Flooded in Doubt - Columbia Missourian

C O V E R S T O R Y10A — October 8, 2006 NEWSUNDAY MISSOURIAN NEWSUNDAY MISSOURIAN October 8, 2006 — 11A
Myra Hancock, center, and other members of Columbia’s First Presbyterian Church pray in Luling, La., before their first day of gutting houses.
Missourian staffers Isabelle Roughol, Samantha Clemens and Jenn Jarvis spent
a week with a group of Columbia Presbyterians on a cleanup mission a year after
Hurricane Katrina. They spent the majority of their time in the Gentilly neighbor-
hood, recording the stories of the neighborhood’s residents — in blogs, writings,
audio, video and photographs.
South breach:
East side of the
canal at Mirabeau
Avenue, 425 feet
wide, occurred at
about 9:30 a.m.,
Aug. 29, 2005.
North breach:
West side of the London
Avenue Canal at Robert
E. Lee Boulevard, 720
feet wide, occurred at
about 10:30 a.m., Aug.
29, 2005.
Robert E. Lee Blvd.
PrattDr.
WarringtonDr.
WarringtonDrive
Gentilly
neighborhood
Lake Pontchartrain
Mississippi River
New Orleans
DESTRUCTION’S PATH
New Orleans residents may want
to move back, but sometimes it
is impossible. Volunteers, often
from religious organizations, are
still filtering into the damaged
portions of the city. In the Gentilly
neighborhood in New Orleans, a
few residents who have property
on Warrington Drive are finding
they need more help and are
getting it from the
volunteers.
Source: U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers,
Missourian reports,
Google maps
DUSTY LUTHY/Missourian
Al and Gwen Bierria
5286 Warrington Drive
Eddie and Joan Baldo
Yvonne Birdsall
Garry and Brenda Hayes
Mirabeau Ave.
Mirabeau Ave.
LondonAvenueCanal
Only one thing had changed in the after-
math of Hurricane Katrina: the mud. Dry
now, it cracked under the feet of the volun-
teers from Columbia’s First Presbyterian
Church, who entered 5200 Warrington
Drive on a Monday morning in September
for the first time since it was flooded.
In the next few days, the house would
have to be cleared out, gutted and boarded
up. But that did not necessarily mean it
would be saved. In April, the city of New
Orleans passed an ordinance aimed at
reducing the number of derelict, unsafe
and unsanitary properties that have been
left untouched since the flood. The new
law mandated that every damaged house
be gutted and boarded up by Aug. 29,
2006, the first anniversary of Hurricane
Katrina.
In Gentilly, the streets have been cleared
of sand and water, and of the 213 residen-
tial lots on Warrington Drive, most have
been gutted and secured. The residents,
however, have been slow to return. Only 36
families have come back to the neighbor-
hood, most of them to live in a government
trailer parked in front of their devastated
houses. Only one property seems to have
been renovated.
The ordinance is also an attempt by city
officials to halt the decline of property
values for returning residents, many of
whom now live near homes that have been
abandoned. Property owners must show
a good-faith effort toward cleaning or
demolishing their houses, or risk losing not
only the structures, but their lots as well.
For volunteers like Kathy Montgomery, the
outspoken organizer of the Columbia Pres-
byterians’ mission trip, the work they’re
doing in New Orleans buys time for hom-
eowners who do not yet know if they will
ever return to Gentilly. But, Montgomery
says, the uncertainty is frustrating.
“Are our labors thrown away, dispens-
able? Maybe so,” she says. “At least she
keeps her property. ... In the ultimate end,
we’ve helped her.”
Faith-based groups like the Presbyte-
rian Disaster Assistance, the national
organization overseeing the work of the
Columbia volunteers, have played a huge
role in the relief and reconstruction of
areas affected by hurricanes Katrina and
Rita. This was the third trip to the Gulf
Coast by the Columbia group. Many of
the volunteers on the recent trip had been
there less than a year before, in November
2005. “I was prepared better this time,
but it’s still shocking,” Montgomery said.
“I was amazed, astounded and very much
appalled because there’s been so much of
nothing.”
Though they seemed overwhelmed by
the devastation, the Columbia group, like
all the volunteers who have descended
on the city since Katrina, recognize that
its work was vital to the future of New
Orleans. So after arriving at 5200 War-
rington Drive, they grabbed nose masks
Flooded
in doubt
More than a year after
hurricanes Katrina and Rita
ravaged the Gulf Coast,
rebuilding drags along while the
future of many neighborhoods
remains uncertain
CONTINUED on Page 12A
Y
vonne Birdsall’s house at 5200 Warrington
Drive, in the Gentilly section of New
Orleans, hadn’t changed much in the past
year. A moldy stuffed bunny still lies abandoned
on the living room floor. Washed-out family photos
rested in their broken frames. Plates and cups stood
in the dish rack by the sink, dirtier than they had
ever been.
HEAR THEIR VOICES, SEE THEIR SIGHTS
For more coverage of the
Presbyterians and their
trip to New Orleans, see
www.columbiamissou-
rian.com
HOW WE REPORTED
Story By ISABELLE ROUGHOL ! Photos by SAMANTHA CLEMENS
“It just kills me when I see the kids’ toys,” Columbia volunteer Jodie Burditt said while cleaning
a yard in New Orleans’ Gentilly neighborhood. Only 36 families had returned to the area’s 213
residential lots as of September.
! Listen to Isabelle
Roughol talk about report-
ing from New Orleans.
! Experience the sights
and sounds of New
Orleans in audio slide-
shows and video reports.
! Explore an interactive
photo survey of the
hurricane-damaged hous-
es in the Gentilly neigh-
borhood of New Orleans.
! Read the accounts
from some of the First
Presbyterian Church vol-
unteers on www.mymis-
sourian.com.
! And in Muse, see the
remnants of Edward Bal-
do’s home, his memories
amid the muck. Page 6C.

wheelbarrows, chased away the wasps that
had taken over the residence and started their
work.
“They see the need and the purpose,” Mont-
gomery said of the rest of the group, “and
that’s what it’s all about.”
Yvonne Birdsall, who lived in the house on
Warrington Drive in the 1960s before turning
it into a rental property, called Presbyterian
Disaster Assistance for help in June. She
sought the help of volunteers to avoid losing
her property under the city’s new ordinance
— even though she does not know what the
future holds for Gentilly.
“It might have to be demolished, but I’m hop-
ing that it can be repaired,”
Birdsall said. “If it builds
up around here again and
people come back, I might
end up living back here
again.”
When doomsday
arrived
Tears well up in Gary
Hayes’ eyes when he
recalls Katrina’s devasta-
tion, which he says reminds
him of his time in Vietnam.
By the time the storm
reached New Orleans on
Aug. 29, most of the resi-
dents of Warrington Drive
had evacuated Gentilly.
Gary and his wife, Brenda,
a minister, stayed.
She was sitting in her
Bible room, pointing a
video camera at the hori-
zontal rain and the wind
tearing at the branches of
the trees. He was stand-
ing in their front yard. By
9 a.m., the walls of the London Avenue Canal,
just west of Warrington Drive, had begun to
bend and water was leaking into the neigh-
borhood. Gary went inside, grabbed another
beer and walked to the end of his driveway to
inspect the progress of the water.
“Clear water kept on coming,” he said. “Then
I saw this black shadow.”
The shadow — a wall of mud and sand —
engulfed Gentilly when floodwall panels on the
east side of the London Avenue Canal, about a
block from the Hayes’ house, collapsed.
The failure of the floodwall started with a
10- to 20-foot-high “scourhole,” a gap caused
by the erosion of the clay and silt that typi-
cally covers a levee, in the banks of the canal
near the Mirabeau Avenue bridge. As water
seeped through the sand beneath the sheet pile
that supports the floodwall, the canal started
bursting at the seams. The surge of water com-
ing from Lake Pontchartrain into the canal
increased the pressure on the entire structure,
and the clay, silt and sand supporting the flood-
wall were pushed away.
The scourhole on the canal side and the loss
of material on the land side weakened the levee
until the floodwall was standing in equilibrium
with almost no support. Around 9:30 a.m., a
425-foot section collapsed, releasing torrents
of water, sand and mud into the Gentilly neigh-
borhood.
Two weeks after the storm, only one pump
— known even before Katrina as the “dooms-
day pump” — was able to start draining the
neighborhood.
Al and Gwen Bierria’s house, at 5286 War-
rington Drive, is just north of the south breach
in the London Avenue Canal. Al likes to speak
in metaphors, comparing New Orleans to a
beautiful woman who is unkempt and the
Corps of Engineers to a drunken driver whose
negligence has cost lives. Pessimistic about the
state of the city and its future, he is angry at
local and federal officials who have not taken
responsibility for what
happened and residents
who have not made their
feelings known.
“The people in New
Orleans should be very
angry,” he said. “When
you have a government
agency responsible for
a certain task, you don’t
have it fall apart. I can
understand if a storm
would come, and the
water would come over
the levees. But when you
build it and it collapses,
that’s a whole other
story. ... Negligence and
purpose of killing, to
me, are the same thing.”
Bierria’s anger is
accompanied by fear.
He and Gwen are the
only residents who have
returned to their block
of Warrington Drive;
they have been living in
a trailer since last October while Al, a contrac-
tor, rebuilds their house. He says the Corps of
Engineers’ work on the floodwall where it col-
lapsed is almost complete. But other sections,
including the one just behind his backyard,
have not been improved.
“A chain is only as strong as its weakest
link,” Al said. “You still have the same chain,
the same levee. What’s stopping it from break-
ing down here?”
Frederick Young, project manager for the
Corps of Engineers in New Orleans’ East
Bank, said that the levees that did not fail do
not need to be improved because the conditions
that contributed to the breach at the Mirabeau
Bridge were unique; engineers kept the exist-
ing I-panels after finding that there were no
other scourholes along the structure.
The breach in the floodwall was repaired to
pre-Katrina strength before the start of this
year’s hurricane season, and the Corps has
continued to improve it. The new section of the
floodwall was constructed of T-panels, which
add a 3-foot concrete base to the standard I-
panel. The T-panel is also supported by three
sheet piles instead of one, which go 52 and 74
C O V E R S T O R Y12A — October 8, 2006 NEWSUNDAY MISSOURIAN
CONTINUED from page 11A
Sunday, Sept. 17
Our volunteer camp is set up on
the grounds of Luling’s First Union
Presbyterian Church. We live in 8-
foot-by-6-foot plastic abodes that
tend to leak when it rains. In all
fairness, we are set up comfortably
enough and graciously welcomed.
We are only unlucky in one aspect:
From what we were told, love
bugs only come out in the region
two weeks a year for their mating
season. It is just the time of year
we chose to travel here. Bugs
are everywhere. Spray repellent
and duct tape are as invaluable
as cigarettes in a prison. The
volunteers have taped themselves
shut in their “villas” to ward off the
insects. With thunder rolling in the
background, the high humidity and
the mosquito nets over our cots,
our accommodations resemble a
war hospital in a tropical country,
except the hospital smell is
replaced with that of DEET. No one
knows yet what part of the city the
group will be working in this week
or what the assignment will be.
Monday, Sept. 18
The volunteers were given their
assignment at about 8:30 this
morning — gutting a house at 5200
Warrington Drive in Gentilly. The
mood was light in the van as we
were driving to the work site, even
when we were stuck in the morn-
ing traffic. It was suddenly much
quieter, however, when we left the
highway and entered Gentilly. We
were all staring out of the win-
dows, taking in the sights. Broken
windows. Piles of debris. Caved-in
roofs. Six-foot-high water line.
All houses, with no exception, are
spray-painted with the famous X
everyone has seen on TV and news-
papers. On top of the X is the date
the house was inspected — two
to three weeks after the storm for
most places in the neighborhood.
On the right side, there is cryptic
code indicating particular hazards
inside; in many cases, that was
left blank. We know better than to
think it means there are no haz-
ards. On the left side, the group
inspecting the location wrote its
initials. At the bottom of the X is
the most famous and most morbid
indication: the number of corpses
found inside. Fortunately, we’ve
only seen zeroes so far.
Reporter Isabelle Roughol
wrote about her New
Orleans experiences on a
blog. The week of writings
can be seen at www.
columbiamissourian.com.
Kent Hopper, right, and Jo Ann Foriester search for work boots and construction equipment in Luling, La.
First Presbyterian Church members from Columbia traveled to New Orleans to gut houses. The volunteers
stayed in Luling, about 25 miles from the city, in a makeshift village on a Presbyterian church’s property.
CONTINUED on page 13A
“When you have a
government agency responsible
for a certain task, you don’t
have it fall apart. I can
understand if a storm would
come, and the water would
come over the levees. But
when you build it and
it collapses, that’s a whole
other story.”
AL BIERRIA
New Orleans resident

feet into the ground, instead of the usual 16
feet. When the work is completed, the levee
will be covered with plastic to protect it from
erosion. However, the Corps of Engineers’ con-
fidence in the structure is not matched by that
of the residents, many of whom still blame the
agency for failing to protect their homes.
‘A wait-and-see game’
For others who, like the Bierrias, decide to
return to Gentilly, the journey will be full of
obstacles.
“Everything that you’ve got to do is a hassle
right now,” Birdsall says. “A big bureaucratic
problem.”
The city government’s immediate worry is
cleaning up and rebuilding. Many essential
city services have been given a lower priority.
Recycling pick-up, for instance, has not yet
resumed. Instead, there is a special pick-up
for “white garbage”: the old appliances and
food-filled refrigerators that, 13 months after
Katrina, homeowners are just now putting to
the curb.
The lack of recycling worries Jo Ann Fories-
ter and other Columbia volunteers, who can’t
fail to notice that they are adding to the city’s
trash problems. The 15 volunteers consumed
an average of two bottles of water a day for
six days, which contributed about 200 water
bottles to New Orleans landfills.
Some people have made the cutback in city
services work for them. After traveling around
the U.S. and Canada doing construction work
for two years, Alberto Mejilla arrived in New
Orleans three months ago. He drives around
the city and rummages through debris to find
semi-precious metals. He said he gets 60 cents
a pound for aluminum and 80 cents to a dollar
for a pound of copper. While the Columbia vol-
unteers worked on Birdsall’s house, he sorted
through an enormous pile of wood and drywall
and came away with a handful of aluminum
bars, probably the remnants of an appliance.
Birdsall was glad; at least it wouldn’t end up in
a landfill, she said. She then suggested Mejilla
look in the backyard for anything else of value.
C O V E R S T O R YNEWSUNDAY MISSOURIAN October 8, 2006 — 13A
Joan Baldo, left, and Kathy Montgomery share a laugh while filling out paperwork to allow Baldo’s house to be gutted and cleaned by the Columbia volunteers.
Tuesday, Sept. 19
I saw an old man cry today.
Edward Baldo, 82, was born and
raised in Gentilly. In 1952, he
bought a lot on Warrington Drive
and had a house built for his fam-
ily. When the floodwall on the
London Avenue Canal collapsed,
his home was engulfed in sand and
water. Today, the house is wait-
ing to be demolished, or sold, but
Baldo doesn’t really believe anyone
would want his house in its condi-
tion. You can knock on every door
in this neighborhood, and where
there are still residents, you will
hear the same stories and see the
same sights. I am getting used to
this street; its potholes filled with
muddy water where we must be
careful not to flood our engines; its
sidewalks covered with such over-
grown vines that it’s safer to walk
on the street; its one trailer with
the only two residents on the street;
and its runaway rooster that hides
in abandoned backyards and enter-
tains the volunteers. Still, I have to
remind myself constantly that we
are reporting from the United States
of America.
“It’s like a state of limbo, of not knowing exactly how soon this area
will develop and how many people will come back,
how many people will build back up.”
YVONNE BIRDSALL
New Orleans resident
Edward
Baldo’s
home was
flooded when
Hurricane
Katrina
breached
the London
Avenue Canal.
Today, the
house waits to
be demolished
or sold.

look in the backyard for anything else of value.
Since Katrina, Birdsall has lived on her sav-
ings and monthly Social Security check. She
received about $20,000 from the Federal Emer-
gency Management Agency, but very little
from her insurance company because she did
not have flood coverage. Her own home, on the
other side of the canal from her rental house at
5200 Warrington Drive, was so damaged it had
to be demolished. The Corps of Engineers is
purchasing an easement on her land to repair
another breach in the levee, but the agency has
not paid her for the property yet.
The fluctuations in the New Orleans real
estate market since Katrina add to the uncer-
tainty. Birdsall cannot afford to buy another
house: Prices have increased dramatically in
areas that weren’t damaged. After the storm,
she moved into an $800-a-month apartment
that went for $500 before Katrina.
“It’s like a state of limbo, of not knowing
exactly how soon this area will develop and
how many people will come back, how many
people will build back up,” she said. “There’s so
many ifs and buts and whys to consider. It’s not
a cut-and-dried deal.”
Meanwhile, property values have plummeted
in Gentilly and other damaged areas.
“(My) house is worth over $300,000,” Bierria
said. “How many people are going to give me
$300,000 when they look at this next door and
that next door?”
The city of New Orleans has contracted with
various architects to plan the rebuilding of the
city. In Gentilly, the firm Hewitt-Washington
and Associates is responsible for working with
neighborhood associations and coming up with
a plan that would restore the neighborhood’s
residences, businesses and institutions. Vision-
ing meetings have already taken place, but the
residents said they were never invited to attend
them.
“We don’t get any information, I hate to say
it,” Birdsall said. “I think homeowners should
be appraised, should get bulletins to keep us
abreast with what’s going on, but we don’t get
anything.”
To some residents, it seems utopian to think
about building parks and restaurants when
their most basic needs are still going unmet.
They need a place to live and a job. Their
neighborhoods are marred by rusty cars,
heaps of debris and water pooling into giant
potholes on every street.
In the meantime, many homeowners are
reluctant to rebuild until they know whether
their neighbors will. They can’t afford to pay a
construction company to gut and repair their
homes, so they turn to volunteers, who see con-
tradictions everywhere they go.
“That’s when you begin to run around chas-
ing your tail,” Montgomery said, adding that,
like the residents, the volunteers are waiting to
see what happens.
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance is com-
mitted to participating in the relief effort for
seven more years, but Montgomery said the
organization is having a hard time finding
volunteers. Its five villages are only filled to a
quarter of their capacity, and the 15 volunteers
from Columbia were the only guests in the
Luling, La., camp the week of Sept. 18. Mont-
gomery, a former village coordinator for the
Presbyterians, said the last significant influx
of volunteers was last spring, when college stu-
C O V E R S T O R Y14A — October 8, 2006 NEWSUNDAY MISSOURIAN
Wednesday, Sept. 20
The Columbia Presbyterians have
worked much faster than anyone
anticipated. The 15 “blue angels of
hope,” so nicknamed because of the
blue T-shirts they wear on the work
site, are thanked everywhere they
go and greeted by “God bless you”
or “We’re so glad you’re here.” Jenn,
Samantha and I are often stopped
by strangers, too. We are using a
KOMU car, and it’s hard to pass by
unnoticed when you drive around
with a giant, multi-colored peacock
on the side of your car. The group
had breakfast in Le Café du Monde
this morning and had the most deli-
cious beignets on this side of the
Atlantic. At night, we explored the
Quarter’s night life. Kathy Mont-
gomery calls it the “give back to
the local economy” night. I call
it the “blowing off steam mid-
week” night. The break was well-
deserved. We started with a Cajun
dinner, followed by a reasonable
amount of the Big Easy’s signature
drinks in a live jazz club. We met a
zydeco band on the street and were
dared to play the washboards with
them.
Thursday, Sept. 21
Today, I saw Katrina through
the cold eyes of an engineer. Cold
probably isn’t the right word for
the engineers I met, but the scien-
tific explanations I received today
from Frederick Young, Corps of
Engineers project manager for the
reconstruction of levees in Orleans
Parish, had the coldness and sever-
ity of undeniable scientific facts.
Young also explained to me the
work that is being done to repair
and better the floodwall where it
was breached. I must say, it looks
much more effective than the old
version, which remains standing
in many places, including along
the London Avenue Canal behind
Yvonne Birdsall’s house. This is
what scares the residents of War-
rington Drive. Even if the breach
is repaired effectively, what’s stop-
ping the levee from breaking just
20 yards up the canal, or anywhere
else where the old I-panels remain?
Young explained to me that the
conditions that allowed the flood-
wall to breach do not exist along
the rest of the canal. Still, the resi-
dents are scared, and that might be
what prevents many from return-
ing.
Bruce Berry, left, and John Montgomery remove destroyed furniture from a house on Warrington Drive in New Orleans.
After clearing the house of debris, the 14 Columbia volunteers knocked down moldy walls and ceilings and boarded up
the windows of a house damaged more than a year ago during Hurricane Katrina.
Construction
continues on the
London Avenue
Canal levee
just one block
from Warrington
Avenue in New
Orleans’ Gentilly
neighborhood.
Engineers are
strengthening
portions of the
levee that were
breached, while
other parts remain
untouched.

dents on break flocked to the Gulf Coast to do
relief work.
The city can’t continue to rely on volunteers
alone, she said. Not only are their numbers
shrinking, but they cannot do more special-
ized work like plumbing and electricity, which
requires licensed professionals.
“Will it last seven years?” Montgomery
wondered one morning as she sat on a porch
on Warrington Drive. “The structures might,
but I don’t know that the villages will be filled.
People still go to Appalachia, and there’s so
much work there. And there will be another
hurricane.”
Moving in or moving on
The residents of Warrington Drive are
reminded of the reality of Hurricane Katrina
in the most benign and mundane ways. Water-
melons started growing in Birdsall’s front
yard; floodwaters had displaced seeds, and
they grew into odd floral arrangements all
over the neighborhood.
Across the street from 5200 Warrington
Drive, Joan Baldo now has several clusters of
baby’s breath instead of roses. The Columbia
volunteers made sure to preserve them when
they started gutting her house.
Baldo is an elegant woman who likes to keep
a good home and a beautiful garden. She has
a sense of humor, although tears come to her
eyes when she finds, in the pile of debris in her
living room, a favorite black-and-gold beaded
gown, which she feigns to model for the volun-
teers.
“I’m sorry you had to see my house the way
it is,” she said, adding that at least it looks bet-
ter now than it did when Warrington Drive was
covered in 5 feet of sand. “It looked like beach-
front property.”
Joan Baldo has bad knees. So when a new
city ordinance required all houses in Gentilly
to be raised by 3 feet, she and her husband,
Edward, applied for a demolition permit and
bought a house in nearby Metairie, which sus-
tained significantly less damage.
“It’s sad, but I said I’m over it and I am,”
Joan Baldo said. “I really am.”
Others are not so willing to leave. Leroy
Smith is an on-site construction specialist for
the Corps of Engineers, in charge of build-
ing the new floodgates at the entrance of the
London Avenue Canal. He has a personal stake
in the project: He lives in Gentilly, too, and he
does not want to see his house under five feet
of water again. He said he spent so much time
working on the canal that he has yet to start
work on his own house.
“It still looks like a ghost town in the neigh-
borhood,” Smith said. “We got a long way to go,
but we can’t give up the fight. We’re not going
to let it die. She will not die.”
For all its flaws, residents like Smith take
pride in their city. It’s home. Even to those like
Bierria, who said “that ‘home’ thing is kind of
a cop-out,” New Orleans is hard to turn their
backs on, despite its many problems. Bierria
mentioned a 2004 quality-of-life poll conducted
by the Survey Research Center at the Universi-
ty of New Orleans, which found that 40 percent
of residents were dissatisfied or very dissatis-
fied with their quality of life; that six out of
10 voters thought public elementary education
was poor; and that more than one in three
thought the city’s problems had gotten worse
over the past five years.
“At least Katrina did one thing,” Bierria said.
“It got people away from here to see how the
rest of the country is doing.”
Today, 13 months after Hurricane Katrina,
only half of the city’s prestorm population has
returned. Bierria acknowledged the beauty and
culture of the city but said that, given better
opportunities, anyone would leave, just as they
would if Haiti or Cuba were their home.
Yet he remains.
“New Orleans is a very, very, very beautiful
woman, and you’ve got a bunch of people that
just sling mud in her face,” he said. “It makes
you wanna cry, it’s sick. That’s all I gotta say
about this place.”
The house at 5200 Warrington Drive had
changed by the time the volunteers from
Columbia Presbyterian Church left New
Orleans on Sept. 23. The evidence of its sad
demise had been cleared out and put to the
curb, and a bare structure of wood and con-
crete stared at a mirror image of itself across
the street, and another one and another one
again down the road. Each appears naked,
except for the X hastily spray-painted on the
facade, the only apparent sign that this was
once a place called home.
C O V E R S T O R YNEWSUNDAY MISSOURIAN October 8, 2006 — 15A
Friday, Sept. 22
Today, we left New Orleans and
drove the Peacock-Mobile — so
named by the volunteer team —
along the Mississippi Gulf Coast to
Pascagoula. The landscape remind-
ed us of the scene right after the
hurricane in “Forrest Gump,” when
the Bubba Gump boat is the only
one to have weathered the storm.
Apart from the occasional lucky
house, everything else was devastat-
ed: boats sitting upside down on dry
land, cars still in the water, pillars
standing with no house on top and
an empty shell of a prefabricated
home standing on the side of Route
90. Leaving New Orleans was bitter-
sweet. We have grown accustomed
to the neighborhood we worked in
this week and to the small commu-
nity of volunteers, homeowners and
reporters that we formed on War-
rington Drive. However, the week
was also exhausting and emotion-
ally straining. In the course of my
reporting, I heard one phrase a lot:
“You can’t understand what it’s like
until you’ve been down there.” Now,
I understand what all those people
meant. As eloquent as one may be,
there won’t ever be strong enough
words to describe the sights we’ve
seen and the stories we’ve heard.
Kent Hopper, left, and Lance Burditt, both of Columbia, board up a house in New Orleans in September. According to the New Orleans’ gutting ordinance, homeowners must
properly secure their property or after a series of notices it will be “eligible for expropriation or demolition.”

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