New Orleans
Allison (my wife) and I have made three trips to New Orleans. Each time for New Years to help rebuild the city. In all honesty, it is like recycling. The small part we do really does not matter until you add it up with the “insignficant” efforts of the other thousands of volunteers.
The first year was shocking. During our tour of the city, we would see armed Humvees patrolling the streets. It was one thing to hear about the searches on TV, it was another to see piles of rubble and each house visible marked. The devastation and the horrible bureaucratic nightmares affected rich and poor equally.
The second year was surprising in its own way. The Lower 9th Ward was mostly a field, where there should have been rows of houses. Brad Pitt had not yet arrived. You could see recovery happening and traffic jams coming back but the people that were rebuilding their own homes were often pouring in their life savings just to rebuild. It seemed that if New Orleans flooded again they would truly lose it all. Nevertheless, the property speculators were moving in. It was heart breaking to see the banners hanging in a gymnasium, touting the the former private school’s statewide athletic success and to know that less than 50 people of the church sponsoring the school had returned. They were selling the property because 50 people could not possibly service the same debt as a the pre-Katrina congregtion of at least 1000.
More about this year in the next post.