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As the title suggest I returned to New Orleans on Monday, about six months from when I was last there flying hurrican relief. I went down that morning, ate breakfast in the French Quarter, and then drove around St Bernard Parish and the 9th Ward. Here are the photos:



This here is Jackson Square in the French Quarter. This is the old historic part of New Orleans. Contrary to what some would believe the city was founded on the high ground which is why this place never flooded. There is some storm damage, and a little trash still left over from Mardi Gras, but this place is relatively intact.

http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0547.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0548.JPG

The next group of photos is on and off of St Claude St which runs from the French Quarter into St Bernard Parish. This place was hit hard and while most of the buildings appear to be intact they are not inhabitable. Any thing water touched was destroyed, any building that isn't torn down will have to be completly gutted. All along the road you'll find trash, flooded cars, boats, inop traffic lights, and other debris.


http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0549.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0550.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0551.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0552.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0553.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0556.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0558.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0559.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0560.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0562.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0564.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0565.JPG

These are two examples of cars that were lift to the flood. You can get a sense of how high the water was by looking at these things.

http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0566.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0567.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0569.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0570.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0571.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0572.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0576.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0577.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0579.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0580.JPG

Throughout the city you can find large FEMA trailer parks which I would imagine house city residents. The large cruise ship docked on the Mississippi probably contains relief workers.


http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0581.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0582.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0583.JPG

In case it isn't obvious what happened here, the water picked up this house and moved it into the street.

http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0584.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0585.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0586.JPG

Very few businesses are open down here. Many have been destroyed, and many chains restaurants like McDonalds, Popeye's, Church's, etc are closed down and boarded up. It doesn't appear that management is even trying to reopen them.

http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0588.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0592.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0593.JPG

Yes, that is a house sitting on top of an SUV.

http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0594.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0596.JPG

My father is a constuction worker and he and his crew reroofed this house. It looks pretty nice until you get inside and notice that it's just a shell.

http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0597.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0598.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0601.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0602.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0603.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0604.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0605.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0606.JPG

Everything from here on out is the 9th Ward.

http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0607.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0608.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0609.JPG

On the far left corner that is in fact another boat.

http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0610.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0611.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0613.JPG
http://www.stardestroyer.net/WarWolves/ ... CN0617.JPG


All in all it's been six months and as constuction goes New Orleans hasn't even scratched the surface. Two thirds of this city is going to have to be rebuilt almost from scratch. New Orleans will always be around, but it will be decades before it resurpasses Baton Rouge as the economic hub and largest city in Louisiana.

Shit, man. Those are a little hard to look at.

Gil Hamilton wrote:Shit, man. Those are a little hard to look at.

Yes they are. Try being a born-n-raised New Orleanian who went through the hurricane and stayed in that shit for five days afterward.

You're definitely right, Wicked. They haven't even scratched the surface. BTW can you do me a favor? Can you scout out the West Bank and Algiers (damn, does that sound like the Middle East or what with names like that?) for me?

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:BTW can you do me a favor? Can you scout out the West Bank and Algiers (damn, does that sound like the Middle East or what with names like that?) for me?

Sorry no can do. I'm back in Abilene now and such a trip back would involve a 10+ hour drive each way and my taking time off work. I don't forsee myself returning to Louisiana until late May at the very earliest.

Hey WP, I resized your pictures to 640x480 so they'd fit on the screen better and take less time to load. I moved the originals to a subdirectory named "original". Just FYI.

Amazing images, and I am really sorry for you guys. I can only imagine how upset I would be if my town was damaged like that. At least when Manchester was attacked by the IRA we could blame them ... I guess you can't really get annoyed with the weather [although of course, you can get annoyed at the fudged response to it by the authorities].

At the bottom of this picture there's some spray paint saying "Next time we..." and it trails off. You wouldn't happen to remember what it said would you? Just kind of curious.

Darth Wong wrote:Hey WP, I resized your pictures to 640x480 so they'd fit on the screen better and take less time to load. I moved the originals to a subdirectory named "original". Just FYI.

Actually the real originals are 3264x2448. I thought taking them down to 1024x768 would be enough. Guess not.

TheFeniX wrote:At the bottom of this picture there's some spray paint saying "Next time we..." and it trails off. You wouldn't happen to remember what it said would you? Just kind of curious.

No idea. That's one of more than a hundred damaged houses with grafitti that I saw that day.

I think the one that affected me most was the one of the broken fire hydrant.

It just struck me that, it was such a huge city, and now it's no longer really alive or functioning at all. The fact that there's no water shooting up from the broken hydrant kind of served as an allegory to the city itself. It's still there, but there's no life running through it anymore.

These were taken back in January in St Bernard when my father was working down there. This of course equates to four months after Katrina hit.

Most, if not all houses in the area look like this.





Jesus was a carpenter...