- Jun 12, 2001
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Pics
I apologize to all, especially McOwen and the others who stayed through the whole ordeal, that I didn't spend any time looking you all up and at least buying you a beer (or two, or three). I don't know if I'll be back around Christmas or New Years, but I know for sure I will be back the last weekend of February!
The purpose of the trip was to check on family and a lot, a lot of cleanup.
Since I don't have any captions on these yet, I thought I'd give some notes about the trip. Mostly, the pictures are from Lakeview, the Yacht club marina, downtown and some from the French Quarter at night. The ones in the house are from girlfriend's grandmother's house. There's a lot of damage, although it was much better than most houses had, since it only had 8 inches of water for two weeks. We helped them clean out the kitchen cabinets, work on the middle room paneling and put all the furniture on blocks to keep it off of the floor (it is still holding a bit of moisture, if you look at the pictures). The furniture will need some TLC but are covered by insurance.
You can also see the blue roof on the two story red brick house. I put that tarp up by myself. According to my friend's father "if FEMA were to do it they'd have a contractor up there for 2 hours and bill $2-3,000" and so the task is done.
On Sunday we attended our Lady of Guadalupe church on Rampart St. This is a shrine to St. Jude and where friends have gone for the past 3 or 4 weeks. I have to admit, it was weird to be there, esp. with 5 NOPD officers in the pew behind us and others around the church. They were on duty, so they had their guns and everything. Even the officers who brought up the offertory had guns on! Crazy, but since their station is just a block away this is where they go for mass. I can say I certainly felt safe!
Other law enforcement we saw were from the New York State police and plenty of military. I saw military humvees driving around and helicopters occasionally swooping overhead. Some of the MPs looked about 12, but they weren't joking around.
Some of the night blurry ones are of the super dome, which looks pretty good from the outside. The pictures of the 17th St. Canal breach at Bellaire are in book 3 just after the Robert E. Lee shopping center. I can't even describe that street except to say it looks like a bomb went off. It felt like a funeral, so I didn't take too many pictures. It was just too sad.
Book 4 is a mix of all the different places (we had 2 cameras), so some things may look familiar. You'll find pics of Ursuline High School, the Rock and Bowl, Harrah's casino, Commander's and all the stuff along the way. Speaking of the way, most of these pictures were taken from the car, so they tend to be a little blurry.
The Ursuline pics show that the fence was rammed a few times by some possible assortment of boats, trees or cars. It's hard to tell now that there's no water or evidence of those items, but the damage is pretty bad. From what we heard, both gyms had their floors taken out, the electrical systems were all in the basement (there's a basement?), and a
lot of flooding occurred in some of the buildings.
The pics by City park show people in the tents and trailers. Those are truckers and clean up crews. They were all waiting for something when we drove by, perhaps orders for the day. It was surreal to see all the trucks lined up, guys out grilling, sleeping in hammocks and tents right out by Tad Gormley stadium and the park. It almost looked like some
twilight zone tailgate party.
Unfortunately, there aren't as many pictures of the good places, such as St. Charles Ave., the French Quarter, most of Metairie, etc. Amidst all the devastation there are still people hanging out on Magazine (many of the shops are open and ready for customers), going out in the Marigny and the FQ. We spent time with family and friends at the house as well as eating at Cannon's. We even stopped at the original Harry's Ace Hardware on Magazine and got supplies. Of course, there wasn't any fly paper to be found anywhere, but I'm sending it down a box of them today with some recent magazines?friends haven't had any mail, with the exceptions of a few bills from Bell South (even though they haven't had a land line in over 2 months). They are in good spirits, though, and very happy to be back (They evacuated to DC and came back two weeks ago.). In fact, just about everywhere we went we were welcomed with signs of "Welcome to the new New Orleans" and "We Know what it means" (to miss New Orleans).
And yes, you can work at
Rally's for $10/hour plus benefits. In fact you can work just about anywhere in Orleans parish and be paid better than national averages.
I apologize to all, especially McOwen and the others who stayed through the whole ordeal, that I didn't spend any time looking you all up and at least buying you a beer (or two, or three). I don't know if I'll be back around Christmas or New Years, but I know for sure I will be back the last weekend of February!
The purpose of the trip was to check on family and a lot, a lot of cleanup.Since I don't have any captions on these yet, I thought I'd give some notes about the trip. Mostly, the pictures are from Lakeview, the Yacht club marina, downtown and some from the French Quarter at night. The ones in the house are from girlfriend's grandmother's house. There's a lot of damage, although it was much better than most houses had, since it only had 8 inches of water for two weeks. We helped them clean out the kitchen cabinets, work on the middle room paneling and put all the furniture on blocks to keep it off of the floor (it is still holding a bit of moisture, if you look at the pictures). The furniture will need some TLC but are covered by insurance.
You can also see the blue roof on the two story red brick house. I put that tarp up by myself. According to my friend's father "if FEMA were to do it they'd have a contractor up there for 2 hours and bill $2-3,000" and so the task is done.
On Sunday we attended our Lady of Guadalupe church on Rampart St. This is a shrine to St. Jude and where friends have gone for the past 3 or 4 weeks. I have to admit, it was weird to be there, esp. with 5 NOPD officers in the pew behind us and others around the church. They were on duty, so they had their guns and everything. Even the officers who brought up the offertory had guns on! Crazy, but since their station is just a block away this is where they go for mass. I can say I certainly felt safe!
Other law enforcement we saw were from the New York State police and plenty of military. I saw military humvees driving around and helicopters occasionally swooping overhead. Some of the MPs looked about 12, but they weren't joking around.
Some of the night blurry ones are of the super dome, which looks pretty good from the outside. The pictures of the 17th St. Canal breach at Bellaire are in book 3 just after the Robert E. Lee shopping center. I can't even describe that street except to say it looks like a bomb went off. It felt like a funeral, so I didn't take too many pictures. It was just too sad.
Book 4 is a mix of all the different places (we had 2 cameras), so some things may look familiar. You'll find pics of Ursuline High School, the Rock and Bowl, Harrah's casino, Commander's and all the stuff along the way. Speaking of the way, most of these pictures were taken from the car, so they tend to be a little blurry.
The Ursuline pics show that the fence was rammed a few times by some possible assortment of boats, trees or cars. It's hard to tell now that there's no water or evidence of those items, but the damage is pretty bad. From what we heard, both gyms had their floors taken out, the electrical systems were all in the basement (there's a basement?), and a
lot of flooding occurred in some of the buildings.
The pics by City park show people in the tents and trailers. Those are truckers and clean up crews. They were all waiting for something when we drove by, perhaps orders for the day. It was surreal to see all the trucks lined up, guys out grilling, sleeping in hammocks and tents right out by Tad Gormley stadium and the park. It almost looked like some
twilight zone tailgate party.
Unfortunately, there aren't as many pictures of the good places, such as St. Charles Ave., the French Quarter, most of Metairie, etc. Amidst all the devastation there are still people hanging out on Magazine (many of the shops are open and ready for customers), going out in the Marigny and the FQ. We spent time with family and friends at the house as well as eating at Cannon's. We even stopped at the original Harry's Ace Hardware on Magazine and got supplies. Of course, there wasn't any fly paper to be found anywhere, but I'm sending it down a box of them today with some recent magazines?friends haven't had any mail, with the exceptions of a few bills from Bell South (even though they haven't had a land line in over 2 months). They are in good spirits, though, and very happy to be back (They evacuated to DC and came back two weeks ago.). In fact, just about everywhere we went we were welcomed with signs of "Welcome to the new New Orleans" and "We Know what it means" (to miss New Orleans).
And yes, you can work at
Rally's for $10/hour plus benefits. In fact you can work just about anywhere in Orleans parish and be paid better than national averages.
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