New Orleans--Day Two--Take Three
I got the chance to see all of the neighborhoods of New Orleans that were ravaged by Katrina today. After a while, after I got over the shock of seeing what I was seeing on the streets of an American city, I was struck by two aspects of the houses that I know I will not soon forget.
- The waterlines: On the side of the exterior of every house I saw, there was a yellowish-gray line parallel to the ground. This line circled the entire house, and in most cases it was about 3 feet off the ground. In some places, it was 4 or 5 feet. To leave a permanent line like this, this has to be where the water settled. Here, it was for a period of about 14 days. This isn't the high watermark; that is actually much higher. This is where, after the rains stopped and the levees ceased breaching, the water stood for nearly half-a-month. Go outside your house. Measure up 5 feet. Draw a line. Imagine water that high, that you could do nothing about.
- The x's: On the front of every house, right on the facing, there is a large spray-painted "x." That was done by relief workers, government agencies, or police or firefighters as they came by. In the upper middle quadrant of the x, a date is written. This is the date the spray-painter was able to enter the house. It is usually two to three weeks after the storm hit. In the left quadrant is the abbreviation of the agency/entity that checked the house. In the right quadrant, it lists whether the visitor was able to get inside on their search ("Int" for interior, "Ext" for just the exterior). And in the bottom section of the x, it lists a number. It's usually a "0". But I saw more than a few that said "1" or "2", and even a couple that said "3". This is the number of dead people they found inside.
posted by Trent Stamp at 9:17 PM
2 Comments:
What really gets me is when you go through sections of St. Bernard and some other areas and realize the waterline is gone. You can't spot it when it is on or over the rooftops.
The location of the spray paint markers is also something note. It's not like searchers used ladders to get them so high on some of these houses. That would be boat level.
Something else to notice as you wander around - the trailers without propane tanks and/or power poles are unoccupied. There are lots and lots of them around.
No, it is not a nice place to raise children right now. I had a 2.5 year old and a 3 day old when we evacuated. At least now there are a few parks open - that was not the case until just a few months ago.
I just sold our house in New Orleans and now we are residents of East Texas. We were lucky that Algiers had no flooding. However, we have two daughters that need good schools and a healthy environment to grow up in.
I remember sitting in a fast-food joint back in June 2006 and overheard a conversation between two contractors about the damage to their own homes. One lived downriver and said he had 21 FEET of water in his house! That meant only a little bit of the attic of his two-story house stayed above water!
I am very happy to live about 100 miles from the coast and 250 feet above sea level now!
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