New Orleans Three and a Half Years After Katrina

It's been three and a half years since Hurricane Katrina shocked the world and devastated New Orleans. This was such a huge event that since then hundreds of books have been written about it - at least 500, in fact. Katrina completely changed how people think about hurricanes. New Orleans was forced to temper it's lax attitude about storm preparation. The French saying that defined New Orleans - laissez les bons temps rouler (let the good times roll) - had to have an asterisk added.

New Orleans is still alive, although it has been altered dramatically. A huge percentage of the population, mostly African-Americans, have now permanently relocated to other cities, mainly large urban areas such as Houston and Atlanta. Unfortunately, most of the homes that were totally destroyed belonged to them. They have been replaced by new Spanish-speaking residents who are living here after helping to rebuild.

To the east of New Orleans, the area still looks terrible, with many homes still gutted and many street signs gone. New Orleans East was flooded very badly throughout. The economic situation there is not very promising overall.

In New Orleans, however, the situation is different, but there is still a huge amount of work to be done. New Orleans is currently a mixed bag - a big, raw, and diverse salad of pieces. Some areas, such as the Uptown area near Tulane University, have rebounded quickly after Katrina. The sliver of land near the lakefront and directly east and west of the University of New Orleans looks intact. There are mansions right next to the lake that never saw a drop of water inside after Katrina. These are the rich areas. Metairie and Kenner, the affluent suburbs to the west, also recovered quickly and now look like any other suburb in America.

If I drive to the University of New Orleans, which is right next to the Lake Pontchartrain on the northern side, I see spotty recovery. A few houses, mainly those on the northern side of Robert E. Lee (the main street on the north side of town), look lovely. Some are really spacious and you see fancy cars in front. These were renovated by wealthy people. But if you drive south of the urban university, the place looks partially-alive, with the occasional oddly raised houses towering ten or more feet above houses that are still abandoned. You see signs of life, but it's clear the post-Katrina construction boom has died down.

It's clear that the land's elevation played a huge role in an area's damage. The French Quarter, which is the oldest part of the city, only got minor flooding and much less damage than areas in New Orleans East. A few hundred years ago, the original founders most likely picked the French Quarter because of its higher elevation - it was the safest place with the best view.

The University of New Orleans suffered significant damage, but it was trivial compared to the Southern University of New Orleans, which is less than one-fourth of a mile south of it. Katrina devastated SUNO so badly that they relocated their whole school to a makeshift school of trailers, and they have only recently(about half a year ago) started to prepare to move back to their old campus. About a year ago I walked through SUNO's campus and looked inside professor's offices to see what I would see only a month after the storm hit: books and computers thrown all around, moldy and brown. It's like an academic graveyard above ground.

The homes near downtown New Orleans are still in poor shape overall too. You are quickly reminded of Katrina's effect if you walk through neighborhoods here. There are many poor people living in homes that are not properly renovated.

The debris removal has thankfully been mostly done, however. But there are still places where you can see a rotten and abandoned car. Many homes still have spray paint signs like "1 dead" or "cat" left from August of 2005. Only time will tell when these signs will go. We've survived three hurricane-free years after that killer Katrina, and we're slowly but surely rebuilding and strengthening the city's protection. We can only pray and hope that 2009 spares the Gulf Coast Region again so there can be more rebuilding.