You Can't Keep a Good Man Down

March 5

The weather warmed a bit as the wind subsided but it was still cool to our Florida oriented bodies. We decided to head out into the tidal surge areas and see what we could find on our own. As we drove near Saint Bernard Parish, we happened on to Beverly. We stopped at a few houses to take pictures and she was there, standing with a friend. Beverly, approximate age 75, owned at least two homes in the area. She had evacuated to Dallas during Katrina. Some of her older friends had not. Some had died. She spoke hesitantly at first, then more openly about her hardships. As she warmed to us her story readily flowed, then tears followed. She felt blessed to be safe, her homes were being repaired (her resident home raised 4 feet) and she felt that the state, federal and insurance agencies had been fair. Her tears were due to loss of friends and the loss of pictures, documents, and heirlooms, tangible mementoes of time never to be replaced, and, of course, the extreme hardships over the last 30 months.

We then drove through her neighborhood and found that many houses were at or near completion. Often, a derelict house, left unattended, bore the ongoing scars of the storm and abandonment. Those houses, according to Beverly, were due to be destroyed because owners had not attempted to make improvements.

Upon leaving her neighborhood we arrived at the shores of Lake Pontchartrain. The canals leading to the lake now house a series of huge turbines, powered by larger Caterpillar engines, to pump water from the canals to the lake in case of another storm surge. Breaches in the dikes of those canals were readily visible as new concrete walls have been constructed.

We then made our way south through Saint Bernard parish again, this time on the east side where large populations of minorities live. The projects lay abandoned, with wrecking balls pummeling them to debris, and heavy equipment loading the smelly remains into large trucks. Across the street locals sat on chairs watching. Just a block down the street, a covey of youthful volunteers (they are easy to spot, those northern college kids) were at work clearing off another lot.

We stopped at St. Louis Cemetery number 3. New Orleans has some of the most unique cemeteries in the country (yes, I’m still chasing dead people). Because of the nature of this delta land, earth saturated and often flooded with water, it does not work to bury the dead in a below the earth grave. Thus, the origination of the phrase, “You can’t keep a good man down.” Orleaneans bury their dead in a casket in vault, above ground. This marble or cement structure then serves as an oven. The heat of the summer mummifies the corpse within the year. One year and one day after death, the vault is opened, the casket is opened and removed, and the corpse is wrapped in a shroud and stacked on the floor of the vault. Then the vault is closed until the next relative passes and the process is started all over again. This process was begun centuries ago because caskets popped to the surface in floods, to stem the threat of yellow fever and other diseases and to maximize space.

At a pause in the exploration, I sat a bit while Barb explored on her own. I happened to see a New Orleans Police Officer nearby, monitoring a local area. He appeared disengaged so I approached him and asked him if I could talk to him a moment. He was open to dialogue. I was surprised, given his youthful appearance that he has been with the force 11 years. He readily shared those days of trial. He was at home alone when the storm hit. His wife and children had evacuated. As the storm surge lapped at his door, he came to the conclusion that his grandmother, who did not choose to evacuate, may be in serious trouble. He borrowed an inflatable boat and with a neighbor, tried to row to his grandmother’s house in the dead of night. The house, which happened to be located near one of the levy breaks, was being inundated with a strong current of water. As he tried to approach the house, the boat was capsized due to the current and he and his friend were forced to swim to a roof of a nearby house and were rescued several hours later. His grandmother was found in the attic the next day, worn and fatigued, but alive. The officer was put into action on his rescue and spent the next several days with little sleep and using more effective water craft to retrieve survivors. He was fired on at several times for reasons that still escape him.

He saw the FEMA officials that first day of his rescue but did not see them again for 8 days. The first significant help he encountered was a group of GI’s, full beards and all, who had diverted their aircraft home from Afghanistan, to land at the New Orleans airport. They arrived the third day after the storm and appeared at the command center with full gear and supplies. They shared their MRE’s with the local police who had not eaten in days, and, in some cases, handed over their side arms to policeman who had either lost their weapons or had simply arrived at work unarmed. I asked him about the stories of police that did not show after the storm. “Some left,” he said. “But not many. Some where so overwhelmed by the danger and the devastation that their family was enduring, they simply could not leave their families to come to work.”

We talked about the neighborhoods that appear to be in varying degrees of reconstruction. He related that some of it is wealth, some of it is taking responsibility and giving it work, and some of it is resources. “Yes,” he said, “There are some who just want you and the government to make things right.”

Barb wanted to ride the St. Charles Avenue streetcar through the Garden District which lies in the 20% of New Orleans that did not flood. This Avenue, through some of the most stately of mansions, borders Tulane University, Loyola University (no football stadiums sighted, Tulane plays in the Superdome), a host of very affluent private schools, and the Audubon Zoo. This 1930’s mass transit technology serves the area well, attracting tourists, transporting students, and giving cheap transportation to the domestic help for the mansions and schools.

The evening found us in the Warehouse District at a favorite restaurant of Whitney’s, one of Kari’s roommates who was a student of Tulane until the storm displaced her to Washington.

The picture of Barb points to the high water mark in one area.