Drove through the Ninth Ward in New Orleans the other day - took some pictures

[proud2BlibKansan]

Just got back from 4 days in NO. Oh how I love that city! It was raining one day so we got on the cable car and rode it all over town for most of the afternoon. We rode with a guy who told us all about his family's Katrina experience and some other pretty interesting things.

The Ninth Ward was so sad. There was maybe one house on every block that looked livable. The vast majority of the houses we saw were destroyed. Many still had the circles and Xes painted on them right after Katrina, while they were rescuing folks.



















The guy we met on the cable car said he evacuated his elderly mother and that evening when the weather man on TV said the danger was over, they came back home. Then in the middle of the night they woke up to flood waters in their house. So they went up in the attic and were there for 3 days before being rescued.

Then he started talking about the levees and the French Quarter. He said the French Quarter is the "economic engine that drives New Orleans" and there was no way they would have let it flood. I told him I was amazed by how close the Ninth Ward was to the French Quarter and it was hard to believe that one neighborhood was destroyed while the other one sustained so much less damage. He said "when they blew the levees" they knew exactly where the water would go. I asked if he believed they really did blow the levees on purpose and he said he didn't know anyone in NO who didn't believe that. He said people could hear the explosions. He also said everyone knew that more than 12 feet of water would flood the French Quarter so they timed the floodwaters so they were not above 12 feet. But the Ninth Ward got hit by both the river and Lake Pontchartrain, so the damage was especially horrific.

After we drove through the Ninth Ward, we went over to the Mississippi Gulf and spent the afternoon. There was an even mix of tearing down and rebuilding going on. This was a store we remembered going in the last time we were in the area (fall of 2004). It was interesting. To the left of this store was a brand new strip mall.



We also met a couple groups of students staying in our hotel who were there for spring break doing volunteer work rehabbing. Made me feel guilty. But I did boost the economy while I was there :)