Today
we did a bike tour of the Lower 9th Ward. This was the area most devastated by
Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I’d had some
doubts about whether to do this or not, I didn’t want to be a gawping tourist
photographing others’ misfortune but we were both very interested in what
happened and have watched the documentary “When the Levees Broke” so wanted to
see it first hand. My research had said
that this tour was done by locals with the support of the local community, so
that’s eventually what convinced me to do it.
We started not far from the French Quarter, today we had to check out of
our motel as we’d only booked for two nights in the city with a view to staying
somewhere on the outskirts of New Orleans which was a bit cheaper, prices
rocket here for the weekend. So we persuaded
the very stressed valet to let us leave our car there until 2pm and walked to Café
du Monde for another round of Beignets and café au lait. They are hard to resist !!! Then it was an easy 15 minute walk to the
tour start and we were fitted out with bikes and seat heights adjusted
accordingly. Our guide was Nick, a very
knowledgeable guy who had moved to N O about 5 and a half years ago and he’s
been doing these tours ever since. He
was a great guide and had a very good local history and a love of the place as
well. As it turns out, he actually lives
in the Lower 9th himself and welcomed us into his home so we could
get a first hand look at the type of house.
His house was right near the river, so was on slightly higher ground and
survived the flood but had to be stripped back to studs. Interestingly the house is made of barge
board, and that’s it, no gib lining, just raw boards on the inside. This combined with having quite small windows
and shutters (presumably for hurricane protection) made it quite dark inside. It was a typical shot-gun style of house,
long and skinny so you open the front door and the back door to allow the
breeze to flow right through to cool it in summer. The shot gun style of the house, actually
originated from west Africa as the slaves who were captured and transported to
the south brought this cultural heritage with them.
We
then moved on through the area, Nick was indeed well known and was waved to and
greeted by many of the local residents.
One
of the common misconceptions of the Lower 9th is that it is a very
poor area. This is actually not true,
the Lower 9th had/has (at the time of Katrina and now) the highest
percentage of home ownership in all of the state of Louisiana. So they were working class but not necessarily
poor, mostly black/African American.
The tour was about the area and it’s
importance to Louisiana’s history, not just about Katrina. It was initially settled by the French and
the place was populated with convicts and prostitutes from France, then the
Spanish took over for a while and rejuvenated the area. The French got it back and sold it to America
as part of the Louisiana Purchase, which effectively doubled the size of the USA
with one pen-stroke. America could not
afford to pay for the purchase so they borrowed money from the Dutch and the
English to pay the French, and the French used the money they received from the
purchase to fight the Dutch and English.
At this point, Nick made a few jokes about American never again committing
to something they could not fund financially J
The
Lower 9th was originally sugar plantations, but the land was
eventually divided into lots and sold to the locals, who at the time happened to
be Irish, German and free blacks (this was back when slavery was still legal). So that’s why most of the land was owned by
the people who lived here, it has been passed down through the generations.
Traders
would pole down the Mississippi on barges loaded with wares for sale, once they
got to N O they would sell their goods, and break up the barges and sell the
wood (because you can’t get a barge back up-river again without power) and the
wood was used to make the houses. Then
they would walk back home to wherever they came from (Oklahoma & Kansas)
via the Natchez Trace Parkway, which follows the Mississippi up-stream (we plan
to visit later on in the trip) and repeat the process.
We
went past Fats Domino’s house – he was living here at the time of Katrina and
refused to leave because his wife was in poor health. When the levees broke, the water reached the
soffits of his house and he & his wife were rescued by Coast Guard helicopter
from his roof top. The photos of his
house and “man cave” next door (which was also his own recording studio) show
how high the water got in this area.
We
went on to get lunch at a local eatery (Po boy sandwiches with hot sausage -
yummo) and then on to the Museum “The House of Dance and Feathers”. The museum is basically on the back yard of
Ronald W Lewis. He is a local icon that is
the President of the Big 9 Social Aid and Pleasure Club. This is effectively a community trust that
was set up because black Americans could not get insurance. The locals would contribute to the fund and
the trust would pay out for things like funerals and care for the sick. These days, the Big 9 is more of a social
thing, and there is a yearly competition during Mardi Gras where the different “tribes”
all get decorated and parade and are judged to see who is the best. Hours and hours of work go into the costumes,
intricate patterns are beaded onto panels that become part of the outfit and
the final costume is incredibly ornate, not to mention heavy (sometimes up to
68 kgs). Mr Lewis has written a book
about the Big 9, which he signed and gifted to President Obama and received a
nice little card signed by Barak and Michelle saying thanks very much Mr Lewis. He was quite a character ! His book was for sale and he did quite well
out of the tour group.
After
lunch, we headed to the Bayou Bienvenue wetland triangle. This area is significant because it was
basically the cause of the devastation from Katrina. Back in the 1960’s, the Mississippi River
Gulf Outlet (MRGO) was created to allow ships easy access to N O instead of
winding their way up the Mississippi.
All of the water experts at the time said don’t do this, it’s a terrible
idea, but of course no notice was taken.
Sure enough just a few months after the MRGO’s completion, Hurricane Betsy
struck in 1965 and the storm surge pushed water up the MRGO, the flood walls
failed and the Lower 9th was flooded. Did they learn their lesson? Of course not. The MRGO remained open, the flood walls were
re-built and waiting for the next major hurricane. When Katrina struck, almost the exact same
thing happened, only this time, the flood wall failed, the massive influx of
water caused a barge to come adrift and it slammed into the flood wall further
along, causing a 300 feet hole in the flood wall, and water surged in. It flooded to about 15 feet of water in about 15
minutes. The force of the water was
enough to move houses off foundations, obviously those closest to the flood
wall were the worst hit. In a tragic irony, the MRGO itself was in a long decline
of use, and barely one ship a week used it.
Since
Katrina, the MRGO has been closed off at the Gulf end, and the intrusion of
salt water has stopped. The Wetlands are
gradually returning to their previous state as the water becomes less salty and
more like the original fresh water state over time.
Today,
11 years on from the flood, less than half the homes in the worst affected area
have been rebuilt. So new homes stand
amongst long lanes of unmown lots and tall weeds. We saw one house standing as it did after
Katrina, still with the emergency symbols spray painted on the entrance wall.
But
the houses that have been rebuilt are well maintained, people are out mowing
lawns, trimming edges and cleaning cars. We felt welcome in the area and not at
all intrusive, they were just proudly going about their daily lives and giving
us a wave and saying how y’all doin, all right ? It’s a real shame that the perception is of
an area that is bleak and something to be wary of, because the reality is
completely different.
One
thing that is noteworthy about N O is the state of the city’s infrastructure. Even in the French Quarter, which relies
heavily on the tourist dollar, the roads & footpaths are terrible. Pot holes everywhere, and uneven slabs of
concrete, on the road and on the pavements.
You literally have to watch your step, every step. Drains are flooded and where we met for the tour,
there was a huge puddle stretching pretty much the length of the street and
halfway out onto the road. According to
Nick, it takes weeks to repair once reported.
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