Seventh of 9 emails describing the Christmann family's Katrina story.

christmannemail7.txt

Just thought I'd pass along a quick note to let everyone know that we survived yet another brush with a hurricane. We discovered two things about our Baton Rouge house: it leaks like a sieve, and its located at the bottom of a small bowl. The night before the storm (Friday night), while Noel and I tried to watch a movie on our travel tv with its enormous 5-inch screen, we listed to the soothing pitter patter of the rain outside. Pretty quickly, though, I realized it wasn't outside - it was in the fireplace. Rain was running down the sides of the chimney, and dripping like crazy everywhere. We gathered up what few pots and pans we still had and tried to start catching the rain. Of course, we have no extra towels to wipe up the mess, so whatever we didn't catch spilled onto the carpets. Normally, I'd be worried about that but a) its a rental house, and b) water was seeping through the foundation into the carpet anyway. Oh, and two other windows in the house were leaking like crazy as well. And several other windows continued to blow open until we just started nailing them shut. At one point, we tried to treat this house gently since we are just temporary tenants. But not anymore..... The next morning brought another squall dropping several inches of rain in about an hour. We watched the street in front of our house start filling up, as the entire neighborhood drains down to us. The day before, I had noticed our neighbors parking cars on the neutral ground, so I moved my car a block away up a hill. But Mike's (Renee's finance) car was up on the neutral ground. So as the water rose, we watched it start lapping at his exhaust pipes. At the deepest point, we had about 3 feet of water in the street. So I put my waders back on - just because I had them - and went treking through another flood. At least this one didn't stink. The flood water never made it into Mike's car, nor our house, and once it stopped raining, the block drained in less than 30 minutes. I treked through the waters to see the storm drains and it was a fairly impressive sight: a 2 foot whirlpool sucking water down the drain. Pretty strong suction, too. All told, Rita was a lot of wind and rain for us here. A big scare, as we watched and feared that it might turn closer to us. And we know several people who had evacuated to Houston and Beaumont, who repacked cars and headed out - seeking refuge back in the New Orleans area! Most of them are packing back up to return to Houston. Again. I think car travel is getting a little old... Sunday we went back to New Orleans with our work crew to try and finish the job in our house. Alas - we could not get into the city. All routes in were blocked by the police department, and they didn't let anyone through. No sweet talking, no connections, no passes, nothing. We watched car after car wave their passes and all get turned away. I think the Mayor was seriously worried about additional flooding. As you undoubtebly saw, one of the breached levees gave way again and re-flooded part of the city. This was not our neighborhood, and in fact - as sad as this is to say, that flood probably didn't do any additional harm to New Orleans. From what I've heard, that whole neighborhood is going to have to be bulldozed anyway, and there were probably no people left in the area. So its just additional water and extra work to pump it out again. But probably no additional damage - there is probably no way you could do any more damage to that neighborhood. In order to prevent flooding from storm surges, the Corps of Engineers plugged the 17th Street Canal at its exit into Lake Pontchatrain (this is the canal which is the one two blocks from our house that breached and flooded the Lakeview region of New Orleans, including our house). That plug kept the storm surge out, but also prevented the draining of rain waters. Whatever rain came from Rita (and I don't know how much, but I think it was less than 4 inches) can't be drained yet - so it accumulates in the low points. So, some areas of Lakeview had a couple of feet of water. But again - those areas were already flooded with much higher flood waters, so this probably didn't do any additional damage either. But - given the high tides, the additional rain water and the general state of the levees, I don't think the authorities wanted anyone in New Orleans - so they had *real* roadblocks this time. So, no return to New Orleans for us this weekend. Next weekend, though, we hope to get back and finsh the demolition. And then sit and wait for 2 or 3 months while the house dries and we figure out what to do next. And I look forward to that - just some time to try and enjoy our life without worrying about the house, the contents, the next steps. We've got sights to see in Baton Rouge, maybe an LSU game to take the kids to (we're only about 2 miles from campus). We need to take Carrie to see some of the Huey Long monuments to explain a little bit about the history of "All The King's Men". And Noel's dad wants to take us on a "history tour" to show us the parts of Baton Rouge where he and his family grew up. Lots to do here, if we can get to a time where we stop worrying about New Orleans. Slowly but surely, the city and region are trying to recover. Hopefully this week, some neighborhoods of New Orleans will be reopened for people to return and move in. Uptown, the Central Business District, the French Quarter and the Garden District will be among the first areas "repopulated". And - despite all of the devastation throughout the city, these 4 areas remained mostly unscathed. Lots of hurricane damage that can be repaired, and tree damage that can't. But the historic structures and areas that defined New Orleans are mostly intact, waiting to (hopefully) draw tourists back to town.

Citation Information:

Paul Christmann, " Seventh of 9 emails describing the Christmann family's Katrina story.." Hurricane Digital Memory Bank, Object #38 (November 16 2005, 10:34 am)<http://www.hurricanearchive.org/object/38>