Pratt Drive

The ground shakes at 6109 Pratt Dr. Over and over again the concussion of metal being shoved into the ground jars the senses. The house has been abandoned for more than a year after flooding when the London Avenue Canal levee failed. The house stands no more than eight feet from the wall of the levee that was patched earlier this year.

Now Army Corps of Engineers workers have turned the residential area into a construction zone. They are working to repair the levees with large construction equipment and plenty of concrete and heavy metal beams that are thrusted nearly a mile into the ground.

The repetitive sound of the drilling machine and its large crane tower over the neighborhood, which is a microcosm of what happened to New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit thirteen months ago.

Worker Alex Amari is part of the team helping to rebuild one of many damaged levees citywide. He says that he has seen a handful of people back on the street to try and fix their homes.

“There [seems to be] no firm plans yet on the status of this neighborhood,” he said.

A tattered American flag remains on the outside of the home at 5800 Pratt Dr. The house still has the spray painted ‘x’ on its front with the date emergency personnel boated by and checked to see if anyone was inside. Those same personnel today would find a house that has been dried out, gutted and redone with new drywall.

Another home a few doors down has a FEMA trailer sitting in its front yard where the owner lives while his home is remodeled.

These homes are the exception.

Nearly all of the homes sit vacant and untouched since the water rushed through walls, doors and windows. Time has dried the houses out, but the insides are stuck in a time warp – unchanged since late August 2005.

The bricks, insulation and drywall of the home at 6109 Pratt were ripped off in the surge of water. But the curtains remain, fluttering in a light breeze and offering a peek into the chaos inside.

The front living area is coated in silt and sand, barely covering the ground in some places and half a foot in others. The furniture is in a convoluted stack in one corner – with chairs on top of sofas next to mangled cabinets.

The rest of the house is so filled with debris it is impossible to navigate. A side hallway leads to a series of rooms filled with sand three feet high with belongings tossed about. Watermarks on the wallpaper are at least six feet high. The bathroom at the end of the hallway has a window broken in and the tub filled with debris.

Amari said the family that lived in the house was back once and has not returned. He said an Indian family occupied the home but they decided to live elsewhere after one of their family members died during the sudden levee breech.

Next door at 6119 Pratt, the living room is open to passers-by. The entire wall was ripped off after the levee broke. A remaining window reveals what occurred during Katrina – spray painted on it is an ‘x’ with the date searchers found five bodies inside.

The water came in so fast that the family was unable to get out, becoming trapped inside their own house according to Amari.

Personal affects remain inside the home – offering a glimpse into the life that was before the disaster.

A Monopoly set is strewn about a closet and bedroom with the packs of money still bound together. Clothes are on hangers, ready to be worn. Children’s toys now sit idle with no one left to use them.

Amari said it is unknown when the homes will be cleaned up or knocked down.

He said the neighborhood, like New Orleans, is filled with “slow, but constant progress.”

“There are still so many things left to do,” he said. “Luckily there haven’t been any hurricanes, so we have kept working.”

Amari said work on the London Avenue Canal levee will continue for an indefinite period of time with no scheduled completion date.

The survivor

The levee has been repaired but the neighborhood has not.

The Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans is the starkest reminder of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

Thirteen months later the area is desolate except for contractors and National Guardsmen who have been deployed to the zone.

Open fields with tall grass now cover large strips of land where homes used to sit side by side. Most were carried away by the flood waters from the ruptured Industrial Canal.

Few residents have come back to the area, but Robert Richardson is an exception.

The 52-year-old man’s home was destroyed in the flooding and was knocked down months ago by FEMA officials. The only thing left is the curb and a small walkway to what was his front porch.

Richardson evacuated on Aug. 27, 2005 – two days before the storm hit. He came back to the area more than a month later on Oct. 15.

“The smell was bad…coming in from downtown you could smell the sewage everywhere,” he said.

His house is gone, but Richardson wants to rebuild. However, that is much easier said than done said Richardson.

He is one of a growing group of residents who have organized over the past year to fight for his property and save his neighborhood from what he calls, “sneaky developers.”

The homeowners of the neighborhood are engaged in a constant battle with city hall and FEMA over the future of the Ninth Ward. The area had been the poorest in the city. Some parts of the ward had open drainage ditches and did not have paved roads. The destruction by the hurricane only made things worse.

Many homeowners are convinced the city is trying to force out the residents and turn the land over to developers, according to Richardson.

“The city figures they can get rid of previous houses and problems,” Richardson said.

Homeowners are unable to get FEMA trailers to live in – unlike the rest of the city. FEMA will not issue a trailer unless there is a power hook-up and the water has been certified safe for use by the city. The city, however, has not restored water usage to the area and the water that is available is of questionable sanitary quality.

Thus, many residents cannot live in the Lower Ninth even though they want to.

Richardson commutes to the area from his job at a Folgers plant about 60 miles north of the area. He said the factory provides trailers for their employees to live in around the plant. But Richardson still visits his Ninth Ward home multiple times a week.

“Why is the city putting so much pressure on all of these people?” he asks.

Richardson is frustrated with governmental red tape that he sees slowing down the rebuilding of the area. He says media outlets reporting on the pace of recovery and neighborhood coalitions are the two things that get things accomplished.

“We have to fight…the developers are going to [New Orleans Mayor Ray] Nagin and seeing if they can get our land,” Richardson said. He said vigilance is required to ensure the future of the Lower Ninth Ward.

“It’s like they’re trying to do the same thing to us that Hitler did to the Jews,” Richardson said. He equates the total government response to the disaster as indifferent at best, ethnic cleansing at worse.

“They aren’t trying to do anything,” he said.

Richardson hopes that one day he can rebuild his home. Despite the severe poverty of the area, around sixty percent of residents owned their homes according to the city. Richardson has also talked with his old neighbors, and says they are still interested in returning to the area.

“I talked with a lot of people who are in Houston and other areas right now…they want to come back, but this isn’t ready yet,” he said.

Among the vacant lots are homes that are still severely damaged, but have yet to be knocked down. Cars are still strewn on some lawns a
nd look as if they were in a hundred accidents. Only a handful of the traffic signals are turned on and there are no retail establishments open.

A Wal-Mart sits boarded up just off of the main traffic artery and its parking lot is used as a staging area for the National Guard. Richardson has no idea when anything in the Ninth Ward will return to normal. He says the total destruction can be described, but is best understood in person.

“I wish everyone in Dallas, Houston would come here and see this,” he said.

The hope for tomorrow

Amongst the wrecked homes and empty lots of New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward a blue house pops out in the landscape.

It is the drop of water that quenches homeowners’ thirst for relief from Hurricane Katrina.

The modest blue home houses Common Ground, a grassroots relief agency that is directly involved on a day-to-day basis in the neighborhoods most affected by the storm.

Common Ground was founded three days after the hurricane struck New Orleans by affected residents, and since then the group has grown to play a role in the relief efforts of the Lower Ninth Ward.

Common Ground volunteers run “The Blue House Project,” and they are a mix of New Orleans natives and people from outside the area.

One such volunteer is a 24 year old named Julia. She moved to the New Orleans area shortly after the storm hit and began working for the organization in December 2005. She said the devastation caused her to leave her old job and come to the arear.

“I wouldn’t be in New Orleans if I wasn’t here [at Common Ground],” she said.

Julia describes the interaction between residents and volunteers as the reason she chose Common Ground.

“A lot of organizations have their ups and down in commitment, but this one doesn’t. They were the first down here,” she said.

Common Ground works out of a home that was damaged in the storm. Volunteers gutted the house and rebuilt the interior. The site features a tool lending library, community kitchen and computer/internet access.

Julia said there are so few resources available for the residents still living in the Ninth Ward that they appreciate the services provided. She said the programs have helped create a sense of community.

“This place is run on a resident want/need basis so we try and see what they need,” Julia said.

She cited the example of a soon to open health clinic that began as a Common Ground project and was eventually taken over by the community. She said the idea of the group is to provide the stimulus and for the neighborhood to embrace project ideas.

They also helped organize residents in an ongoing fight to keep some of the public schools from being knocked down. An elementary school has already been demolished, and a junior high school and another elementary school are on the chopping block.

Common Ground aims to be more than an organization with hand-outs, it has a desire to become involved according to Julia.

“Common Ground will always exist in some essence, but the idea is for it to eventually dissolve into the community,” Julia said.

Common Ground is underwritten by its national organization, but the group has multiple projects so it is not the main source of funding. The majority of the money is donated on-line or from people who drive up to the house and donate in-person. Church groups also provide a large amount of the food for the community kitchen and food bank.

Julia said residents appreciate “seeing a light on at night” in the mostly desolate neighborhood.

“It’s slowly getting better, but there is still a long ways to come,” she said.