I wrote this as part of my ALA report for the staff that didn't attend the conference and thought it is what I would say on this blog, too. Added a few things such as specific landmarks, but mostly this is my raw reaction to what I saw in New Orleans last week. I hope to soon receive a set of photographs that another person on my tour took. I will post those when I receive them.
A personal report about New Orleans
The ALA conference was the first major conference to be held in New Orleans since Katrina. As soon as we arrived, cab drivers and others in the service industry welcomed us warmly and jubilantly to their city. There seemed to be a sense of relief because a convention in town is getting back to “normal life.” Cabbies were talkative and eager to share their stories. There was copious and voluntary over tipping by all. All expressed their thanks for ALA and that we decided to come to New Orleans. Souvenir shops along Canal were selling shirts that read, “Librarians Do It By the Book: ALA 2006.” We were welcomed in by shopkeepers in the Quarter and constantly asked, “Are you with the librarians?” I have been reading messages on librarian list servs, and everyone is so proud to have been part of this conference and that they were able to do something, even if in a small way, for New Orleans. It sounds like most librarians had an excellent, if sobering, experience in New Orleans.
The French Quarter, CBD, Warehouse District, and area around the convention center, were all pretty much up and running. There are still boarded up businesses and many for sale signs. There is a little spark missing from these usually noisy and boisterous neighborhoods. Things were just a little more subdued and low-key. The convention center is not fully repaired. Halls A-C were under construction. ALA occupied the halls at the far end in halls G-I. The convention center did have all new restroom fixtures and new carpeting.
Many of the Harcourt staff were able to step out of the convention center for a brief tour of some of the damaged neighborhoods. Progress is slow but there are signs that some residents are returning to rebuild. It is a strange site to see a FEMA trailing sitting in the front yard in front of the damaged homes. Gutted debris is everywhere and waiting to get picked up. Trash pick up has not resumed a regular schedule, so no one knows how long it will sit there. It is going to take a long time and the destruction is seemingly without end. There is no part of the city unaffected. There seem to be two cities – the areas that received minimal damage and the ones that have been essentially destroyed.
I was toured around by a contact who lives in NO. Two other attendees went with us. We visited the Eight and Ninth Wards, Lake View, and all the area in between. I have personal ties to the city, so recognizing the once vibrant residential neighborhoods in this ghost-town, overgrown state was surreal. We went up Elysian Fields from the Ninth Ward. We passed Brother Martin, where school was just letting out. The waterline six feet from the ground was clearly visible on the school. We continued on and eventually got up to where I went to school, Ben Franklin. Our escort works at UNO, and wanted to show us the campus. The London Street levee breach is very close to this area, which I hadn't realized. We saw where the levee had been repaired. It was a huge gap. On the way back to the convention center, we also passed the church where Greg & Brookes got married. It appeared to be running again. In the surrounding neighborhoods, front doors were hanging open and windows were broken out. We stopped on one deserted block and went into a house. Remnants in the house included family photos still on the mantel and walls, children’s toys, old year books and report cards, and a Bible, all violently and carelessly strewn about on the uprooted oak floorboards of this once charming home. These items brought the reality of the hurricane to a whole new level that the media just can not convey. Standing out on the sidewalk after touring the little Victorian house, I looked at all the other houses on the block and realized that we would find the same thing in each of them. What was so eerie is that not a living thing was on that block. Not a bird or bug. Yards on what was obviously a well-kept block, were overgrown and the asphalt jagged and cracking, resembling tiny fault lines.
One of the most gristly and haunting images I’ve brought back with me is the spray painted symbols on almost every structure in the flooded areas. Crudely written in black and red paints on the front door, or on the front of the structure, are symbols and abbreviations indicating if bodies were found within, the location in where they were found, which agency searched the structure, and on what date. There were also separate markings for dogs and cats. “Three, attic.” “Ten cats, no dog.” There were also roofs with ragged holes where people had punched their way out of their attics. And under the interstates, there were thousands of abandoned, stripped down cars, some with people living in them.
But the city is still there under all of this. In the Ninth Ward, on a tiny porch of a double-shotgun house, spray paint emblazoned on the front door, sat a woman rocking away the afternoon. The city still needs a lot of help and time to recover. But they want to recover, and desperately so. The will to go on is there, and no doubt people will return to this fabulous city.
Our Newest Member of the Family, Gracie!
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