Katrina

I've felt hesitant to write about and show images of the devastation still very present in NOLA as a result of Katrina. It's why I put the last post between this one and the others. But I want to show a few photos I took when I was in the Lower 9th Ward and other areas. What I saw was sobering: crisscrossed streets emptied of once dense housing, cement remnants of drowned homes, abandoned and boarded up schools and government buildings, treeless lots upon lots, the stunning volume of repeated X-codes. What is said about the mismanagement of funds intended for relief and support seems accurately dark. I sensed that the rebuild and renovation work done by New Orleansians who chose to or were forced to stay -or leave- their beloved city was clearly undertaken with measures of unimaginable grief over their loss mixed with an exceptional celebratory way; a unique need to make rituals that mark and propel forward movement. In this I also felt aware of the weight and opacity of the world on those neighborhoods that were destroyed and those that weren't, and the gulf between them that seems to cost increasing effort to cross.

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