Live from New Orleans

Well, it's really Metairie right now--the western suburb that was largely "spared" (the word is relative, believe me) by Katrina, since the nearby levee broke to the east. As you will see in future posts, Metairie had a lot of damage, including some from possible tornado activity. (My sister showed me where strips of metal that lined the inside of her carport were torn away; she found them wrapped around the brick posts of the carport.) There are trailers all over the place, including the one Jane lives in, and heavy white or black sewer pipes run from across the lawns from each trailer. New trailers were delivered to the neighborhood today, but one of the homes that received a trailer was just completed, and is ready to move into, while in other parts of the city, people (including the Sisters of the Holy Family) are living in hotel rooms because their areas don't have the infrastructure to allow the trailers to be hooked up to electricity and sewer lines.

As I said, I've only seen Metairie so far. As I took a walk to Jane's house and then to St. Ann's this morning for Mass, I saw so many bloggable things that if I wrote about all of them, this would be the Worlds Longest Blog Post. I even took notes on my boarding pass from my flight here (found it in my jacket pocket; needed the jacket today--it was below 60 now and then).

When you walk down the suburban streets around the Pauline book center, many of the little signs of life are missing. Things like curtains, for instance. As you pass by a home, a glance in the window reveals the whole interior, stripped of everything but the two-by-fours. (Mom and Dad have walls now, though-and they're painted!) You may see the occasional Christmas decoration, but you're still more likely to find those delightfully flamboyant Mardi Gras decorations. (This is the season, after all.) Some houses, positioned a critical six inches or so higher than the neighbors, escaped flood damage, but have blue tarp roofs covering wind damage, or else they are already topped with a crew of six or eight workmen, their hammers joining the sounds of saws ripping through plywood or chainsaws turning enormous fallen pine trees into fragrant piles of thick disks. (Thank heavens the winter climate is so mild, averaging 70 degrees in January, so that the work can go on--and it does go on.)

The local greetings ("Where yat?" or "How's ya mom'n'em?") have been replaced "You got walls yet?" or "How much did your insurance give you?"

My brother is hosting a family gathering at his house (not far from Tulane and Loyola); I'll probably see some of the devastation of the mid-city district tomorrow.