June 12, 2008 ~ Lower 9th Ward-- Pt 2

June 12, 2008. Today was a powerful day. This was the day we went to where the levees broke. To be in that area was an unbelievable site. In an area where the streets were dense with houses there are only a handful of homes rebuilt. The plots, roads, and sidewalks are being reclaimed by nature and is beginning to look like a green swamp again. Words cannot explain the sight. It makes you wonder: Why after three years so little has been done? Where did all of that donated money go? Where are the residents?

You can see that in many cases the concrete steps of the front entrance and the foundation slabs are the only evidence that houses were even here.


Here we're sitting on what remains of a front porch. The house would have been on the left of us facing the street to our right.





The houses in the background are just a few that survived the rushing water of the broken levee.

Back in the Holy Cross Neighborhood, we began looking at the four homes that we are going to restore. To see the shape these houses are in its hard to believe that those homes were abandoned before the storm, and the damage to these buildings were not because of the hurricane or the flooding but caused by the Help Yourself Salvage Company. We really need to put that company out of business.....

The evening concluded with the class attended the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association weekly meeting located at the Great Little Zion MB Church. It was intense. The residents are so passionate about what goes on in their neighborhood. They are determined to not let their neighborhood be forgotten or mistreated. The Holy Cross neighborhood is a neighborhood of fighters and they are going to fight for everything they believe in. If every neighborhood was as organized and passionate as these people the government would be on pins and needles.