Lucille is in Baton Rouge

Lucille, my friend, colleague and book co-author sent me this email the other day.

"Flew into Baton Rouge on Monday morning at 9:30 am and since I could not check into my hotel until 3pm, I went ahead and drove down to New Orleans for the day to compare it to my October trip. Baton Rouge is about an hour above New Orleans and escaped much of Katrina's ravaging, except for the fact that it has probably more than doubled in its population due to Katrina evacuees.

When I got within 20 miles of New Orleans, I saw the evidence of Katrina damage again. Billboards are still down, there are still a lot of blue tarps serving as roofs, trees are bent backwards or forwards or completely stripped of their limbs and dead. Small houses along I-10 on the way in are still completely destroyed, with no evidence of rebuilding. There is still a damaged boat on the side of the highway as you go into the city.

Once in the city of New Orleans, you see condemned houses, signs down, street signs warped or down, lampposts askew, and bright orange barricades, trash and dumpsters everywhere. The streets are very empty (still) on the main roads like Canal St.; it is eerie. There isn't even a lot of noise from ongoing construction. There are still a lot of plywood boards over windows on hotels and other structures, and the stores that are open are almost empty as well and mostly staffed by Vietnamese people who don't speak English very well.

On the good side, new palm trees have been shipped in and are braced into place up and down the main streets. Traffic lights in the main part of the city are back, but they are still out just a couple of miles away, by the infamous Lower Ninth Ward District. The superdome is patched and has a banner on it stating it will reopen Sept. 24. There is a huge billboard showing a New Orleans police officer looking down, very sad, at the ground -- across the sign it says "We suffered, we sacrificed, we stayed!" They have a lot of PR to do, because 52 police officers were fired in October for looting/stealing during the evacuation and its aftermath.

There are interesting t-shirts showing the mayor depicted as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and others saying New Orleans is a Chocolate City, referring to the mayor's unfortunate statement that New Orleans would be a chocolate city again .... There are also t-shirts giving FEMA a new acronym which is negative.

Bourbon St. is still only really active with life/bars/stores for about 3 or 4 blocks. The rest is pretty much destroyed, and they are not even working on it! The least damaged part is Jackson Square and the stores on the waterfront, along with Cafe DuMond, the famous coffee/beignet shop. That part is the most populated, but still only sparsely.

I went into St. Bernard's Parish, which was the scene of a major oil spill; they had at one time said it could never be inhabited again, but there was at least one house per street being restored, with a trailer in the front yard while they do the work. It is still very much like a ghost town as well.

I went back into the Lower Ninth Ward, and there is very little life there, and no rebuilding going on. The same level of destruction exists today as it did from the beginning -- except the roads are all cleared so you can ride around in there. Being able to ride around in there again underscores how large-scale this disaster really is. It just goes on for miles and miles and miles. The writing on the houses depicting deaths, animals, directions to where people evacuated to, etc. is all still there. I took pictures, but they are pretty much identical to the October ones I already took!!

My team is based out of the capitol, Baton Rouge, this time. We are going out to trailer communities, mental health agencies, and other areas where evacuees congregate, to provide mental health, substance abuse and social work services/resource sharing. It is a door-to-door type of thing, which is pretty time-consuming, but worthwhile. We are also assessing needs of the various communities to share with the grantwriters for future purposes.

It has been interesting so far! At least this time there are stores open and all the amenities and I get to stay in a hotel and have a tv in my room (last time I shared a house w/16 people all on single beds through out an unflooded but damaged house in New Orleans ....)

More later! "

Well Lucille is certainly working hard, n'est pas?

Why am I saddened and shocked that nothing is happening? The hotels are full of FEMA people-I heard that from several sources. That's why I was put up in a B&B. Wonder what they are doing?

One Month Back, March Madness

One Month Back
I've been home for a month now. I think about my trip and the people down there often. One thing I remembered that I forgot to post: many of the teenaged people I talked to said they didn't know the stars were so bright. Seems that, with no power in the entire city, and the hurricane sucking up all the moist air, and they were out on rooftops, they were able to see the stars like never before. Small blessing but a blessing nonetheless.

March Madness
Duke lost to LSU on Thursday. I love March Madness! I was, of course, disappointed, but being Evolved and An Adult, I decided to pull for LSU and Big Baby for the duration of the tournament. Who better to win, I ask you? I hope they win the whole thing and whup up on some UConn. Go Tigers! Go Big Baby!