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Blog Entry 2 of 5 A CU Student's Perspective
I'm Lisa Doan, a student at the University of Colorado - Boulder. For spring break, I traveled to New Orleans with the Alternative Breaks volunteer group, and I'll initially be blogging about the experiences I had down there.

Blog Url: http://denver.yourhub.com/~LDoan

Generations Washed Away

Contributed by: Lisa Doan   on 4/11/2006

This story is probably the one thing that stands out most from my trip to New Orleans.

While we were touring the 9th Ward, I got into a conversation with Laura, the woman who was in charge of setting up all of our projects and works at the domestic abuse shelter where we stayed.

She told me about meeting with women who would come in to the shelter after the hurricane. Many of them were from the 9th Ward, a predominantly black neighborhood that sat only a few hundred feet from the Industrial Canal.

Many of the women that went to the shelter told Laura about how proud they had been to own their homes. Their families had worked for generations and saved up so that they could own a home. Everyone wants to own their own home, and it was a particularly impressive feat in a city where 30 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. These women had finally achieved their family's dreams.

And Katrina took all of it away.

When the hurricane hit, the 9th Ward was devastated by the storm surge and levee failures. The area is basically unlivable - no water and no electricity. Many of the homes are labeled with "TFW" for the "Toxic Flood Waters" that had contaminated the area. The homes are also structurally unsafe and too dangerous to enter.

Generations of work and effort and love and memories were destroyed or washed away. And these women didn't know what to do, where to start. What is there to do? Everything is lost, and there's very little help around. Homeless, directionless and hopeless. How does one start over from that?

I could only begin to imagine. What if that had been my neighborhood? My family's home that my parents had worked so hard to get for us? What if every part of my life was destroyed or taken away, and I'm left with nothing?

The feeling of despair crushed me, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since then.

--

Many people are saying that the people of New Orleans are fools for living in a flood plain and below sea level. So are all the people living on the San Andreas fault fools? Those killed by the tsunami, were they fools for living on the coasts? Perhaps New Orleans was at a higher risk than these areas, but are they so different from us that we can't understand their reluctance to leave?

Is "home" really that hard of a concept to grasp? What if it was your home and your family had lived there for generations? It's where you grew up and it's all you know. It's your neighborhood, your community, your family, your friends, your schools, your churches, your LIFE. You wouldn't be so quick to leave it, either.

Unfortunately, things are only looking down for those from the 9th Ward. Almost all of the houses are beyond repair, and they don't have any money to rebuild or anyplace else to go (it costs ~$10,000 to just gut a house). And the city is looking to redesign in such a way as to put the 9th Ward at greater risk when the next big one hits.

Even if they razed all the homes in the 9th ward, it would be developed again. It is perfect for low-income housing because of its proximity to the canal. And another storm will hit. I doubt New Orleans will help these citizens, and I don't know if they can find better places for them to live.

It's important to note that much of the destruction was caused by the faulty design of the 17th Street Canal levee. Check out levees.org for more info.

I don't know if having better levees (assuming they're ever built) will completely protect the 9th Ward and New Orleans, but it is important that other people around the nation understand the plight of those in the area.

What if it was your home?



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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Lisa Doan

Longmont , CO

Lisa Doan has posted 5 blog entries and 0 comments since joining on 4/5/2006. Lisa Doan 's average blog rating is 5.
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