NOLA Service Trip: Day 4

Before we started work today we took a trip to a bayou near the Lower Ninth Ward. An AmeriCorps volunteer gave us a tour of the wetland and explained its history. A bayou is basically a river with an extremely slow moving current. Before Hurricane Katrina the bayou had once been filled with an abundance of freshwater creatures and plant life. After the hurricane, however, salt water from the Gulf  broke through the levee north of the bayou killing all sorts of wildlife. The hurricane has also left excess water in the bayou five years later. It was interesting to learn about the environmental effects of the hurricane as we all sat on the overlook staring out into the open water. When we started talking about how the bayou impacted the people surrounding it a man fishing in the bayou put down his line and began telling us his story.

Keith had lived in the Lower Ninth Ward for his entire life. When he was twelve he used to catch 5 feet long gar in the bayou with all his friends. Keith lived in New Orleans for 54 years and never moved out of the city, not even for the hurricane. Keith said he decided not to evacuate the city because he was 1) stupid, and 2) not as concerned as he should have been with the storm. Louisiana is infamous for its hurricanes so many residents expect hurricanes to pass by after a few hours, especially since all hurricanes start out as a only a light wind. Even city officials around the Lower Ninth Ward reassured people like Keith that the levee would be enough to protect residents from the catastrophic disaster we now know as Hurricane Katrina.

Keith had also mentioned that city officials told residents living in the Lower Ninth area during Hurricane Betsy that the levees be enough to protect the city from the storm. Although the levees failed back then Keith was still reluctant to leave New Orleans. Weeks later Keith discovered that his home was destroyed during the hurricane. When the flood water drained out of the city, Keith went back to his neighborhood to witness the damage. Besides the destruction of his own home, Keith's mother's home the house he was raised up in since birth, was also destroyed. Keith said that there were times when he would walk down his old neighborhood  wondering if his friends and the people he grew up with were dead or alive. Everything he had known was either lost or destroyed, and Keith, like the millions of other people effected by the hurricane, had to find some way to face the hardship and continue to move on with life.

From Keith's perspective city officials let the hurricane water flood through the levee in order to help save the affluent neighborhoods up north; allowing the flood water to flow through the Lower Ninth Ward relieved pressure from higher elevated cities, which saved businesses and homes from damage. Whether or not city officials allowed the Lower Ninth Ward to be flooded for convenience is up for debate, but there is no argument against the reality of the situation today: the Lower Ninth Ward still remains the hardest hit city from the hurricane; the bayou is still contaminated with saltwater; and the people living in the Lower Ninth area are still struggling to survive. Another point from Keith's  theory is that the Louisiana government will not make a greater effort to rebuild the Lower Ninth Ward because it allows people from out-of-state to tour the city in buses to witness the hurricane damage. This is what Keith refers to as "sympathy buses". The major issue stressed in Keith's viewpoint regarding the actions taken before, during, and after the hurricane is that they were, for the most part, economically based. The levee was a sacrifice for the businesses up north, and the unfixed houses are a tourist attraction. It is all a business deal and the Lower Ninth Ward has to pay.

"People are still dying after Hurricane Katrina" Keith said, "they're all dying to come home. People from Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana are just dying to go back to their homes." Talking with Keith gave me a true, gritty perspective of Hurricane Katrina through the eyes of one of its survivors. Keith's story is just one of many in the city of New Orleans, and there are plenty of people who have not made it as far as Keith has post-hurricane. We thanked Keith for sharing his story with us, for allowing us to experience his personal outlook. Keith picked up his line and we went our separate ways.