Six Months After Katrina

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Six Months After Katrina

• slow Recovery
• in
• New Orleans

Thomas McGuire, Author, Amsco School Publications
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The Big Easy - pre-Katrina
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• New Orleans is known for all kinds of local color

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including Mardi Gras!
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New Orleans has expanded from the natural levees
(the high ground) near the Mississippi River
into lower, former swamplands drained and now
protected by high, man-made dikes.
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Then came Katrina
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a strong category 3 hurricane when it struck New
Orleans.
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Compare satellite images before and during the
flood. (Dark blue is water.)
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Hurricane winds made for tough sailing!
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Rings on buildings show muddy floodwater levels.
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Red dots where bodies have been found.

• Note the highlighted areas of Lakeview and the
  Lower 9th Ward.

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• Flooding hit well-to-do white neighborhoods such
  as Lakeview.

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In the background is one of more than half a
dozen breaks in the man-made levees around New
Orleans, this one in the middle class Lakeview
neighborhood.
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The latest in city-wide architectural style is
the pervasive FEMA blue tarp roof.
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Even homes that look relatively undamaged have
FEMA trailers parked outside which tell the real
story
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• this one the inside story.
• (Once water gets into the walls, this is the only
  way to fix it.)

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• But Katrina saved its greatest destruction for
  the mostly-black 9th Ward.
• (This is a street.)

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The force of water is evident. Note that this
house shows no water level, as it was totally
submerged.
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• Some people escaped the rising water by making
  holes in their roofs.

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Large parts of the lower 9th still look like a
war zone, even after six months.
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Debris is pushed aside to allow junk cars to be
hauled out.
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Reconstruction the breaks in the dikes took first
priority as officials debate costs and benefits
of better protection from re-engineered levees.
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Signs like these remind us that these are not
just houses but peoples lives, waiting for the
next phase of a long chain of demolition and
disappointment.
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• When patience and hope falter, humor can help.

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But, for New Orleans , as the Terminator said,
Ill be back!
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Credits

• Thomas McGuire is the author of several of
  Amscos Earth science books including his 2005
  textbook Earth Science The Physical Setting.
  www.amscopub.com
• Special thanks to Dr. James H. McGuire of Tulane
  University and his wife who sold the house with
  the FEMA trailer outside (and the gutted
  interior) two months before Katrina. They now own
  a townhouse on the north shore of Lake
  Pnnchartrain. The new owners are in the
  reconstruction process.
• The aerial and satellite images as well as the
  newspaper map are not original.
• All other images are by the author.
• Authors images taken at Mardi
  Gras 2006