Cries from the Bottom

The following is the beginning of a new project, “Cries from the Bottom.” Intermittingly, I will be interviewing the people of New Orleans to show how the recovery process is going through their eyes and ears, letting them recount how the storm has changed their lives.


Tales from the Lower 9

Ophelia

Last Saturday, I made my first foray into the Lower 9th Ward, home of some of the most severe devastation. This predominately poor neighborhood before Katrina remains a veritable ghost town, even 6 months after Katrina made landfall.

Crossing the Industrial Canal, the wreckage is immediate and everywhere, houses shredded, cars caked with mud sit silent. It is a petrified neighborhood, the silence is deafening; frozen in time, it is a stark reminder of 6 months prior, as if Katrina just hit. Aside from occasional workers cleaning up debris, it took over an hour to find one resident of the Lower 9th Ward, as most people are tourists who have come to see the ravaged houses firsthand. Clicking cameras and bulbs flashing, this has become New Orleans newest tourist attraction. Ironically, pre-Katrina it was labeled an anathema by tourism guides and riddled with violence. Now, people flock across the Industrial Canal in sadistic glee.

After searching for some time, I came across Ophelia, who was checking on her house for the third time since Katrina. She was a sturdy black woman in her 60s with a great smile and inviting face, taking my hand with ease like an old friend or a member of her church. Her daughter and granddaughter, all of whom lived together, were picking through the remnants of their life. Most of their belongings were scattered on the curb. Her granddaughter flipped through an old photo album looking for anything salvable. There wasn’t much, and certain items were still wet, even 6 months later.

Near the corner of Tennessee and N. Dorgenois, Ophelia’s house is located three blocks behind one of the canal breaches. Pointing to the fence across the street, she said, “See that yard, the one with no house, just the foundation? It’s over there in the middle of the street.” While this may seem incredible, houses being pushed off their moorings are not rare. Some floated right off their foundations after being submerged for a couple of weeks. Ophelia’s house had gone almost entirely underwater. Since she is right behind the canal rupture, the whole neighborhood is almost completely flattened; it looks like a bomb was detonated.

Amazingly, Ophelia’s house stayed in place, but all that was salvageable is the brick walls. Everything else was ruined, “except a jar of coins,” Ophelia laughingly recalled. Everything was gutted inside, even the attic. She looked on and smiled, laughing at the cruel hand that fate had dealt her. She said that she had bought the house about two months before Hurricane Betsy in 1965, flooding her home that time as well.

As for the future, Ophelia was not sure. For right now, she is staying in her mom’s home in north Louisiana and would love to move back.

Unsure, it echoes in the empty streets down in the Lower 9th Ward; unsure who will come back; unsure who is coming back; unsure if they will be able to rebuild. These are the only constants in their lives of rubble.

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Lynell

About an hour later, I ran into two more people outside of a house. Lynell and her friend Calvin were beginning to gut her rental property, dumping soggy clothes and old Christmas ornaments on the curb. With smooth R&B emanating from her car, Lynell, an easy going black woman in her late 30s, early 40s, lives across the Mississippi in Algiers, where she suffered minimal wind damage.

Calvin, who looked to be in his late 40s, was a tall, skinny black man full of verve and charm. Like someone you meet in a barroom, not all that he says might true, but sure is damn entertaining, mitigating his bullshit. He claims to have been in 9th Ward during the storm: “I stayed with my old lady right around here.” Lynell casts a skeptical eye, as he tells a story being trapped on a roof and holding on to his friend’s hand. Eventually, his friend lost his grip and drowned.

In the midst of his story, he welled up, making it hard to tell what was fact and what was fiction. That, however, is what Katrina has done; it made the impossible real and plausible false; in this inverted reality, discerning up from down has become hard.

“Somebody needs to tell the world what’s going on down here,” said Calvin, speaking through a paper mask waving me inside the house. Passing the moldy walls covered with pictures from Lynell’s old tenant, we entered the kitchen. The water had moved the refrigerator around like a toy. The smell was insufferable. He spoke of grand conspiracies. Everyone was involved: Halliburton, George Bush, Dick Cheney and Mayor Nagin; it knew no bounds. This harkens back to the old days, when rumors circulated of people dynamiting the levees to save white sections of the city. Today, those rumors have come back home to roost once more.

Although this rental took over 10 feet of water, it didn’t have the surge of water like Ophelia’s house. Most of the houses on the river side of St. Claude Ave., like Lynells’s, are marked with brownish stripes; it is a constant reminder of how much water the neighborhood took as a result of the canal failures. Surprisingly, she said her tenant wants to come back.

Not dismayed at the empty neighborhood, Lynell said, “The foundation is fine. I just have to gut the interior." Fleeing New Orleans to New Iberia before Katrina, Lynell recalled the first time she saw the house: “I was kind of surprised; it is not as bad as I thought. The news kind of tricks ya,” becoming a little misty. No doubt, she is a testament to the survival instincts going around the area.

The problem comes in paying for the reconstruction: “I didn’t have flood insurance," Lynell recalled her bad choice, but added, “It wasn’t required.” Although this might seem unbelievable to someone not familiar with New Orleans, as they saw the 9th Ward completely submerged, her rental was determined by the federal government to be outside of the 100-year flood plain, Zone-X. Therefore, she didn’t have to buy into the National Flood Insurance Policy.

In the wake of Katrina, regret is in great abundance in the New Orleans area, and, like so many, she is full of regrets: “I didn’t take(flood insurance) out, but I should have,” said Lynell. Shaking off her bad luck, she is determined to rebuild even without help from anyone. “I got to. I got a mortgage.” Most of the bills will come from her own pocket.

6 months later, the 9th Ward still has no electricity or water, but Lynell heard rumors that the neighborhood might get it back. What upsets her most is that St. Bernard Parish, which suffered as much damage if not more and is right down the road, has running water and it has power in spots.

Next to regret, rumor has sprouted bountifully. Rumor is all the 9th Ward runs on these days. “I heard they might be getting the power and the water on,” said Lynell with a skeptical smile on her face and shrug of her shoulders.

City Hall has not contacted her, and she has no idea what they might tell her when they do. There have been rumors that no one will be allowed to rebuild. That is what worries her the most. “It’s not like they, (City Hall), don’t know who owns the house,” she said, adding all that she wants is some answers and a plan for the future.

“It’s a wait and see situation,” she said pensively.

Why ever would they hold Mardi Gras?

Many people have ridiculed New Orleans’ observance of Mardi Gras this year, saying that we are callous to celebrate a frivolous holiday while so many still suffer. Even many who were exiled to other cities by the floodwaters of Katrina decried the annual fete. What many fail to realize is the importance of Carnival in New Orleans.

In the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Op/ed section, an anonymous gentleman wrote: “Unfortunately, I think New Orleans’ fathers are in denial. Rather than pump large sums into a tourist party (which I for one would not go to this year if you paid me because of the shape the city is in), they should be working on raising the city so that another Category 4 or, heaven forbid, a Category 5 hurricane does not do the same damage next year. I gave at the office and am still giving to help folks get on their feet, but I have no desire to throw money out the window just to make it comfortable for folks to get drunk and display body parts.”

Several ubiquitous elements are at work in this harangue, and the central element is one that shows just how great the gulf is between New Orleans and the rest of the nation, as outsiders still do not get what Carnival is about. This is evidenced when other cities attempt to have Mardi Gras, as it often unravels into civil unrest. Also, the city is rarely understood by the casual outsider, depicted a den of sin, loose morals, and good food; it is a hodgepoge of hedonsim. Nonetheless, the city has survived for centuries as a cultural island, where things go on that one would never find anywhere else; it has a European aura in the Deep South. New Orleans relishes in this sentiment, as it prides itself on its unique, funky, and aloof charm. Perhaps, that is the problem, New Orleans just isn't American enough? Not enough to be a rallying point for the nation.

What the gentlemen’s letter misses is that the nation has forgotten us. No longer front page news, we are dying on the vine. Even the president, the one who stood in Jackson Square and promised to do whatever it takes to rebuild, refuses to guarantee Category 5 hurricane protection. That is scary, especially 6 months after Katrina and with hurricane season just around the corner.

Ultimately, New Orleans is on its own, so Tuesday morning it did what does best: forget its worries and throw a party. Throwing parties is also good business. Not only did area businesses that were hanging on by a thread need Mardi Gras as a shot in the arm, it was a catharsis for the citizens. A palpable sense of survival, defiance could be felt all throughout the day. A city screaming together, “We are alive.” It was a renewed pulse for a city that had long been declared dead.

For 150 years, the Crescent City has held Mardi Gras. Since its inception, it has been the season of the Id, whereby satire, mirth, and music is used to celebrate the last gasp of fun before the clock strikes midnight, thus beginning solemnity of Lent. While television would have the average outsider believe that “Girls Gone Wild,” where women expose themselves salaciously, is the height of Fat Tuesday, there are important cultural traditions that come each and every year on Mardi Gras.

Also in the gentlemen’s letter is that New Orleans is at the mercy of the rest of America for alms to rebuild, thus requiring New Orleanians to check their behavior in order to receive charity. Like an alcoholic or dope fiend, we must kick our nasty habits before receiving any counseling, and we must suddenly forget our wicked ways and straighten up if we are to deserve the benevolence of our brothers and sisters. That goes especially for throwing a frivolous party.

This attitude was conspicuously absent in New York after 9/11, as people adorned their bumpers and windows with stickers imploring Americans to not forget that awful day in September. Most people, lunatic preachers aside, did judge not New Yorkers. New Yorkers were not told to cancel their annual Thanksgiving parade. Instead, they were encouraged by the nation, as it was seen as a symbol of defiance. However, New Orleans was hit by a natural disaster; a faceless enemy, not some bearded man wielding an AK-47 in grainy, obscure videos conjuring unified hatred.

A milieu of laissez le bon temps roule (let the good times roll) has pervaded the city’s eclectic charm for as long as the annual celebration. This, however, has been condemned by outsiders, portraying us as slothful, drunken louts. While that criticism might not be completely off the mark, New Orleanians must laugh at themselves, and Mardi Gras is important time of year for us to do that, this year we needed self-deprecation more than ever.

Those that suggested New Orleans not hold Mardi Gras were met with scathing rebukes from locals. Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson wrote: “I found this show-must-go-on consensus jarring, but I should have thought back to my time as a correspondent for The Washington Post covering South America, specifically Brazil, and remembered just how important the tradition of pre-Lenten carnival can be to a society. Carnival in Brazil is more than an officially sanctioned bacchanal, it's more like a national birthright - a guaranteed, weeklong interlude during which lots of inhibiting rules are suspended, most societal barriers are ignored and all manner of oppressive problems are deferred.”

Robinson’s comparison of Brazil and New Orleans does hold water. Mardi Gras is essential to New Orleans’ identity; it a central part of what the city is. Ask many locals, and they too, would say it is a birthright of the city, and the lessening of social norms and barriers as the streets come alive with music and utter insanity is part of that birthright. Perhaps Robinson’s most stinging criticism is that all of the frivolity does little to solve the problems that plagued New Orleans.

But Mardi Gras is not about solving problems, it is about brass bands in the streets, parades, Mardi Gras Indians, and Skull Krewes. It is a chance to mock our politicians. For one day, that fleeting moment, the tables are turned, as satire becomes king. This year there was no lack of targets. Former FEMA head Michael Brown, Ray “Chocolate City” Nagin, the beleaguered Kathleen Blanco, and, as always, the President were targets of merriment. However, with what many have gone through, New Orleanians needed the day to laugh at the state of things, lest we cry. It was a chance to forget for one day.

Today, as the city’s coffers are little fuller, many of us awoke—this writer included—with an awful hangover and the same problems that plagued us before the storm. But we are still here to live with the problems rather than washed away in Katrina’s wake, and this year we celebrated that we are alive.

Special thanks to the All-Indian Krewe of Pushpa, Veena, Rajiv, and Rajesh for helping with pictures and providing a great time for Mardi Gras. Remember to click on the photos to see enhanced shots.