double whammy

On Wednesday, my Mom and I drove through Lakeview, one of the areas that was destroyed by a levee break following Hurricane Katrina. People have described it as "desolated" and like "a war zone." I'll tell you, it looked as though a nuclear bomb had gone off there twenty years ago, so few were the signs of life. Whereas most of the city (including nearby Metairie) is predominantly green and flowering (January here corresponds to May in Chicago or Boston), Lakeview was gray. One-story houses had been completely inundated by the flood, and were still tinted with mud and bits of plant matter. Almost all the trees had been downed. In one block, only three tall pines remained, while the trees that had once lined the street were reduced to tilted roots at severely buckled sidewalks. (All the trunks and branches had been cut away and carted to an immense pile on one of the district's "neutral grounds." There they were reduced to mulch--a three-story high, ten-block long pile of mulch.)

I went to St. Dominic's at the request of my friend Fred (who grew up in Lakeview). He wanted me to check the interior of the Church, but it was locked. They have weekend Masses there, and during the week only on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So I took a picture of the statute of St. Dominic--you can find post-Katrina photos of this statute with water up to his chest. There is still a water line. Mom tried to get my picture next to the statute, but it is way too tall for a photo like that to work out. (Sorry, Fred.)

Mom and I went to see how the houses fared in which our family members had lived at one time or another: Aunt Aline's house on Catina Street; my brother's old house on General Diaz; my Aunt Maxine's on Marcia, a bit further south. As we drove through the neighborhoods, I was struck by how different it is here from what I had become used to in Metairie, not even a mile west. Metairie had widespread flooding, but only 6-9 inches, in general. Almost all of the businesses are open, even if for only a few hours, and most of the homes are in some stage of restoration. Trailers mark 70% of the properties, and you see mothers meeting their kids at the bus stop to walk them to the trailer that serves as their home. But in Lakeview, we saw no open businesses. And as for trailers, there was only one or two every two to three blocks. Homes under restoration? The exception, rather than the rule. More homes were lost here than in the more talked about 9th ward, but this was a better-off area--in general. Really, the homes were a mix of everything from bungalows and ranch houses to imposing mansions, but they're all in the same state now.

And as if that weren't enough, on Wednesday night, just hours after Mom and I had been through the area, an incredible thunderstorm came through. It woke me up and had me praying for Jane, whose trailer was being buffeted by wind and hail. That's right, hail. Three tornadoes touched down, wreaking new havoc on the city, and destroying even more of Lakeview, adding insult to injury.

And today's Times-Picayune further enlightens readers on the famous $85 billion that the White House authorized for Katrina projects, and to which the White House keeps pointing: that money is earmarked for FEMA's expenses and the Federal Flood Insurance payouts--it was not $85 billion besides those expenses, but for them, with whatever is left over available for other needs. Now there is talk of another $18 billion, but this is for military expenses and loss in the area, not for rebuilding. And there are still 400,000 people without their homes, and businesses starved for workers, because potential workers have no place to live.

Remember that line from the musical "1776"? "Is anybody there? Does anybody care? Does anybody see what I see?"