Destruction Still There

I know, everyone is probably getting tired of me talking about Katrina. Going to the Will Hoge concert the other night we had to drive through New Orleans East and part of the Ninth Ward. No progress has been made. Driving down the interstate you can look over and see an apartment building split in two, half the roof blown off. There's a sign for SAVE A LOT, broken off at the bottom of its pylon and leaning over on what used to be the store. That freaking sign has been there since the hurricane. As an indication of the destruction it's not much, but to me it's a...ahem...sign of it all. Something like that would have been taken down and fixed within no time before, now it's going on nine months and it's still there, broken and bent over. Like so many others.

Driving up Elysian Fields there are signs of life. A lot of people have come back to their houses. Past houses with big X's on the side, your eyes just go to the bottom of the X and look for the number printed in big spray paint there. Luckily all the ones I saw all had 0 on them. I really don't want to think about the bodies found in the houses.

Coming back from the concert we drove past the French Quarter. On a Friday night we didn't see more than a dozen people walking around. On a Friday night! If you've ever been in the French Quarter or New Orleans on a Friday night you would know that is a sight you don't see. There should have been dozens of people wandering the streets, looking for the next party, having a party on the streets.

You might hear that things are getting back to normal, you might think everything is going ok since you don't hear much about Katrina on the news anymore, but we are far from being where we should be. Nine months later...this country has done amazing miraculous things, but this city is barely one step above from where it was nine months ago.

I'm sorry, I'll shut up now.