and other uncivilized things to say.
A lovely lady passed today in Texas. She fought cancer very hard for quite some time. She fought for those she loved even harder (and even longer). She was surrounded by those she loved most when she left. Now she can rest. I am so happy that I had the chance to meet her.
My heart goes out to the family. She will be in my heart always.
Today during the incredibly monotonous drive after work, I once again fell into a freeway coma. I was listening to Only by NIN (which is, I think, one of their best. Comes close to Head Like a Hole, Down In It, etc.) and my mind began to wander as it generally does during freeway coma time. I was thinking about seeing them at Voodoo Fest right after Hurricane Katrina. The event organizers gave all of the relief workers (and I don’t know who else) free tickets. It was awesome! They were incredible. Queens of the Stone Age rocked too. I thought about this band, and that band. The video for The Perfect Drug with its masterful rendition of Victorian/Gothic England, or at least my version there of; I swear that Rochester is about to top one of the moors in the video. (I could spend hours analyzing the video; absinthe, Orientalism, and so sexy.) Johnny Cash singing Hurt and making me bawl; and the video; ridiculously good, better even than the original (sorry guys). And how sexy Trent Lott had looked in person, now that he had been hitting the gym…
Trent who? Yeah. In my head I was calling him Trent Lott, Republican senator from Mississippi. I’ve had politics on the brain, but I didn’t think it had done any damage…
Disclaimer: I usually don’t get all wobbly-kneed around celebrities.
So, Brad Pitt wants to build 150 green homes in New Orleans’ lower ninth ward. It is in all of the papers. I knew about this, well, I think it has been a year ago now. What a fantastic opportunity to showboat my Brad Pitt story!
Anyway a year ago give or take, I was working at the swanky law firm in New Orleans. For some reason the heartless lawyers hadn’t yet stolen the windows from the IT Department; we had the best windows in the building. (Right before I left, there were plans to remodel the IT Department into partner offices and conference rooms, shoving the IT Department into cubicles. I told my boss I would quit if I lost my window. But I quit well before that.)
The IT Department was on the second floor of six, and had incredibly lofty 25′ (?) windows with gorgeous arches at the top. The building was built nearly a century ago (more?) and was once the city hall annex (morgue and all. One of the partners’ offices used to be the elevator shaft that carried bodies to the fifth and sixth floor morgue. Always liked that story). Anyway our windows, and my desk in particular looked across a narrow alley way to a famous hall where weddings, press conferences and that sort of thing are now held. It too used to be part of the city hall, and the buildings are in fact joined by “bridges” on two of the floors. Melissa and I would always stare boldly out the window into those of the hall to watch the staging of various parties, conferences and so on.
Melissa heard that Brad Pitt was in town; hell, I’m sure that most everyone knew he was in town (before he bought a house there). Anyway, he was there to announce a new project he was becoming involved in to bring homes back to the Lower Ninth Ward. Generally, I could care less about celebrities, and Brad Pitt was no different. But then something changed. As the day went on, we saw a lot of traffic, and then we heard that Brad Pitt was going to be in the building behind ours! How exciting we thought. But then, we saw someone come in and setup a makeup station. And then, nothing happened. We went about our work, and saw some guy come in, and Oh my God! it was Brad Pitt! We couldn’t really see him, and he wasn’t in there too long, but it was him.
So the press conference happened, Melissa and I went outside to stalk him, but then came back in. He came back in the room. This time he was there for awhile, pacing, he actually cared about what he was talking about it seemed. Suddenly, every legal secretary in the building was at my desk. Yelling. Screaming. Waving. It looked like the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. Either we made a loud enough ruckus, or he looked our general direction, I don’t know. But he came up to the window (about six feet away) and waved and flashed his movie star smile at us. It was neat, but the stodgy legal secretaries’ reactions were even better.
Eventually Brad left the room. Melissa and I again went outside to stalk him. The crowd had died down substantially; there were literally only seven or eight people waiting. And we had an idea; he was probably going to come out the side door (by our building) where no one else was. We figured out which car was waiting for him, watched it, and made our move. Suddenly Brad Pitt was right there, maybe a foot from us. My God! He was handsome! I made eye contact with him. (Maybe this is too much information, but oh well.) I don’t know why, but from my eyes, he kept moving down; he was checking me out! I know. Generally this is a skeevy guy move that happens more than I like to admit. But this was Brad Pitt. He goes home to Angelina, Angelina, Who? No, but seriously; it made my confidence soar, and my boyfriend was pretty proud too. I got checked out by Brad Pitt; doesn’t matter what he thought upon the checkout (I am sure he only thought marvelous things), it still happened.
For days after, Melissa and I couldn’t stop talking about it, literally. Everyone in the law firm wanted to know what he looked like so close. We told them. Except for the checking out part. It was so silly. Melissa and I caught up in our fantasy world… And then, Melissa had this dream about him mowing her lawn, and walking up behind him, and touching his chest, and… . Well, you get the idea.
Interestingly (to me anyway), Brad Pitt’s house was a street over and a couple of blocks toward the lake from my house on Esplanade (I think anyway). Alas, I never became best friends with Angelina. No dinner parties…
So there it is. For as long as I can remember, I have been doing technical writing of some sort. Even when I worked at Albertson’s as a teenager, I felt the need to compile a book full of helpful hints about how to correctly close out the lottery machine at the end of the day. (One of my co-workers who often worked the evening shift, while I worked the morning, could not do the number crunching correctly, and I had to fix it almost every morning). This helped. One of my supervisors took it to some hifalutin corporate meeting and they actually implemented some of my writing as store policy. Pretty neat.
Even before that I wrote with an audience in mind. I remember being in grade school and getting some accolades from the teacher for an essay I wrote about my grandpa. So I kept making my writing more and more grandiose until the teacher finally said enough! too many adjectives and gave me a B (oh the horror!).
In college, I actually had a professor teach me how to write better. She was the first person that basically said, “you’re not doing well enough, I know you can do better.” Up until that point, I won every essay competition, was the best writer in my school according to one of those standardized tests, blah, blah, blah.
Once I finished school, I took a job at one of the computer giants doing technical writing. This seemed like everything I should want. Good company. Good pay. Close to my family (they thought this was a good thing, and I did at the time). In a nutshell, it is what everyone thought I should be doing.
But once I started the job, I met with conflict; I really had a hard time with my boss; she simply didn’t like me. Nothing paranoid here, those are just the facts. And, it was so boring. I need to have five thousand things piled up on my desk, working under some ridiculous deadline to feel like I am working hard. Maybe (probably) that is something I should change, but that’s what I need to feel like I am doing a good job.
So I got laid off from that job, joined the Red Cross, took a job as a trainer in New Orleans, couldn’t hack it, curled up in a ball and returned to Idaho, to what? take a job as a technical writer. Am I maybe the dumbest person on the planet? What happened to the learning from mistakes path I was on?
Bottom line, Idaho is comfortable. Technical writing is comfortable; good money, it is easy, but it is so damn boring! Working for myself freelance technical writing is not as bad because I can get it all done in bursts rather than being a slave to someone else’s schedule, but it is still boring. So what do I do?
Well, it kind of seems ungrateful to not write. I mean, I can do it, so shouldn’t I be using it? But I need to figure out how to do it differently. Maybe I should only write for purposes that make me feel good, like stopping procrastinating and finishing the New Orleans stuff and sending it off to McSweeneys. Finish it and move on.
So what then? I need to see results from whatever I am working on. I want a finished product, and I want someone to tell me I have done a good job; silly, I shouldn’t need that, but I do. I feel like I need to create something to be satisfied with work.
I have been thinking about moving to Austin (’cause it’s neat, and warm), and becoming a welder (craft, art) or upholsterer. (While waiting for news from the Peace Corps.) Crafts are a dying way of life. It is so rare to hear someone speak about being a carpenter (not houses) or anything like that (I couldn’t even think of another example). Now, everyone does something with computers. Computers make all of the things that we used to make; furniture, books, signs, shoes, almost everything. Computers definitely aren’t a bad thing; I love them and they make my world better. But what have we lost with the shift from man made everything to computer made everything? Pride in our work? Pride in general?
I think I would be happy running an upholstery shop. It is definitely a skill that I want to learn. But I want to make a living at it; a good living at it. I make good money in my industry, and I should make even more if I stay in the field. But that’s not enough. But, I’m also not willing to live a life that is not financially comfortable (not rich by any means). So how do I do it? How do I combine the two; a vocation and a good living? Combining the handcrafted (or machine crafted, through the guidance of a person) with computers? Simply using the computer to plan and market? Hmmm…
I definitely need a change. I need to be doing something with tangible results. Something that leaves something behind that I can touch, look at. Something that I can be proud of.
I’ve got to solve this riddle. And quick. How long did it take you to figure out what to do with your life? And how did you deal with the uncertainty it brought?
I am a computer nerd at heart. As much as I have tried to get away from it I can’t; it’s me. I love learning new things in every program imaginable, just as much as I love lying on my back wiring a network to full connectivity. When Hurricane Katrina happened, I had recently been laid-off from Hewlett Packard, and was feeling very badly about myself. But Katrina was too big; it snapped me out of my funk, and drove me to do something. As soon as I heard about what had happened, I logged onto the Internet to find out how I could help. To my surprise, I was quickly contacted by the local chapter of the American Red Cross. I explained that I didn’t have much money to donate but that I had plenty of time. I was signed up for volunteer training the very next day.
Initially I was trained to work in Sheltering and Client Casework (or some similarly named groups); almost every volunteer was being trained in these fundamental disaster relief areas, and my chapter didn’t have a technology volunteer group, so I didn’t even know it existed. When I arrived in Louisiana, it was amazing, in good and bad ways. The damage done by the storm was horrific, but the volunteer response was uplifting. Since almost every volunteer on the disaster was assigned to client casework or sheltering, there was a lot of waiting. While waiting for assignment, I noticed some people wiring a network. What was this? Other nerds? So I walked over to take a look.
This is how I was introduced to the Response Technology Group. I asked if I could help with anything, and in fact they needed several volunteers. I worked with the group for the day, and was asked to join that function by the end of the day. So began my nine months in response technology with the Red Cross. I was euphoric; I could actually help people with my nerdiness?
During my time with the Red Cross, I worked with amazing volunteers from all over the world who were working toward the common goal of helping people rebuild their lives after Hurricane Katrina. I learned so much from others, and know that I taught many people many things. Many of the volunteers coming to the disaster had never used a cell phone, let alone a computer. As part of my work with the Red Cross, I taught grandmothers in their nineties how to make functional Excel spreadsheets; I taught Americorps members how to wire networks. It was amazing.
Since my time with the Red Cross, and specifically during the last year, I have been trying to focus on what I really want out of life; what will really make me happy; which path my life should take. Through this searching I have figured out a few things: 1) I crave helping people; my world is not right unless I am giving back, helping someone. 2) I am a computer nerd; it is me, I may as well be happy with it. 3) I am good at teaching people, and really good at teaching people about technology. 4) I crave experience with other cultures; I have spent my life (aside from my two years in Louisiana) Idaho. Idaho is great, but it is small potatoes (I am funny!); there is so much more to the world. The two years that I spent in Louisiana were amazing; the culture is very different than that of Idaho. I enjoyed very much learning about and interacting with the people, taking part in cultural traditions such as Mardi Gras, and of course eating all of the wonderful Cajun and Creole foods.
Through the soul searching I have done (and I have really, really been searching for the past little bit) I think that serving in the Peace Corps is the next step in achieving my life’s goals; those that I know of anyway. I am at a crossroads in my life; the crossroads. I have finally figured out (I think anyway) the path I should take; this path began with the American Red Cross and Hurricane Katrina, and will be continued with Peace Corps service. Where will it go after that? I haven’t a clue; I only know that service with the Peace Corps is right, is home. The Peace Corps encapsulates all things that make me me; it is where I belong, where my skills work the best, where I am at peace, where I am at home.
But maybe the Peace Corps (And the Red Cross was too?) is running away from my life? I wonder this sometimes. I think the feeling comes from that American Dream ideal that is supposed to be the aim of every good American; well that just doesn’t work for me, yet the draw to it is magnetic, unconscious; we cannot escape it, or can we? I want to, I need to. I would not be happy in this life, I would be settling and selling myself short. Because of the perfunctory draw of the American Dream, anything that is not it, feels itchy, wrong; that is why I sometimes feel that I am running from my life (you know, the one with the two kids, house in the suburbs, etcetera, etcetera…). But its not; for me, for someone I love very much; it is just not it. Its a shame that I felt like I had to live that life; it is a same that anyone feels that pressure. But there are those that love this life, that would live no other. I do not look down on them, no I almost envy them. To those that are really, truly happy, I wish them well. I however, could never be happy in that life, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself that I was.
My French isn’t too swell, but hopefully you get the gist…
Alright, alright. Thirteen FEMA trailer parks in the New Orleans area are scheduled to close by the end of tomorrow. Hooray! It is over two years later; time to move on. According to the article that I read today, 6,400 households will be affected by the closings. Are you serious? There are still 6,400 households living in FEMA trailers, two years after Katrina? Oh wait. That’s just the FEMA trailers in FEMA sanctioned parks, doesn’t count the FEMA trailers scattered about the city in driveways and empty lots. Those residents number at more than 25,000. Are you kidding me? This is ridiculous.
I get so frustrated when I read about all of this. In the two years since the storm, I have lived in six or seven hotels (as a volunteer with the Red Cross) two houses in New Orleans and now a motorhome (don’t laugh; I’m awesome). Why can’t these people find one place to live? (I know, I know. Some of the people can’t for health reasons, etc., but those people who really, honestly can’t are few and far between.) The majority of the people are lazy and waiting for the government, FEMA, a church, their family, someone (anyone) else to do it for them. That is what is wrong with New Orleans.
The article goes on to describe the housing situation in New Orleans as an emergency. Really? Hmmm… . I did a quick look around Craigslist (New Orleans) and found 89 apartments or house posted today. That seems like a whole bunch of places to live. And that’s just off of Craigslist. There’s also the Times Picayune, word of mouth, signs on the street, many, many different ways to find a place to live. The article even notes that people in trailers were given lists of available properties in their area, but many simply couldn’t beat the pavement (their wording) to look at the houses. Why? Jobs? I highly doubt it.
Okay, okay. Maybe housing is simply too expensive in New Orleans for it even to be plausible for the FEMA trailer residents to find alternate housing. The article does note that the average studio in New Orleans goes for $764 a month while a two bedroom will cost you $990 (our one bedroom in MidCity, in which we were the only occupied, or even gutted home on the block ran us $975 and our lovely two bedroom on Esplanade cost $1500; just for perspective). Apparently a two bedroom apartment rented for $676 a year before Katrina. So yes, there has been a huge rise in housing costs and housing is expensive in general in New Orleans (a nice studio in Boise will run you the whopping amount of $365, and a one bedroom equivalent to the MidCity house will run you around $550. Oh, and I make the same amount of money in New Orleans as I do in Boise. Go figure). But what’s that? Rental assistance from HUD through 2009? Well shoot, then what the hell is the problem? Laziness is a big one, and so is fear of moving on, starting a new life, starting over. Having to think, work and take care of yourself, something many of the FEMA trailer residents have a hard time doing.
Or, we could lower Section 8 housing monthly limits. Because the government gives out such a high dollar amount for Section 8 housing, it inflates the prices for everyone.
I know. Some of the people in the trailers really, really try. But most of the remaining residents should have different homes now. They are simply waiting for someone else to do it for them.
And why should the government take care of people like this? What has happened to our churches and communities and neighbors and families? The country didn’t used to work like this (okay, so it has for a long, long time), but still; what happened to the sense of community that helped establish this country? Are our families so broken and disjointed that we cannot take in an aunt or a cousin and help them get back on their feet? Or our neighbor; can’t we help them?
I don’t know. New Orleans is a different kind of city. It is stuck in years past. Corruption, laziness and the smack of racism still haunt every corner. I don’t pretend to have answers. I just know that New Orleans doesn’t work. It is a dichotomy of the haves and have-nots, the black and whites, the natives and the newcomers, the utterly rich in Audubon and the people living under the overpass at Canal and Claiborne. It is a city of contradictions. Maybe it would have been better if New Orleans would have drowned.
New Orleans devraient avoir noyé
My dear friend Louise commented on my earlier slightly irate (No!) post about not being able to feel good with the place I am in right now, or be patient planning, waiting, for the things that are important to me.
Louise asked me to define successful for myself. Hmmm… I didn’t think it would be so hard. I guess that although I have never really put my finger on it, success to me has always been (and mind you this has only been in the background, it is not something that I have worked toward or anything like that) that inane American Dream version of success; house in the suburbs, two cars, two kids, dog, cat, jobs that pay well, etc.. This is the default version of success for most people my age (or at least I think it is). Because I had never defined success for myself, I guess this is the version of success that I was driving toward (I am guessing it was there in the back of my mind because this version of success is crammed down your craw at every turn); crept right in there. Ridiculous.
I know for a fact that this American Dream would never in a million years make me happy. I had my chance at that dream (more than once) and it seemed like a good idea at the time. But something held me back; and now, I am so utterly happy that I didn’t take that road; for me all that is at the end of that path is a big old Dead End sign. (Did you see/read The Hours? Remember Julianne Moore’s character? That would be me; hopped up housewife trying to escape her dream turned nightmare.) As silly as it seems, this revelation is just now coming to me. Sean and Louise (much smarter and wiser than me.), always told both Ben and I how lucky we were that we were going through this struggle to find what truly mattered and made us happy (really, really happy) as individuals now rather than later; having a quarter-life (okay, slightly beyond that) crisis rather than a mid-life crisis. It is awful to be wrapped up in the middle of it right now, but they are right; this would be so much harder if I had already started down the traditional American Dream path, and then found myself miserable and had to regroup. (Or, how sad would it be if I never came to this realization? Never found out who I was? Never followed my true way?) Now there aren’t kids, dogs, and houses; responsibilities in the way of letting me find my happiness. And there is the benefit of finding my true path early on, and not having all of the muck left behind by taking the wrong road the first time.
I sort of wavered from success to happiness there. But you know what? That is what success is to me; being happy with myself. Having confidence in myself. Being me. Loving me. Showing the world that I love me. Success to me is being happy with who I am. Happy with myself, my place in the world, all of me. This is such a hard thing for me to do. Why? I don’t have a clue. I just know that I have to do it; no one is going to do it for me, and until I am happy with myself, I won’t be happy with anything else. I have to start at home.
I will write about the books I am reading, or have just finished. I am always reading something. Right now, I am reading The House of Spirits. Lately, I have been on a Latin American/magical realism kind of kick; I just ploughed through One Hundred Years of Solitude for the third time. I love Marquez’s works. I think I have read them all, my favorite being Memories of My Melancholy Whores; fantastic. I like Allende because she reminds me so much of Marquez, in a lesser sort of way. There are so many instances in her books that I am struck by how similar the writing is; some of the plot lines are even the same, especially the grandmother making her granddaughter prostitute herself until she pays back all that the grandmother is owed theme. I don’t know if it is intentional or not, but the writing is SO similar.
The thing that I like the best about both Allende and Marquez is the way that their writing makes me feel. It is hard for me to remember distinct details from either of their writings, but this is due to the soothing, melodic way of their writing. Both writers use magic and an alternate reality. When I read their books, I feel that I am there. I am lulled into the worlds of Allende and Marquez, and everything is wonderful. I love nothing better than to read one of their books, even only a few lines, while taking a bath and then fall into bed for a lovely night’s rest. Both of these authors allow me to do something I can do with no other; I can pick up any writing by either of them, and read only a few lines, words even, and be transported into that world, relaxing my real world’s troubles away, calming me, pacifying me. They are the only two (well for the most part) that I can read again and again.
On a completely different note, I have just finished The Eyre Affair and Into the Wild. I was so excited to read The Eyre Affair and have been since the novel came out a few years ago. The novel started out fabulously; plenty of literary allusions, as the name promised, and great characters, but in the end, I found the female lead’s character a bit lacking, but I think this was due to the author being a man; sorry, men often can’t get women right. And, by the middle of the book the novelty wore off and I was a bit bored. It was a story like so many others in the end; although quite cleverly done.
I picked up Into the Wild at the Seattle airport, bored with the above book. I have to say, I don’t generally buy popular books like this, but (alas!) I was sucked in by Eddie Vedder’s fantastic rendition of Hard Sun (here comes the junior high crush again!) and the fact that Sean Penn had everything to do with the movie version of the book. I read the book in a day or two, and couldn’t put it down. The writing wasn’t necessarily fantastic, but the story was so good. Alex/Chris is so real (I know he was real). I saw so much of myself and someone I love in him. He was a passionate young man who took his extreme feelings to the ultimate end. This is what can happen if we don’t lead a balanced life.
For a very long time, I tried to stay away from books that Oprah had as part of her book club. In the beginning, she would only do works by living writers, and this pissed me off to no end. Recently though, she has been including some of my favorite books. I remember the first (I think) work by a dead author that she covered, Anna Karenina. How can anyone not love this book? It is definitely one of my favorites. And now, she is doing a second book by Marquez; bravo! East of Eden (a book that actually made me contemplate moving to Salinas) is another good book she picked. Just thought I would throw that in there. I love John Steinbeck too! And Cather, and Hemingway, and Abbey, and almost every other author except Shakespeare. (Would you believe I actually made it through school, as an English major no less, without taking a single course about him? Hooray for me!)
I know. Not New Orleans. One day, I want to go through and clean out all of the posts like this, leaving behind those strictly related to Louisiana. But for now, since only non-New Orleans things are about all that I can write, they will stay.
Hmmm… . This is definitely not fun. I can’t write about New Orleans in an amusing, or even angry sort of way. I have sat down several times during the last few days and… nothing. Where did my writing mojo go? What happened? (Did you read Thursday’s post? Rubish!) There is so much I want to say about the place. It was such a huge part of my life. Maybe that’s the problem? I can’t sort anything out? I don’t know.
I know, I know. I just need to start writing, get the juices flowing that sort of thing. I don’t know. I have been doing plenty of other writing, just not here. In an effort to get back on the writing wagon, here is a list of some of the more defined sections (don’t know what else to call them) of writing about New Orleans that I have stored up in my brain. (Forgive me if I wander a bit!)
This is a small representation of the things I want to include here, and hell, they aren’t even as defined as I thought they would be. I have the before I went to Louisiana, and the first couple of days clearly recorded as I like, but cannot seem to move past that point. I have a scribble here and a scratch there about my time there, but I cannot seem to put together another cohesive piece that could be loosely referred to as an essay. That’s going to make it really hard when I try and sell my idea to a publisher!
I do have one piece I have been working on (it requires research) regarding New Orleans and Detroit. As we all have heard by now, Detroit was named the most dangerous city in the country. How can this be? Have the researchers even set foot in (or heard of for that matter) New Orleans’ crime rate? Anyway, it should be an interesting piece once I finish it.
So for now, I will stay stuck. I want to, need to, write about Louisiana, but can’t. Hopefully the writing gods will be kind to me soon.
One of the most striking things I remember from my early days in New Orleans was all of the debris. My eyes couldn’t get a break. There were flooded-out cars everywhere; driveways, under overpasses, parking lots, the neutral ground, and along the city streets; anywhere people could ditch them in their haste to leave the city. Depending on the part of the city I was in, the cars had waterlines (almost all of them had multiple flood lines, as the water receded over a few days) in various spots. Some of the cars only flooded a couple of inches, while some flooded completely. As months went by, the cars rusted, insurance adjusters looked at them, and people stole every part that could possibly bring in a dime off of the heaps. It was much longer than a year before the wrecks were towed from the public places like under the city’s overpasses. Depressing. (I searched and searched to find an image to link to here, but couldn’t find any that did the scene justice. I should have taken more pictures, or at least have been more careful of those that I took. At the time though, I didn’t think that an underpass littered with decaying cars needed to be photographed.)
Trees and plants in general were another thing that littered the city. Countless trees fell, or rather blew, over (City Park lost more than a thousand from its thirteen acres; and that is just one park). Everyone’s landscaping was completely ruined, and remember this is the South; very wet, and very green; plants grow everywhere! In the area north of the lake (I think it was north, I am still thrown by my loss of directional sense there; I am quite good at it normally) countless pine trees were damaged, to an extent that they weren’t even suitable for saw dust or mulch (? I too thought this was odd. Isn’t “damaged” just about the only way to get sawdust or mulch?).
As time went on, and people began to return to their homes, a new batch of debris came about; household goods. Everything found in a house made it to the curb, neutral ground or some other similar place. For months piles of mattresses, clothing, furniture, mirrors, dishes-everything was seen everywhere in the city. I don’t know what was okay to save and what wasn’t. I guess once the mold got in… After people cleared their soggy homes of contents, gutting began. People would rip out flooring (unless it was original heart of pine, or something similar), wood, drywall, plaster, everything, up to a certain point in the house. I thought this was so strange, but people would only gut their homes up a bit beyond the high water mark. This doesn’t seem okay. Even if the majority of my home was above the water, I would be skeptical about saving any of it. That water was gross. And if you are going to cut out eight feet of plaster, etc., why not just go the whole distance?
So what happened to all of this debris? Well, for a long time, it just sat there. I remember driving from New Orleans proper into Metairie via City Park a few months after the storm. I couldn’t believe the piles of debris. There is an opening between the cities in this area and it was literally covered fifty feet high in trash. One website noted the amount of debris immediately following the storm at the size of “200 football fields, piled 50 feet high.” And this doesn’t even count the debris coming from rebuilding in the following months. I know that several firms were hired to pick up the debris, but I don’t know where it eventually went to rest. I do know that there were several illegal dumping operations uncovered in New Orleans East. Sad.
