I'm just crashing now from my first day back in New Orleans. I visited here last about five weeks after Hurricane Katrina, in 2005. It wasn't that I didn't know intellectually that not much rebuilding had been done places like the Ninth Ward since then, but I guess I somehow didn't expect things could in places still be so strikingly similar to the way they were what, 19 months ago? Here is a shot I took in 2005 of the Sheralane Dog Grooming Shop on Downman Road:
For whatever reason, those spray-painted signs chilled me to the bone back then. I took this photo of Sheralane today, more than a year and a half later:
But that's not to overgeneralize. Houses here and there in the northwest corner of the Ninth have been rebuilt or rehabbed. But they're still on streets that are largely deserted, from what I've seen. Here's an example of that:
The house of the left was beautifully manicured -- new mulch, flowers in the yard. The one the right was barely more than a shell, and you can still clearly see the line to which the flood waters rose.
For whatever reason, those spray-painted signs chilled me to the bone back then. I took this photo of Sheralane today, more than a year and a half later:
But that's not to overgeneralize. Houses here and there in the northwest corner of the Ninth have been rebuilt or rehabbed. But they're still on streets that are largely deserted, from what I've seen. Here's an example of that:
The house of the left was beautifully manicured -- new mulch, flowers in the yard. The one the right was barely more than a shell, and you can still clearly see the line to which the flood waters rose.
