Soon after Hurricane Katrina, I had the chance to travel to New Orleans in an effort to help rebuild the city. I’ve been wanting to write this post since I started blogging but I’ve been hesitant to share. Sometimes strangers behind keyboards can be quite cruel. As cliche as it may sound, the words used to write this post are very hard to find because I’m not sure exactly what, when or how the city changed me but it did. The devastation, still clearly visible even three years (my first visit) after the storm, is something that hasn’t left my mind. Here is my story and probably the reason why New Orleans is my favorite city in the world. You can read about my other visits to New Orleans here and here.
Much like 9/11, I will always remember where I was when the news broadcasted the devastation happening in New Orleans. I remember seeing images of dead bodies in the street and people panicking at the Super Dome. It broke my heart. At the time I was still living in Virginia and I was about to start college. Virginia is a long way from Louisiana so I had no direct connection with the city other than what I saw in the media.
May 2008, I wasn’t sure where my life was headed. School wasn’t going that great. I was still holding on to a toxic relationship. I didn’t know who I was and I felt lost. Looking back, I think all of these feelings are pretty normal for most people while they attend college. I wasn’t ready to go home for the summer so I signed up for a relief trip through my university. I took an eighteen hour bus ride with a few friends down to New Orleans to work for the week.
I still remember how the humidity smacked me in the face as soon as I stepped off the bus. I instantly asked myself what I had done because there is no way I was going to be able to cope. I’m too northern for this mess I thought. Little did I know that I would soon be calling Houston my home. The only other place as humid as New Orleans. Haha. Later that night, the welcoming team gave us a little insight on our week ahead and let us mingle to meet some locals. I listened to their story but one story really stuck with me. It was told by a man who had recently lost his wife from post traumatic stress. He didn’t really go into detail but something hinted towards suicide. The man himself suffered PTSD and lost all of his teeth from grinding then at night.
He recalls the initial warning on the news. “You have to leave.” He and his wife were hard workers but didn’t have the means to leave the city. Since it was the end of the month and they were living paycheck to paycheck the financial means to leave were nonexistent. He and his wife decided to stay in their home and ride out the storm.
I don’t know how true this is but New Orleans is under sea level, so -it’s common practice to keep an ax in the attic. Mind blown yall. If your house floods while you are in it, chances are you will need the ax to chop your way onto the roof for safety. The man and wife had to use one and stayed on the roof until help arrived. I can’t even begin to imagine going through that. It’s been almost eight years and I still think about that couple a lot. Is he still alive and how is he coping?
Imagine leaving everything you own behind and then learning that you can’t return to the home you once knew because nothing is salvageable. The following photos show the inside of a home that was left before Hurricane Katrina. We were asked to empty the house down to the studs so a home inspector could come in and assess the damage to see if things could be rebuilt. Mind you, most homes in the area were covered in mold so sometimes it would be cheaper to rebuild completely versus going through mold abatement. With the utmost respect, we slowly decommissioned the home by removing the most personal items. Think about an item in your home that you would DIE if anyone saw. Yeah. Those are the things we were removing and I just couldn’t fathom going through this.
Imagine.
First, you have to leave. You have to take limited items with you. You don’t know when you are coming back. You don’t know how you are going to get your grass cut but don’t worry, the city will send you notices and fines because your grass in the front of your destroyed house isn’t cut.
Our task for the day was the remove every thing in the home. All the way down to the studs. A licensed home inspector would then come in and see if the home was salvageable. Sadly, keepsakes within the home were all ruined.
Now, since you are displaced in Chicago living with family, you have to rely on strangers to go through your things and help get rid of stuff so you have a chance of coming back to the city that you love. Many never returned. They either didn’t have the means to leave or they didn’t have the means to come back (or the energy). We aren’t talking about the wealthy French Quarter here. We are talking about an indigent community full of spirit and life despite what they are going through. A population already so fragile but resilient.
I’ve always been told to keep a travel journey and to write down your thoughts and experiences each day but sadly I didn’t. This is all I can recall eight years later. This day changed me forever.
I found this quote written on one of the beds in our sleeping room during our trip. I love it so much that I even had it written into one of my handbags. It’s sort of my life motto and has helped ground me while working in Pediatrics.
The next day we headed to something a little happier… BUILDING a new home for someone. That day’s work took place in Musicians Village with Habitat for Humanity. After the hurricane many musicians were displaced so this colorful (both literally and culturally) was built to help bring them back to the area. I will forever remember the unique combination of live jazz music, saws and hammers. There is nothing like it! We actually had a chance to meet the person who was moving into the house we were building which was really cool! She was a young musician who was looking to move back to the city after the storm.
The floor plans for the new homes built in the lower ninth were designed to help if the area ever floods again. Elevated homes will hopefully be able to withstand flooding in the future.
The next day we spent our time working at the Green Project. We pulled nails from wood that would normally go into the landfill after a home was decommissioned (see above photo of everything that went into a landfill or yard that day). the Green Project encourages people to disassemble homes and donate the materials such as wood, doors, toilets, old paint, windows and tile…ultimately decreasing the amount of waste that goes into the landfill. They then resell them at an inexpensive price to others trying to rebuild their homes. Part of our assignment for the week included recycling paint by combining different cans into one large drum (SO FUN!!) and even renamed a few. Once an entire drum was filled, a machine would mix the paint thoroughly and then we poured the mixed paint into smaller pain cans to be resold.
We must leave our Earth a better place than we found it.
The following year a few of us decided to go back and work with Habitat for Humanity again. The previous night a few homes were broken into and the wiring for electricity was stolen. While it was really annoying that this incident changed the plans for the day, it also made me really sad that someone had to steal house wiring to strip the copper for money. We ended up moving to a different house in the village to install kitchen cabinets and baseboards. Hello valuable life skills. We had to miter them by hand because the saw we needed was also stolen. When we finished there, we hopped onto another house and helped install Hardie Plank siding. So easy and adds value to a house. Before we knew it, it was lunch time and time to climb under a house to hide from the sun. I miss that scorching sun.
Installing Hardie Plank siding is a great way to add value to any home. I’m so happy I learned how to do this.
I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on my experience and I can only conclude one thing. While I was helping to rebuild a city full of life, the city was actually building me into the person I am today.
*We find ourselves through the service of others*
Lura
x
Leave a Reply