Back from New Orleans

What a week this has been.

As I mentioned earlier, Leslie, Paul, and I returned to New Orleans to clean up and salvage and maybe get some closure on our feelings about what’s happened there.

The trip began with a speeding ticket for me on I-20 in Atlanta. Yay.

It took us a long time to get down there, about 10 hours, since we stopped several times and decided to go through Jackson, rather than Hattiesburg or Montgomery. We weren’t sure about the road conditions on I-59 and knew that I-10 was a mess.

We came into the metro area from the west, from I-310 to Hwy 90 in Boutte. That area of the Westbank stunk. Trash was piled up everywhere, and was rotting away. There is a dump out there, but it must be filled to capacity. It was our first taste of the smell of the city, and it was overwhelming. Construction crews were buring piles of tree branches everywhere. The roads were packed, and every restaurant that was open has a line out the door.

We got in to Terrytown at around 7:30pm, a half hour before the Jefferson Parish curfew began. My dad had made gumbo and we chowed down, drank, and discussed what the next day’s plan was to be. Brent Joseph came down from Hammond and spent the night.

We stayed in my mother’s house, where my dad was staying. She had some minor roof, siding, and gutter damage from the wind, and Rita had sent the neighbor’s gutter cans through her kitchen window. There was a lot of evidence of rats around –poop everywhere, chairs and rugs chewed on– but we didn’t see or hear any the entire time we were there. The electricity was on, and the water was supposedly ok to drink, but we weren’t taking any chances. It smelled heavily of chlorine, and practically burned the soap right off you in the shower. We all had beds, and it was quite comfortable, even if you couldn’t go outside after 8pm. We spent most of the night smoking and drinking beer and bourbon in the backyard.

We woke up early and headed out to the city in Brent’s truck, on which he had marked “TV” on the side with masking tape. Very professional. He also had an official press pass as an independent filmmaker. We were worried that we may have trouble getting Leslie and I into the city with our out-of-state licenses, but we were just waved through the checkpoint at Gen. deGaulle and got on the GNO with no problem. There were soldiers with automatic rifles at the checkpoints to get on the bridge.

We headed downtown first to get our tetanus shots from the clinic set up at the entrance to the Canal Street ferry terminal. Driving down Convention Center Boulevard, we remarked how strange it was to have watched this very area on TV, full of refugees and dead bodies, now completely empty. They had swept up the trash outside, but inside, the Convention Center ws completely full of rubbish and garbage. An “RIP Joe” spraypainted on an abandoned truck was a reminder of just what went on here.

The clinic was not setup yet, so we headed up Canal to Claiborne and into the Treme. Canal Street was full of RVs, SUVs, Hummers, cop cars, and National Guard transports. The damage was not that bad downtown by the river, with some wind damage to signs and broken windows. Once we crossed to the north of Claiborne, the waterlines became visible and there was more obvious wind damage. Large live oak trees were down everywhere, and downed power lines were hanging into the street. Leslie asked Brent, “Should you be driving over those?” to which he replied, “Probably not, but I’ve been doing it all week. You can’t really avoid them.” He drove over the line and we all lifted up our arms from the metal body of the truck, as if that would help.

To be continued. More to come, stay tuned.