Looking toward the site of the levee breach

Lower Ninth near the Levee Breach

This house is a mere three or four blocks from the levee breach. Apparently some houses nearby have already been demolished. Click on image to enlarge.
I'll be posting more pictures as time and Blogger permit.

Last few days in New Orleans

I was in N.O. the last three days, thanks to the hospitality of my old friends E. and D. and, also thanks to E.'s patience I spent most of Wednesday tooling around, documtening the Ninth Ward and Chalmette with pictures.

Supper at the Taqueria Corona was terrific as usual, and Wednesday we had a great time watching "The Big Lebowski" at home. E. worked Thursday at Kaboom Books down on Bsarracks St. in the Quarter, and, as usual when I'm in the Quarter, I ran into an old friend from college, a lawyer who was buying cookbooks. It's wonderful how paths seem to cross and recross in tis great town.

My impression of how N.O. is doing is mixed. On Calhoun between St. Charles and Claiborne the renovations and restoration are going great guns, almost every house with evidence of new or ongoing construction and lots of fresh paint. In the upper Ninth, it was a different story. Most houses look untouched since the flood. Plenty of damage, many houses gutted, many not. But the lower Ninth was a vision of the last days of Empire. Most houses don't seem even remotely salvageable. Here and there a brick house escaped complete destruction and has been gutted, but most seem to be completely unslavageable, not even worth gutting, too dangerous to even try to salvage belongings. It's not unlikely that several more sets of human remains will be found in houses that have been tossed around and left crooked, many feet from their original foundations. The area directly around the levee breach has mostly been cleared, and now overgrown with weeds, it could pass for a fallow field in the country, except for here and there a fence post, or a set of concrete steps poking up above the vegetation. Ten or fifteen blocks away, further south, the damage is still catastrophic, broken back houses litter the landscape. Every several blocks, heavy machinery is at work completing the destruction and clearing the lots of houses now turned into rubbish. That's the only activity in the neighborhood. Aside from one or two trailers, virtually nothing gives any sign of renewal.

If you squint traveling through Chalmette you might be able to convince yourself that nothing much is wrong. Large shopping centers seem to be untouched -- that is, till you look more closely and notice that there are no cars in the parking lots, and nothing in the windows of the shops. Off the main drag, the houses seem mostly untouched-- again if you squint -- but a second loook tells you that the devastation was complete here too, though it looks like Chalmette is working hard to come back. Most of the house are shells now, but in N.O. now gutting is a sign of progress. It indicates that owners are intend to come back some day, or at least, intend to sell. It's an optimistic scene compared to the lower Ninth.

There are signs that things may soon start looking up for N.O. when the Road Home money starts trickling, then pouring in. But it seems to me that it's been a long wait for people who have lost everything.

Chris: Aug 2 06, 14:45 UTC

Still a TS. But looking decidedly hurricane-ish.


From Central Florida Hurricane Center

11:34 AM 02-Aug EDT
11:30 AM August 2006
The latest Advisory keeps Chris as a strong Tropical Storm, however some models are starting to get a better handle on the environment around the storm. The ridge to the north may cause Chris to stay further west, and possibly over Hispaniola, but there is enough uncertainty that I think that anyone in the Cone needs to watch, from the islands to the south to Southern Florida.

From NOAA

TIME: "There is no 'post-'

TIME.com: Is New Orleans Having a Mental Health Breakdown? -- Page 1:

"'There's no 'post-' to the post-traumatic stress syndrome in this situation,' he says. The stress, in other words, never goes away. 'The event is still unfolding. People are losing jobs. They're moving because they're so discouraged by the situation. There's a lot of uncertainty about the future. It's not easy to live here.'"

Buried almost a year

KLFY TV 10 - Acadiana's Local News, Weather and Sports Leader | Skeletal remains found in New Orleans home flooded by Katrina:

"Eleven months after Hurricane Katrina hit, firefighters broke through a back door of a destroyed home filled with debris and furniture and found skeletal remains."

Chris.

Click to enlarge image.
UPDATE: Picture not coming up? Click on the headline.
Floater upgraded to TS, heading NW for the area between FLorida and Cuba.
See discussion here for details.

NYT's latest on NO praises her spirit.

Despite a City’s Hopes, an Uneven Repopulation - New York Times:

"'No one pursued City Hall after a certain amount of time, so we decided to be creative,' said Nicole Dufour, a member of the Claiborne-University Neighborhood Association. 'We don’t know when we’ll have real signs, so people are banding together and taking things into their own hands.'

They are also planting trees in public spaces and cleaning their neighbors' yards.

'If you want people to populate the city and help make a new New Orleans, you’ve got to help yourself,' said Kenyatta Hills, who recently returned from Atlanta. 'If the place looks like Katrina just hit it, who’s going to want to come back home?'"

Jefferson gets a break.

WWLTV.com | News for New Orleans, Louisiana | Local News:

"WASHINGTON-- A federal appeals court on Friday barred the Justice Department from reviewing evidence seized from a Louisiana congressman's office during an unprecedented FBI raid on his Capitol Hill office in May.

A three-judge panel ordered a federal trial judge to ensure that Democratic Rep. William Jefferson be given copies of seized evidence contained on more than a dozen computer hard drives, several floppy disks and two boxes of paper documents.

The panel said Jefferson then must be given the opportunity to invoke legislative privilege claims in private with the trial judge."

Could this "floater" turn into a tropical storm?

As thunder rumbles outside, note that the "floater" off the coast of Colombia seems headed into the Gulf. If so, it will strengthen.

Gov will run again.

Governor tells party she will seek a second term:

"Gov. Kathleen Blanco told officials of the state Democratic Party on Saturday she will seek a second term as governor next year so she can continue to oversee the rebuilding of the hurricane-ravaged state.

'I am not going to quit; I am going to lead the battle,' Blanco said at the regular meeting of the Democratic State Central Committee, the governing arm of the state party she leads."

Run away! Run away! Here come female priests.

Nola.com: NewsFlash - Catholic women face excommunication: "The Associated Press

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Joan Houk has ministered to the sick and needy, run two Roman Catholic parishes that were without priests and has presided over baptisms and funerals. Her calling now, she says, is to be a priest.

Houk will be one of a dozen women participating in a ceremony Monday in which eight will proclaim themselves priests and four deacons. The ceremony won't be recognized by the Catholic church, which has a 2,000-year tradition of an all-male priesthood."

This might be just what the church needs.

Huey??!! I don't think anybody needs a new Huey.

Experts excoriate recovery leaders:

"'It's virtually a city without a city administration and it's worse than ever,' McIlwain said. 'New Orleans needs Huey Long. You need a politician, a leader that is willing to make tough decisions and articulate to the people why these decisions are made, which means everyone is not going to be happy.'"

Dr. John

Music's Dr. John outraged about New Orleans' shape | Entertainment | Music | Reuters.com:

"'I feel like I'm living under another corrupt dynasty,' he said. 'I'm so full of anger at what's going down.'"

Love those images.

Third Battle has a bunch of images like this one up at his blog. They indicate relative elevation of this city. IN this one you can clearly see the ridge that runs through Mid City, and the high buildings near the Quarter. Go see them all.

Funny

Go read carefully.

And we're gonna pick up the trash.

WWLTV.com | News for New Orleans, Louisiana | Local News:

"About 70,000 building permits have been issued, Nagin said. Most have been in the higher elevation areas, with neighborhoods like the Ninth Ward trailing, he said.

He estimates about 250,000 residents have returned to the city; New Orleans had about 455,000 residents before the storm.

University of New Orleans Chancellor Tim Ryan, a former dean of the business college and a member of Nagin's commission, said the city's economic recovery seems to be progressing well.

About 70 percent of the city's jobs are back, and some businesses, like oil and gas, have added more employees than they had pre-Katrina, he said."

Nagin makes it sound all pretty.

Ever the cutting edge blog.

There's a new widget on Blagueur, courtesy of the Sunlight Foundation. If you roll over the little "sun" next to the names below, a popup appears with infomration about the record of the politicians named. In this case it's Bobby Jindal or Nancy Pelosi

Bobby Jindal
Nancy Pelosi

And there have been a few changes to the typeface and color scheme. Hope this makes the site more readable. Let me know if you liked the old template better.

I'll keep this post at the top for a day or so, so it doesn't get buried.

UPDATE: Widget no longer working. I'm on the case. But don't expect much.

MORE UPDATING: It works on one of the posts down below, but not in this post. Very mysterious.

UPDATISSIMUS: Solved. Only took an hour and half a pint of blood. Plus the sacrifice of three hamsters.