A Home in The Lower Ninth Ward.

“When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” - Kahlil Gibran

The Lower Ninth.

Hurricane Katrina’s influence is still felt here.

The Lower Ninth Ward. is a neighborhood in New Orleans that was instantaneously covered in 18 feet of water during Hurricane Katrina.  The levees were breached in three areas near the neighborhood, one being hit by a barge.  The barge went right into the neighborhood.  Not only were houses flooded but they were destroyed and moved from their blocks.  This was also one of the poorest neighborhoods in New Orleans.  Most of the inhabitants were caught unaware and did not have the financial resources to flee the area.

Hope.

Many lots are covered in tall grass.

Hope.

I walk around the area midday with my friend, Hope.  I met Hope in East Lansing and couchsurfed with her there.  She is in town for a medical conference as she is a medical student.  We explore and try to grasp what happened.  It is hard.  There is just not much there.

Nothing.

A lot of lots full of tall grass.  The houses that are standing have an X spray painted on them by the rescue teams that went through after the storm.  In each quadrant of the X is a number.  The date the rescue team went through, the number of the rescue team, the number of non-human casualties and the number of human casualties.  In most cases the number of human casualties has now been painted over, unless the number is zero.

Make It Right is making 150 new homes in the area.

Make It Right.

New homes are currently being built.  Aymee says they look like homes from Mars and they do a little.  They are on stilts and made with material that is sustainable and earth friendly.  Brad Pitt, whom lives in New Orleans leads the project called Make it Right.

What would you do if you lost everything in a split second?

Create Our World.
Ben

“We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.” – Kenji Miyazawa

Tags: adventure travel blog, Benjamin Jenks, create our world, hitchhiking, hurricane katrina, lower ninth ward, roadtrip around the USA
Categories: Photographs., Places.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 27th, 2009 at 8:49 am and is filed under Photographs., Places.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.