The 17th Street Canal runs along the border between New Orleans and Metairie (the next city over, in Jefferson Parish). Some of the worst flooding was on the New Orleans side of this canal, while on the other side there was no flooding at all. I heard one resident say that while his house had water up to his roof, someone on the other side of the canal was mowing his lawn.
I couldn't tell exactly where I was a lot of the time I was in this neighborhood because many of the street signs are missing. I parked at what I think was the intersection of Fleur De Lis and Stafford Streets and walked around a while. Here is what I saw.
Here is a house with a little pile of rubble in front. I assume the homeowners tried to clean out their house and dumped some debris near the curb. A contractor put a sign on the mound that reads, "Alamo Drywall & Paint - Sheetrock & Mold Removal - Roofing, Tile & Pressure Washing - We Will Beat Anybody's Price". There are lots of signs like these in the neighborhood offering construction and demolition services. I didn't see much evidence that many people in the neighborhood were using these services. Most of the homes looked like little work had been done on them since the disaster happened.
Notice the brownish line running across the wall, just above the house number. That's the flood line. They're in different places on different houses, probably because of minor changes in elevation and differences in the heights of foundations.
Here's a house where the front yard has been covered with a layer of silt.
There are many "For Sale" signs in the neighborhood. It's clear that lots of people don't want to come back. I doubt that people will get much for their property - the values plummeted as soon as the flood happened. Most probably some developer will buy a bunch of land very cheaply and make a bundle when property values eventually go back up.
Another sign offering construction services. I didn't notice many damaged roofs - I guess most homes were built to withstand high winds.
Notice the flood line about a foot below the gutters.
This is Evvy (I don't know if I spelled her name right - it's my best guess). I saw her sitting on her porch and waved to her. When she waved back I went over to talk to her. I had been worried that any locals who saw me might resent having a tourist taking pictures of their misery, but Evvy was happy to talk to me.
She said she wanted people to see what had happened, and the state things are in now. I was curious about why she was there - I asked whether she was living there. She said that no one can live there now - there's no electricity, no water, no gas. She was just trying to salvage a few things.
We talked for a while, and she shared some political opinions. She is very angry at the Bush administration. Many people in New Orleans feel that way about how Katrina was handled, but her anger goes toward many other things, like foreign policy. She believes Bush has screwed up everything he's touched.
After a while she offered to let me look inside her house. I accepted, and what I found was pretty sad. The place was full of dirt and mold, and everything was chaotic. I realized that when a house fills up with water, everything that can float moves around. When the waters recede, things come down wherever they happen to be. So, for example, the carpets were tangled with the furniture. I asked Evvy whether she was concerned about breathing mold. She said she was at first, but then she decided that everyone in New Orleans breathes a lot of mold anyway. Realistically, there's a big difference between the amount of mold one would breathe from living in a hot, humid place and the amount of mold one would breathe while digging through a flood-ravaged house. I didn't see any reason to upset her, though, so I didn't argue with her.
Evvy showed me a waterlogged drum in her back yard. Her son has plays in a band, and he kept his drum kit in her garage. After the flood waters receded he tried to salvage what he could. The drums were ruined, but he found his cymbals, which were still in decent shape. He cleaned them and polished them with Brasso. The next day someone stole them. They were worth about $7,000.
This is Evvy's piano. I took this picture through her front entrance (the door is no longer there).
This house is at the corner of Hammond and Fleur De Lis (I think). Someone in the neighborhood who was standing nearby told me the owners were going to have a big insurance problem, because it's not clear in this case how much damage was caused by flooding and how much by wind. Flood insurance and wind insurance are typically provided by different carriers, and no one will pay anything until they settle who owes what.
