teknitroxdiver
Contributor
(Sorry about the length of this....)
I've recently had the opportunity to participate in some volunteer reconstruction work in the New Orleans/North Lake Ponchartrain area. The previous 4 times I've been, we've worked in the Covington/Hammond/Slidell/Abita Springs area. There is no doubt in my mind that the damage there was quite substantial. In fact, I thought it couldn't get worse. Until last weekend, when we worked in the 9th Ward of New Orleans.
Incredible. Complete and total destruction. Of course I had seen pictures and the news coverage, but I suppose that you really can't comprehend just how bad it is from pictures alone, the mind can't imagine that. So to help with this group's understanding, I'd like to tell the story of what it's like now.......
(I suggest Google Maps, maps.google.com, to help you with the roads and towns I talk about in this)
Leaving Covington, it's a good hour to hour and a half drive to where we were at. I'm a skid-steer operator, so I'm pulling a trailer all the way. The interstates are all posted as 70mph, apparently this isn't enforced. If you do 70, prepare to lose your rear bumper and be blown off the road. Basically, flow of traffic is 80-90.
N.O. PD and State Troopers regularly pass people doing that like they're sitting still...no lights, no siren, just because they can.
I-10 takes you across the lake on the causeway and into north NO. After getting off at the Lakefront Airport exit (241 I think), it immediately becomes apparent that this is NOT your average town. On the interstate, you would see maybe 10 cars in front of and behind you. Once off, you're the only one. Zip, zero, nada other cars. And, the road is a large 4-lane that you would expect to be covered in traffic. Nope.
Driving along, we saw houses with water marks halfway up the walls. The FEMA 'X' markings told the grisly tale one some houses, with a number on the bottom of the X telling how many bodies were found. Then, depending on what the animal people found, a description of the animals found and what they did to the live ones may be there.
We took a drive through town just to look and take pictures, and again were amazed. Out of 100 houses, only one would have a FEMA trailer. All the other houses were abandoned. In fact, after seeing it first hand, I'm convinced that the best course of action for areas like this is to bulldoze the houses and start over fresh. One guy in our group remarked that it must be easy to clean out your house because you don't have to think about what stays...it's all ruined.
Violence is still present...about an hour and half after I left the job site, the night shift driver and two other guys were victims of a drive-by shooting. A couple of kids loaded a semi-auto paintball gun with glass marbles and hung out the window shooting as they went by. Thankfully the only wounds were orange-size bruises. Also, someone recovered a .38 bullet that was shot in the air at some point and buried itself in a tar-and-gravel section of the roof.
So, interesting place, very sad though. If you guys want I'll put up a few pictures.
I've recently had the opportunity to participate in some volunteer reconstruction work in the New Orleans/North Lake Ponchartrain area. The previous 4 times I've been, we've worked in the Covington/Hammond/Slidell/Abita Springs area. There is no doubt in my mind that the damage there was quite substantial. In fact, I thought it couldn't get worse. Until last weekend, when we worked in the 9th Ward of New Orleans.
Incredible. Complete and total destruction. Of course I had seen pictures and the news coverage, but I suppose that you really can't comprehend just how bad it is from pictures alone, the mind can't imagine that. So to help with this group's understanding, I'd like to tell the story of what it's like now.......
(I suggest Google Maps, maps.google.com, to help you with the roads and towns I talk about in this)
Leaving Covington, it's a good hour to hour and a half drive to where we were at. I'm a skid-steer operator, so I'm pulling a trailer all the way. The interstates are all posted as 70mph, apparently this isn't enforced. If you do 70, prepare to lose your rear bumper and be blown off the road. Basically, flow of traffic is 80-90.
N.O. PD and State Troopers regularly pass people doing that like they're sitting still...no lights, no siren, just because they can.I-10 takes you across the lake on the causeway and into north NO. After getting off at the Lakefront Airport exit (241 I think), it immediately becomes apparent that this is NOT your average town. On the interstate, you would see maybe 10 cars in front of and behind you. Once off, you're the only one. Zip, zero, nada other cars. And, the road is a large 4-lane that you would expect to be covered in traffic. Nope.
Driving along, we saw houses with water marks halfway up the walls. The FEMA 'X' markings told the grisly tale one some houses, with a number on the bottom of the X telling how many bodies were found. Then, depending on what the animal people found, a description of the animals found and what they did to the live ones may be there.
We took a drive through town just to look and take pictures, and again were amazed. Out of 100 houses, only one would have a FEMA trailer. All the other houses were abandoned. In fact, after seeing it first hand, I'm convinced that the best course of action for areas like this is to bulldoze the houses and start over fresh. One guy in our group remarked that it must be easy to clean out your house because you don't have to think about what stays...it's all ruined.
Violence is still present...about an hour and half after I left the job site, the night shift driver and two other guys were victims of a drive-by shooting. A couple of kids loaded a semi-auto paintball gun with glass marbles and hung out the window shooting as they went by. Thankfully the only wounds were orange-size bruises. Also, someone recovered a .38 bullet that was shot in the air at some point and buried itself in a tar-and-gravel section of the roof.
So, interesting place, very sad though. If you guys want I'll put up a few pictures.
