Who: Trish Hagood\r\nWhat: Hurricane Katrina\r\nWhen: Nov. 2005\r\nWhere: New Orleans\r\n\r\n\r\nFrom the plane as we landed the sea of blue looked like swimming pools, but, no, they were the infamous grue-bleen roofs of New Orleans, the blue tarps covering all those roofs damaged by Hurricane Katrina. The plane drifted through a purple haze. What was that? The mist of garbage and sheet rock. Inside the arrival building, the airport was practically empty. I imagined it as a triage center. It was difficult to get to this city even now. Our first two flights had been cancelled.\r\n\r\nI was a native returning to visit my brother and his family for Thanksgiving, and I\'d heard that the Uptown section was fine. We exited I-10 to drive down Carrollton and St. Charles Avenues to see for ourselves, my husband, daughter, and me. As we turned on to Carrollton, we came to a four-way stop sign. STOP SIGN! The traffic light was gone. Most of the traffic lights and street lights were gone. There was debris everywhere. As people returned, they gutted their houses. The debris never ends. It was originally piled two-stories high on the neutral grounds. There were huge tree stumps still waiting to be hauled away. So many lost trees. Same for St. Charles Avenue.\r\n\r\nThe French Quarter was relatively all right. No damage at all to the Soniat House on Chartres Street where we always stay. Clarisse, the calico cat, had gotten locked in a room and was not found for a week. She always slept in our bed when we stayed and was very glad to see us, leaping from the upstairs balcony into a tree and down into the courtyard to greet us. Jesse, the porter, and Calvin, the Major Domo had been lured back by the owner\'s offer of apartments across the street from the guest house. Jesse had worked there since he was 19, and was now missing a few front teeth. Calvin said that if he had gone to relatives in Michigan instead of Baton Rouge he\'d have never come back. Jane Fox a New Orleans artist and poet was staying at the guest house, courtesy of FEMA. Her ancestral home in Plaquemines Parish, an hour outside New Orleans, had disappeared. Only the bath tub remained. Famous restaurants such as Brennan\'s, Galatoires, Antoine\'s, Arnaud\'s, Emeril\'s restaurants, were all closed. Dickey Brennan\'s was open, same for the Red Fish Grill, Tommy\'s in the Warehouse District, and, of course, the Cafe du Monde. There was a free concert on the banks of the Mississippi with local artists such as Kermit Ruffan performing. The people in the French Quarter were there with their ubiquitous drinks and dogs, looking something like the people in Key West, at the ends of the world.\r\n\r\nWe took a drive out St. Claude Avenue to see the 9th Ward--all the houses destroyed yet charmingly decorated with all the hierglyphics of the search and rescue teams. \"1 Dog + fish - petfinder.com. VFW.\" Over the canal was St. Bernard Parish, also destroyed. Out at the Lake Front there was Lakeview. Destroyed. Hundreds and hundreds of blocks.\r\n\r\nSigns everywhere advertised for workers or advertised demolition and building services. Burger King was offering $12/hour to flip hamburgers, plus a large monetary sum, healthcare, etc. There were definitely opportunities there.\r\n\r\nNot one animal at the Audubon Park Zoo was lost. One lady on CNN said that the animals were better cared for than the people. The workers at the zoo did their job, and more so. When they realized that the animals missed their visitors, they got the National Guard to parade through. On opening day, the animals sat and stared at the people. The city seemed empty, a ghost town. Little traffic. Quiet. While sitting early one morning in our courtyard, we watched a hawk as it flew down from a tree and took a bath in the fountain.\r\n\r\nWe are returning in June for the American Library Association Convention. The librarians decided that the best thing they could do for the city was to hold their convention there as planned. New Orleans is a magical place, and we look forward to seeing the progress made by then. \r\n\r\nposted originally on the Memory Archive: