We went on our first tour of New Orleans today. Starting at Tulane we watched a timeline of how Katrina hit the city, the link is to the right. It is a pretty comprehensive look at how the storm landed. Then we went and toured the neighborhoods, ending up in the Lower Ninth Ward. This area, as most people know, was the hardest hit of the entire city. The rows of houses that were there are no more and there is this eerie feeling that nature is just reclaiming the space after four years. It has a very pastoral feeling standing in the middle of it. Many of the houses and businesses still look like someone just up and abandon it – nothing has changed since the storm. The desolation is still incredible. There are still markings on a lot of the buildings too from when the national guard came through looking for people, I guess a lot of people are keeping them as ‘badges’ of survival. I think that I probably would, too. It serves as a constant reminder of why things look the way they do and that there is a constant push to better. I can’t even really accurately explain how much recovery is left to do, and the city seems to be doing nothing. I guess coming from Portland where the city government and politics is involved in every little decision from sidewalk cracks to multi million dollar buildings and you have to have a permit to sweep your driveway. Whereas here, we’re building permanent bus shelters and no one says a word but that also means that the only thing the city seems to be doing is bulldozing empty structures.

We ended our tour at the Make It Right houses (no I haven’t ran into Brad yet). Several of the houses have been moved into, although the neighborhood is still predominantly empty. Some of the houses are ok, I think the real beauty is less the design and more of the fact that someone has taken notice and is taking it upon themselves to try to help the residents. If you don’t know what the Make It Right program is here is the link, http://www.makeitrightnola.org/