[StBernard] Big Easy rebuilds, quietly

[Westley Annis]

Big Easy rebuilds, quietly
David Allen
Article Created: 07/01/2008 06:47:48 PM PDT


PEOPLE IN New Orleans don't necessarily talk directly about Hurricane
Katrina. 

Taking a steamboat cruise on the Mississippi River last month, it gradually
dawned on me that the woman doing the narration avoided the word Katrina.
She kept saying "the flood" or "the 2005 flood," as if the proper name were
cursed. 

Some just call it The Thing. 

"The storm down here, it's like Voldemort. We don't really say the word,"
cracked musician Spencer Bohren. 

Spoken or unspoken, the flood is an unavoidable topic. That's still true
nearly three years after the Aug. 29, 2005, storm. 

I wasn't in New Orleans more than a couple of hours when blues singer J
Monque'D, performing at an outdoor festival at the French Market, launched
into his sardonic "FEMA Trailer Blues." 

"I got a blue plastic tarp where my roof used to be," he sang, as people
smiled or nodded in affirmation. 

At a second festival a couple of blocks away - there are no shortage of
parties in New Orleans - a man wore a T-shirt with a message across the
chest. 

"Make Levees, Not War." 

Insight came matter-of- 

factly, and when it was least expected. 

On a Gray Line tour bus, the white-haired driver asked a late arrival:
"Where y'all from?" 

When the man answered Houston, the driver remarked: "Houston. I evacuated
there after the flood. I think there's still 200,000 of us in Texas." 

Everyone on the bus had gone quiet, a 


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simple geographic connection between two strangers speaking volumes about
the unspeakable. You know, The Thing. 
I was in New Orleans for a conference that aimed to show visiting newspaper
columnists the extent of the damage and let us hear from people involved. 

Downtown and the French Quarter are in fine shape and tourists are
returning. But we toured the Lower 9th Ward, St. Bernard and Treme
neighborhoods that were hard hit. The rubble has been cleared away by now.
So have many of the homes. 

More than two-thirds of New Orleans was underwater after Katrina, one of the
worst catastrophes in American history, which killed 1,800 and left $81
billion in damage. 

For block after block, street after street, mile after mile, the devastation
goes on. Occupied homes are outnumbered by window-less shells, by weedy
lots. 

In many cases a concrete slab is the only evidence a house once stood there.
Or, wrenchingly, three concrete steps, fronting nothing but grass. Three
steps leading nowhere. 

The contrasts are jarring. In a lower-middle class neighborhood of brick
homes, one occupied home with an SUV in the driveway is followed by nine
concrete slabs. 

I don't think they'll be having a block party soon. 

"Miles and miles and miles of destruction, and sometimes you wonder, where
have all these people gone?" our tour guide, who had evacuated to St. Louis
and only returned to her home in March, wondered aloud. 

Several people said they worry that America has forgotten New Orleans -
either benignly or neglectfully. 

"It's been three years, get over it," said Wayne Warner, principal of
Chalmette High, echoing the attitude he perceives. 

"You went through that subdivision with me. It doesn't look to me like it's
over, does it?" said Warner, 63, a dead ringer for John McCain who is still
living in a FEMA trailer. "It looks bombed out, like a war area." 

Federal aid, many said, will allow schools, homes and infrastructure to be
patched or restored to their original dilapidated condition, but not
improved. 

Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu wished aloud for a Marshall Plan for New Orleans, a
reinvestment in a devastated American city equal to our commitment to Iraq. 

With government either unwilling or unable to respond meaningfully, 1.1
million volunteers - many from church groups - have donated their time to
gut or repair homes. 

You hear that and you can't help but feel a swell of pride and admiration
for those who've cared enough to make a long journey to help strangers. 

Then again, it shouldn't really be up to volunteers to rebuild a major
American city, should it? 

People in New Orleans have, understandably, become more cynical about
government, but they're certainly appreciative of visitors and questions. 

"You don't know what it means to us to have people still interested," Warner
said. 

Seeing is believing. My visit to New Orleans left indelible memories - some
poignant, but mostly happy, because there's no city like it. If you've never
visited, I'd encourage you to go. 

So would Leah Chase, the 85-year-old restaurateur behind Dooky Chase's, a
Treme district institution. 

"Come," Chase said. "You don't need to nail anything. Just come and give us
that push we need." 

Maybe after The Thing, a little attention would be just the thing. 

David Allen writes Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, his thing. E-mail
david.allen at inlandnewspapers.com, call (909) 483-9339 or write 2041 E.
Fourth St., Ontario 91764. Read his blog at
dailybulletin.com/davidallenblog.