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The following is the text of an email message that Rita sent out during our visit to New Orleans, primarily to
other librarians.
We took a bus through the worst areas of the 9th ward yesterday morning on a tour led by
a professor from the University of New Orleans and a graduate student who lives in the heart of the 9th ward. I'm still
processing everything that I saw. I took photos and videos and will
post one or two of the most compelling videos
to YouTube, so you can get an idea of how terrible it still is.
We had two guides. The professor, Michael Mizell-Nelson
(a young white guy - maybe in his early 30s) lived in an apartment in New Orleans and evacuated when the hurricane hit. I
think he ended up in Texas for a while. Greta Gladney,the graduate student (a young African American woman in her late
40s) lived in the lower 9th ward. We drove to her house, which is still standing and wasn't too badly damaged. We
all got off the bus and she told us about her neighborhood, and the experiences she and her
neighbors had during the hurricane. She's
also a local community activist, and because of her experiences during the hurricane, she decided to run for mayor. She
was one of 24 candidates, and she got 99 votes.
We then drove a few blocks to her church. On the
outside, the brick building looked fine, but inside was completely gutted -- no pews, no altar, a patchy concrete floor. It
was just a roof, walls and windows. It looked pretty grim. Then Greta told us she's getting married there
on Saturday! In
three days! She's not even sure how many people will be there because it was hard to locate all her friends and family,
who were scattered by the hurricane. She's expecting about 100 people, though. They'll be sitting on rented chairs
in that very hot church. A local gardener told her he would fill the entire space with plants, bushes, flowers, etc. There
will be a runner on the floor, rented chairs for guests, and an indoor garden to fill the rest of the space.
After
the church, we drove a few blocks to Greta's mother's house. This was deeper into the 9th ward, and the neighborhood still
remains heavily damaged. We got out and stood outside the front door while Greta told us about her 68-year-old mother,
who refused to evacuate during the storm. Police and others told her she had to go, but she wouldn't. When the water
started rising in her house (a one-story home), she decided she'd better get out, so she took her purse, her dog, and her
portable TV to her neighbor's house next door. Her neighbor had an attic, so they climbed up there while the flood waters
rose. Greta pointed out the hole in the roof where the rescuers retrieved them. Her mother ended up at the Superdome,
and after 4 days, was evacuated to Texas.
From there, we drove further into the 9th ward, where we saw
unbelievable devastation: collapsed buildings, crushed cars, piles of rubble and debris, houses painted with dates and
codes indicating people, pets, bodies inside. Hand-painted signs: "We're coming back!", "Not for sale", "Do not bulldoze",
"For sale by owner".
Throughout the four-hour tour, Greta and Michael told us of their experiences during and after
the storm, and how it's changed their lives, and a few of the million stories of hope and heartache. When Greta's mother
was dropped at the Superdome, she wound up sitting near a family who gave her a pair of shoes and shared their food and everything
they had with her. On the other hand, a friend of Greta's, who is rebuilding her gutted house, was furious that someone
stole new appliances that were recently delivered to her house. When you drive through the neighborhoods, you see people
in trucks and cars hauling furniture and you have no idea who they are or if that stuff belongs to them.
So this message
is too long already, but the whole experience was overwhelming and sad. I saw many people in the early stages of fixing
up their homes, but the reality of the situation makes clear that it could be 5 or 10 years, if ever, before those neighborhoods
come back to
life.
On the other hand, one branch of the New Orleans Public Library is open! Most branches are
not, however. A Times-Picayune article mentioned that ALA is coming next week, and many librarians are volunteering
their time to sort through the thouands of boxes of donated books, deciding
what to do with them. I wish I was able
to stay and do that.
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