algiers was only open for 3 hours at a time during the day and you could only get Whopper meals. Man, did we celebrate when a Popeyes near us finally opened! And then Target on Manhattan! We were living large then.

At this point, I would say that most of the businesses that were able to open have reopened, but are still not at pre-Katrina levels. Others were not able to reopen and are either still in the process of being rebuilt or have been torn down.

Traffic has been a problem for the area since before Katrina, with the area having one of the worst-rated traffic problems in the country. They have been widening I-10 on the way into and out of Metairie the last few years, but from what I read years ago, the project was going to be obsolete and not able to handle the traffic load by the time it was finished. One of the many reasons we wanted to move back into New Orleans proper was the Metairie traffic. I don’t know who designed the streets in Metairie or Kenner, but in New Orleans, if one street is blocked with traffic, you can go over one parallel street and still get to where you are going. In Metairie, if one street is blocked, chances are, the other main thoroughfares are blocked too and there are no side streets that go all the way through. There is either a canal or house or hospital or school blocking your way and you have to wind up going back to the blocked main thoroughfare (West Esplanade, I’m looking at YOU!).

So, traffic seems to be pretty bad in the suburbs. As people move back to the area, they seem to be settling in the suburbs and as people move out of the actual city of New Orleans, they seem to be settling in the suburbs. My cousins who were displaced have moved to the North Shore.

Also, in reference to the water/sewer lines, pre-Katrina the City was in the process of a long term re-build of the city’s water system. I think it was going to take 20 years or so. From what I understand, although the system is working today for the most part, I think that the storm damaged a lot of it and it’s in critical need of repair.

Also, for an idea of life in the city post-Katrina, I would recommend Chris Rose’s book “1 Dead in Attic” which is a compilation of essays/columns he wrote for the local newspaper The Times-Picayune.

Any questions? Comments? Observations?

14

Well, there was a Battle of New Orleans reenactment weekend before last. I think the gate to the battlefield was open last time I drove by there about 3 weeks ago, so I guess it’s open to the public again.

Here’s an article.

http://www.sbpg.net/jan0807a.html

15

Thanks to our fellow NOLA Dopers for letting us know the current situation. I don’t think the President mentioned New Orleans at all in his State of the Union address; no surprise, given his failures there too. I have to admit I wonder if all the billions in Federal money now being poured into rebuilding is either effective or well-spent.

Come what may, I hope a lot of trees are planted in the areas that aren’t rebuilt! A lot better than just vacant lots and rubble.

16

That’s the theme to which I keep returning when people ask about Katrina. (Hi, New Orleans native here, living in Baton Rouge since graduating LSU… my family evac’d to me for three weeks, mom lives in FEMA trailer in front of her house still.)

Although some sections of the city and surrounding area were not AS affected, EVERYWHERE was affected. Even if, like my mom’s neighborhood in Metairie, it didn’t flood… the roofs were torn up. Her house is unlivable because her roof had holes punched into it and the water which leaked in got into the walls and caused the ceilings to fall in and the walls to mold.

I said when it happened, ten years to recover to anything resembling a pre-Katrina New Orleans. I’ve seen nothing that dissuades me from that assessment. In fact, I think you’ll always see the scars on the landscape, not to mention in the psyche of the people.

Oh yeah, have to agree that the traffic in Metairie makes me want to cry and hurt things.

17

Things are definitely not the same. I own two businesses and both of them are back up to pre-Katrina levels in sales figures.

But we’re still doing a lot of work for contractors who are just here “temporarily” rebuilding. That “temporary” could mean 10 years.

Tenet Heatlh Systems had their regional business office here. They were our largest corporate account. They owned Memorial Medical Center uptown and Mercy (Lindy Boggs) Medical Center in mid-city and Meadowcrest Hospital on the Westbank. The first two hospitals were flooded badly and the latter was looted. Memorial was where they left elderly patients in wheelchairs in the basement and the basement filled up with water and there was also some controversy about a doctor who allegedly euthanized a few patients. Tenet pulled their RBO out of New Orleans and relocated it to Frisco, Texas. There went an easy $5000-8000 a month.

We had a few customers in St. Bernard Parish, which went underwater.

A lot of businesses downtown never reopened even though they didn’t take a lot of damage. The problem is that their customer base was gone.

I had to add new things to my business to replace profit that we’d never recover otherwise. This was easy to do since there wasn’t a lot of competition. If Home Depot hadn’t come back, I would’ve rented the rest of the shopping center and started selling hardware and lumber.

It was a while before we had an open WalMart. McDonald’s and BK would open for lunch and be shut down by 3:00. For a couple of months, even the local restaurants would be closed by 5:00 because there was a curfew after dark.

For a while after I moved to Mississippi, I’d stay here in my damaged house just because I didn’t feel like sitting in traffic for 2-3 hours after working 18 hours. One time, probably in October, I got stuck here because I didn’t get to a gas station before 5:00 and I was on empty.

There was no cable TV on the Westbank for months because they had to replace all of the cable. I think they strung a new cable to our house in December of '05. The picture quality was really bad for a few months after that because the main lines were still messed up.

A friend of mine worked for BellSouth and was working 80+ hours a week for 10 months, just replacing cable. At work, we were using NetZero dialup access on an old computer we’d hooked up in the telephone room, just so we could download banking transactions. It was March of '06 before we could get someone out there to get the DSL working again. (The phones had come back up by the second week of September which was when I returned to Louisiana to get the business back up and running).

In August of '05, we’d shelled out $8000 to enroll our two kids at a Catholic School because the public schools here are so bad. They got to go for two or three weeks before we evacuated, never to return. The school didn’t reopen for 6 months. This was why we stayed in Mississippi. The public schools there are really good, so that’s where they were enrolled after the hurricane and they still go there.

Anyway, enough rambling. These are just my experiences.

My life today, now divorced and living in the suburbs of New Orleans alone, is pretty simple. I can go to the grocery store, get gas, get fast food, go to work, go to a bar, watch cable TV, find entertainment…

Things aren’t the same, but it’s livable.

18

NOLA Shawn and Jason, thanks for such detailed posts. My sister and family went back to Metarie in October 05, so I’ve heard a plenty of life down there post-Katrina.
NOLA was my second home when I lived in Mississippi, and my heart is with you.

I am stunned that there was no mention of one of the worst, if not THE worst, natural disasters to ever happen to an American city in the State of the Union address last night. Nope, stunned doesn’t do it; Ashamed is more apt.Well, that’s not right either…OK, how bout Pissangst.

19

I forgot to touch upon the subject of Metairie. There wasn’t much flooding, so a lot of the population has shifted out there.

Traffic on Veterans Blvd., Clearview Pkwy. and Causeway Blvd. is a NIGHTMARE during the day.

I actually hired someone for the sole purpose of me never having to go out there during business hours.

20

My church sent a groupe to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi a month after Katrina, and again 2 weeks ago.

They were appalled at how little had been done, and said the city was still mostly in ruins. The federal gov’t was all but absent.

I know its not LA, but still relavent.