Monday, September 11, 2006

Katrina up close: my personal pictures

I had just painted this room of our house literally days before the storm hit. This is how it looks after being gutted.
The ground-level facade of a duplex we rent to college students shows the water lines where sitting water left a line of debris before rising. You'll notice the heaviest mark is just four inches from the ground and probably resulted from the actual storm itself since this is a relatively low part of Broadmoore, an area of uptown swamp that was filled in at the turn of the century. The remaining rise in water was due to the surprise levee breaks. The spray paint markings on the door show that no person or animal inside was found dead or alive, although the water rose higher than the height of an average woman.Sometimes one is so numb that one's responses to the absurd amount of devastation turn saccharine. This restaurant, now open for business once again, retained the toppled Frostop root beer mug in its fallen place as a novelty.
Peeking inside the window of the rental house revealed that evacuating in a hurry had its consequences. However, staying would have given the residents virtually nowhere to go. Notice that what water left unscathed, mold quickly claimed. Refrigerators were probably the most common item found on the curb for trash collection.
My grandmother's house--sixty miles north of New Orleans suffered severe damage by a tornado. A missionary church group helped repair her damaged roof and carport.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Julie/LEA Anglais-Italien/10am

A point of view from the rest of the world...the rest of the world like me who saw this city completely destroyed by Katrina, who saw these people left alone...

Anonymous said...

it is a good thing to show us this picture of the consequences of katrina storm... We can't imagine what really happend in that case when we 're not directly concern..

Liz said...

The consequences of Hurricane Katrina did include hundreds of thousands of people losing their houses, and being left alone to repair them, and everyone should be directly concerned! It is horrible!

Anonymous said...

Hello Liz! I am in LEA in first year. I am with you in labo. This picures are very shocking. I hope that your grand mother is in good health because is house is very destroy! Bye ;)

Anonymous said...

Woa, it is really incredible! When I think about those people who have lost their house, their car, or maybe a parent, I understand that I'm very lucky.
Mother Nature is not very kind sometimes...

Liz said...

Although her house was destroyed, my grandmother is still alive and in pretty good health! She's rebuilding and making it better than ever. Thanks for asking about her :)