10 photos from the 9th ward (dial up warning, no gore or grue)

[pitohui]

The young man who took these pictures wishes to remain anonymous for now. He went to the 9th ward on business this morning, where he was allowed to take all the photos he liked, as long as he remained in his vehicle. The devastation to this area is pretty much beyond human comprehension.



Many houses are tagged with paint to tell if they've been checked for bodies or pets. The small red tags you'll see on some houses or cars mean the house is condemned -- they put it on the car when it's unsafe to approach the house, but it makes you wonder if those houses were checked for bodies.



The breach in the levee or floodwall



Oops, a barge on the wrong side of the tracks



Those who think this was done on purpose -- I think they do not understand the power of the wind and water, which seems to make mockery of our human powers.



This fine house, which looks like it was recently renovated, could not survive having another house crash into it.




The many houses with cars or trucks in front of them worry me because it makes me assume that the people living in those homes did not evacuate.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Just... wow. My head hurts thinking about cleaning all that up.

[pitohui]

2. well they're gonna have to bulldoze

we have lots more pix like these, it's just awful

most of these homes appear to be totalled, many are already condemned by the city of new orleans

[ohio_liberal]

17. Amazing photos

Hell, post them all. This needs to be seen. Thank you and many thanks your anonymous friend. :hi:

[wellstone dem]

3. I look at these pictures

and I think of the Katrina Survivors that I met last Wednesday and I see their faces in these houses.

WE must never forget.

[Suich]

4. Amazing pictures...where do you start?

How in the world will they get that barge out of there? It never occurred to me that the cars at the homes might mean they didn't evacuate...what a horrible thought.

[pitohui]

6. it is a horrible thought

but i look at truck, boat, etc. stacked up in front of this house and it just seems more believable to me that a person would have loaded up the boat on the trailer of his truck & got the heck out of town if they had planned to evacuate

it's scary



this is one where the "condemned" tag is on the truck, not the house, which is inaccessible

i can only hope the ppl in this house got taken off the roof

[knowbody0]

5. perfect place for habitat for humanity

Jimmy Carter's gift to the poor.

[texpatriot2004]

7. I would agree with you about the cars/houses and people that

didn't evacuate. Why is it that they aren't going house to house in that area?

[pitohui]

10. not sure

not even sure my thinking on this subject is correct

but it appears that for certain houses safety was an issue & that's why they went no further than vehicles stacked up in front of the house


however for the peace of mind of the families & friends we need closure, we need to find the bodies we can & lay them to rest & give a full accounting of them, in my opinion it's the only respectful thing to do

[Lindsay]

14. Remember how they sent robots into the remains of the

World Trade Center to look for victims?

Funny that they're not going to the same trouble for the victims in New Orleans, isn't it? (No, not funny at all.)

[pitohui]

15. i do remember and i DON'T understand

i am completely flabbergasted

i don't think it's just race or class because i'm aware of areas like lakeview & biloxi that are also being crapped on

i really don't know why the disrespect & the dishonoring of the victims

i am just flabbergasted by the whole thing, can't seem to figure out what the motive is or how they think to get away w. it

[driver8]

8. Absolutely amazing! The picture of those shipping containers

makes one realize that mother nature could squash us like a bug at anytime.

[mom cat]

9. Please tell that young man Thanks!

[pitohui]

11. i sure will & thank you! Eom

.

[pitohui]

12. ok quick kick for the night

a bit much to kick my own post but i think the young man's work is worth seeing

[madokie]

13. .

:kick:

[localroger]

18. So that's what those hind legs are for

I am the one who forwarded the pics from my coworker to pitohui. I think there will be more soon. But 9th ward is about the worst hit, in other areas the water got higher but wasn't flowing so it didn't push things around so much.

[AirmensMom]

16. Kick.

:kick:

[Feron]

19. Great photos

even if they are of a horrible subject. Hopefully if the cars were for people that didn't evacuate, the people were later rescued.

With devastation like that it's almost like where to begin?!

[Straight Shooter]

20. I don't wonder for a minute why some didn't get in their cars and leave.

Cost of gasoline. Living hand-to-mouth, no funds on hand to pay for gas and then pay for a hotel and food while traveling.

Maybe mama refuses to leave her home she's lived in for 80 years.

Pets. Some people cannot bear to abandon their beloved companions.

Some people too sick, or too infirm, perhaps disabled. I can remember being so ill at one time in my life that if you had told me a tornado was about to come through my home I wouldn't have been able to get out of bed.

[pitohui]

21. yes-- mama refuses to leave her home for 80 yrs

that is a BIGGIE

the elderly who said, "it made it thru betsy" or "it made it thru camille" are a big part of it

they admit the elderly a HUGE percentage of the dead

how do you figure on a storm of this size

[Straight Shooter]

22. "White folks" don't get it. They're mobile. Black culture is close-knit.

So many Americans, white Americans, they just don't understand. Blacks are all about family, come hell or high water (no pun intended at all).

And here we have these talking heads yammering about making New Orleans white *gag me*. That's not for them to say. Many of those blacks have been there for generations. It isn't easy to walk away from that. And I think that's where the response of FEMA and bush has been most cruel, to tear people away from the homes where they grew up, where they lived and laughed and cried, where they buried other family members.

Tore them away from Africa, now we're going to ask them to stay out of New Orleans? To hell with that! Those folks deserve to come home. Let them pick up the pieces and start over if they want. It's their right. It's only fair. It's the decent thing to do.

[pitohui]

23. they need to receive sufficient $$$ to rebuild -- and it may happen

there is talk of grants -- grants which do not need to be repaid -- which homeowners can receive in addition to insurance or rebuilding loans -- the purpose of these grants being to put homes on stilts above the possibility of flood

you can see many of the homes in this region are totalled & will need to be bulldozed & rebuilt again from scratch

insurance only replaces the same thing you had before, however, with the additional grants for improvements, the neighborhoods could actually be safer than before

this would be a federal program under fema, so we need to stay on it & see if it is actually implemented, but some of the new orleans city council is investigating, keep in mind some of them lost their homes too so they are motivated for personal as well as political reasons

[Straight Shooter]

29. It's a good idea; I just wish it weren't under FEMA

I predict a lot of good dollars going to waste for "administrative expenses." *sigh*

[pitohui]

24. here's a concrete bldg moved to block the road

the power of these storms is something else

[dryan]

25. Great photos....

I went to Dade County (South Florida) a few weeks after Andrew which was a Cat 5 storm. I remember one house that had been 2 story. The entire top floor was gone and there was a pretty good size boat sitting inside the house. The funny thing was no one in the neighborhood knew whose boat it was!

[pitohui]

26. a final kick for the lunch crowd EOM

.

[pitohui]

27. another ouch

one container truck on yr pick-up can ruin yr whole day

[pitohui]

28. nothing left but the burglar bars

condemning this house almost seems redundant