Aftermath Pictures

I've decided to post the only pics I have thus far of the damage on my street. I'll finish my story later. Pictures are worth more than words.

Understand though that while pictures are revealing, you can't even begin to know what all this looks like if you haven't seen it in person with your own eyes.

The damage in my area was far less than in the worst hit areas. If I were able to get into those places, I would post pics there. I
don't have a way to do that. Also keep in mind that these were taken in December, nearly four months after the storm. Some cleanup had already begun.

At any rate ... I will start my little gallery.

This first one is of hy home as a whole. I lived in a quad. A four apartment building. The top apartment with the fridge by the doorway is mine.

Notice the red car that looks like some beat up old wreck that needs to be towed. This car was completely enveloped in the floodwater. It was fine and working prior to the storm.

Here is a photo of the bottom of my staircase. This is my neighbors porch. The swing was ripped down and the plants look like dried up weeds.

My neighbors really got clobbered. Both of them lost everything. I was much better off than they were. My friend who lived directly below me broke the window of his front door to see in and he also broke in the kitchen door to try to get in that way. This left me with the opportunity to take some pics of the inside of his place. My heart just went heavy when I saw it. He pretty much lost everything.

His kitchen door. Notice the watermarks.

How would you have liked to come home after being kept away for nearly a month and a half to find your home like this?

The apartment directly next to mine took damage as well. I lived in this apartment for about 6 months before moving into the one prior to katrina.



This is the view from my backporch screen. It didn't come out as clear as I'd liked.

This is another view of the tree. A few weeks before katrina, a tropical storm went through which has only recently been upgraded to a Cat 1 hurricane. The night it went through, I looked out on my porch and literally saw this tree waving at me in the wind against my back windows. My biggest fear was that it would come down right on the house.

By some miracle, it fell opposite of the house and missed it altogether!

Here's a side view ..

This is my attempt to show the watermarks. I was hoping to present a more tangible picture. This first one was not very effective. but notice the watermark on the house in the second one.


The next couple are of a house covered in trees and then something to give you an idea of how the houses were marked after they were checked for life - be it either human or animal.

Now we come to the debris. Though you can see the damage while driving by on the street or walking by, the worst is unseen until you walk into some of the homes. Here I've taken a couple of shots of the stuff thrown out of gutted homes.

There was more on the day before these pics, but I didn't get the camera in time. In the second photo, there's a latin guy with a wheelbarrel posing way in the background. I think he may have mistaken me for media.





Here's the cleanup crew....

Now the street almost looks normal again ... but it's not. Look at the cars on the side of the road. They are everywhere in the city. They are nothing but piles of junk. In some areas cars were piled on top of each other due to the force of the water.

Apparently, the city was offered to be paid to have someone from Texas come and remove them for us. Apparently the total sum of it wold have profited us 5 million dollars. That's more than the 4.5 million we're fighting for in washington right now.

For those who wonder why the city needs so much help, I'll quote a statistic for you.

Here's how the damage of property (severe/major) from last years storms ranks percentage wise ....

Alabama

3'684 1%

Texas

12,103 4%

Florida

23,199 8%

Missippi

61,386 20%

Louisiana

(excluding
New Orleans)

27,979 9%

New Orleans

176,758 58%

These facts came from the office of Gulf Coast Rebuilding. It is obvious that this area suffered more damage than the entire Gulf Coast region.

Noone argues that severe damage was widespread across the gulf and not just here. Yet the damage is more extensive and costly here. It's important that people outaide of the affected areas get correct information and not the exploited and often fabricatedinfo the media offers. Those people don't live here, they don't experience the city on a day to day basis and are not a part of it's history or culture.

Anyway, here's the final photo. My street looking halfway cleaned up.