University of Virginia, New Orleans Journals

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Ross Baird, College of Arts & Sciences

You know, when you hear about the devastation of Katrina,

often it comes in plain numbers, 200,000 homes destroyed by

water. In many ways, the past couple of days have balanced

perception with reality. In our class last week, we reviewed a lot

of these numbers. Being on the ground, however, allows us to

understand the sheer magnitude of these numbers and exactly

what they mean.

Today, we were in New Orleans East gutting a house that was

flooded in the hurricane and had been untouched since. We

walked into the house of a guidance counselor at Xavier Prep

and saw moldy couches, ruined clothing, and waterlogged

bookshelves. In a day's work, the twenty of us were able to

entirely gut the house, removing all her belongings and

appliances, tearing out sheetrock and insulation, and scraping

wood paneling until the house was a shell. The transformation

was stunning, and we were happy to do our part. But this was

just one house on one block. There are 200,000 houses like

this, and it took a full day's work of 20 college students just to

handle one property. We had a six-foot tall pile of trash on the

street, and the trash needs to go somewhere. The woman

whose house it was needs to decide whether to rebuild it or

move somewhere else. And there are 200,000 households like

hers. Talk about numbers.

At the same time, we were very happy to help and we realized

what we are doing is important. Pat [Lampkin] talked to the

woman over the phone several times throughout the day, and let

her know that we were able to salvage several sentimental items

from the house, such as photos, silver, and her wedding dress.

Hearing this woman's story--how she had fled the hurricane,

was living in Houston, and didn't know her next move--and

seeing devastated houses throughout the whole district, and

realizing that every house has a similar story--that's a lot to

wrap our minds around. Tomorrow the City of New Orleans is

releasing its official rebuilding plan, but we're seeing first-hand

what that's going to mean on the ground.

And driving to and from the sites is interesting, too. We drive

down Magazine Street, the old antique district, which was

barely flooded and, fortunately, is coming back well. But then

you drive past a block where the floodlines come up seven feet

and the businesses aren't even close to returning. Bourbon

Street was back on New Year's Eve, and we see Mardi Gras

returning, and many of the homes are fine, but the entire city

needs both the wealthy and the poor to run. The business

owners put a lot into the economy, and the lower-income

residents hold a lot of the low-income service jobs that are

necessary, too.

A simple drive down Carrolton Street, like we took today, will

show both. I don't think the public's perception goes adequately beyond

Bourbon Street and Mardi Gras, though. I personally had no

idea from the news coverage that we all see that things were

this desperate in many parts of the city. I hope that one of the

things our class can do is help people realize what's going

down here. Our work of the past two days (and this whole

week) may just be a "drop in the bucket", as we keep hearing

from the folks leading the trip. But as long as I'm talking about

numbers--the bucket down here needs a lot of drops. Original URL:

http://www.virginia.edu/topnews/releases2006/NewOrleansJourn

al07.html