Wednesday in Slidell

~By Ann Canedy

Every one here has a Katrina story, because everyone was affected. We are told that a mandatory evacuation was called for all of St. Tammany Parish two days before the storm. Residents I have met admit that many ignored the order, having ridden out many hurricanes before. When Katrina made landfall, the Slidell Airport Weather Center recorded 200 mph gusts of wind. The storm was then classified as a Category Three, but some believe that Katrina gained momentum over Lake Pontchartrain, the large lake north of New Orleans. Slidell sits on the northeastern shore of this lake. Lake Charlotte and the Gulf lie to its east and the city is surrounded by bayous.

The eye of the storm passed directly over the city. There was a 28-foot storm surge, a tsunami, which reached up to five miles inland. Communication was immediately lost. There were no telephones, electricity or water. Cell phones did not work because the towers were down. Cell phone use was only partially restored after four days - text messaging worked after midnight. Evacuees were not allowed into the city until four days after the storm, when entry was allowed only during daylight hours. No one was admitted without identification and no one could stay overnight. Twelve days after the storm, the all clear was given for residents to move back into Slidell. Eighty five percent of the city was demolished. Only Home Depot and Sam’s Club were able to open for business. Many could not return to their jobs because their places of business no longer existed. Once grocery stores reopened many did not have money to buy food. MREs (military food packets) were handed out as food supplements for two months and many of Slidell’s residents went on Food Stamps. News was limited to out of town coverage and power did not return to parts of Slidell until a month after the storm.

We have seen Slidell’s devastation and feel a small part in its rebirth. Slidell has really gotten its act together. On Wednesday, after a full day of work, all 14 of us piled into our rented van and headed south to New Orleans. We wanted to see the rest of the story.

As I looked out the car window, I found it hard to visualize the underlying beauty of the landscape when so much of it is covered with urban sprawl and still evident scars of Katrina. We passed an abandoned Six Flags amusement park, the roller coaster stark against the horizon. In the once upscale community of Eden Isles where pre-Katrina houses were packed so tightly you could not see the canal, only bare pilings remain. These homes sustained 4-8 feet of water and thousands of pounds of debris washed in from damaged or destroyed homes. Boats, appliances, cars, seaweed and dead animal life replaced the homes. In some areas, piles of debris still remain.

The homes along Lakeshore Drive (also known as Rat’s Nest Road) felt the first impact of the storm. A 28-foot storm surge destroyed 300 houses in this area. FEMA trailers also dot the landscape. Meant to be a temporary housing solution, many families still live in them because they have not received their insurance settlements.

We crossed over the bridge between Slidell and Chalmette, located in St. Bernard’s Parish just outside New Orleans. The original twin span collapsed during the storm and it is gratifying to see that the new bridge will be 30 feet higher. Chalmette is surrounded by wetlands, including Bayou Savage, a protected sanctuary for many of Louisiana’s wildlife. Chalmette received 10-12 feet of water. Wetlands are normally a natural “speed bump” for hurricanes but 217 miles of wetlands were lost during Katrina.

We passed the Murphy’s Oil Company Refinery. During Katrina, a large barge had traveled so far inland that it ran into the storage tanks, cracking one container and leaking thousands of gallons of oil into the surging water. Only five homes survived in this area and each of those had to be gutted. Here we saw the various stages of rebuild. Some homes have been refurbished, but many are still abandoned. Some still bear the X left by responders after the storm. On the top of the X, the date the house was inspected is recorded, to the left the group that inspected, to the right the number of dead animals and at the bottom of the X, the number of dead people. Some homes bore multiple Xs indicating the number of times the home was searched for survivors.

Just before the bridge into the 9th Ward, we see evidence of the 17th Street Canal break in the levee that caused so much devastation to that area. What was once a crowded neighborhood is now a vacant green patch. New cement levees are being rebuilt by the Army Corps of Engineers.

As we crossed into the 9th Ward, we saw remnants of a former FEMA Park where many residents were forced to live if they could not tap into resources on their own property. These parks were closed last month. The trailers were pulled in order to be tested for the possibility that inhabitants were being over exposed to formaldehyde. The trailers were also removed at the request of the local government. Compared to Slidell, and I am told, Gulfport and Biloxi, New Orleans has been slow to recuperate from Katrina. I was struck by how little rebuilding there seems to be. What has been rebuilt has been built as it was before the storm-at or below sea level. Interestingly, when you ask about the local city government, the response is always how corrupt and inefficient it is and sadly, the people here seem to accept that assessment as the norm.

The 9th Ward shows little sign of progress. An evacuee told me that it is not much different there than it was before Katrina. It is a depressing area of squalor, broken windows, debris laden yards, rusting automobiles. We pass a sign reading “No Dumping”, the debris around it almost obscuring the words.

A lone bright spot is the Musician’s Village, which is a couple of blocks of brightly colored houses. This is a project sponsored by Harry Connick Jr. and others and being built by Habitat volunteers. Almost every house has an Obama sign out front. The symbolism in this simple landscape is palpable.

The business district along the river did not receive too much direct damage. However, because the city was without electricity for weeks, many of the high-rise offices became so moldy they had to be gutted.

As we went into the French Quarter I was intrigued by the contrasts. The architecture is beautiful-old iron lace grilled doors and windows, flowers hanging from balconies. There is music on every street corner and drifting from the bars .The streets were crowded with revelers. This is not appealing to me –there is an overwhelming sense of decadence. It seems so self indulgent and incongruous to the rest of our week.