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The previous photo showed how high the water was on the lake side of the levee. This is…

Residential street lined with storm debris—furniture, refrigerators, and tree branches—piled at curbs, with a blue-tarped roof, parked vehicles, and an excavator in the distance near the levee.

Collection

Metairie and New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina - 10.23.05

The previous photo showed how high the water was on the lake side of the levee. This is the view from the other side of the levee. Melody Drive is one of the few streets in this section of Metairie that did not flood. The few blocks between the West Esplanade Canal (behind the camera) and the levee (in front of the camera) is a higher ridge area. This particular sigh told us something was wrong. The problem was that before katrina, when you looked down Melody Drive from West Esplanade, you could see this much view of the levee like you can in this photo. You now see this view looking down the street because so many of the trees along the sidewalks of Melody Dr. are gone. A large tree, in the right of this photo, was blown down. Many more trees like that and bigger were destroyed along Melody Drive.

Original title

P1010012a.JPG

Citation

“The previous photo showed how high the water was on the lake side of the levee. This is…,” Hurricane Digital Memory Bank, accessed November 3, 2026, https://hurricanearchive.org/items/show/3446.