After Katrina, One Block's Herculean Task
MARY FOSTER
Associated Press Writer
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- A plastic bag floats down the street, tumbling through a landscape as deserted as any movie ghost town.
Hurricane Katrina first bombarded, then flooded this block of modest buildings in the Gert Town section of New Orleans, from Marjories Lounge on one end to Gloria's Restaurant (``Home of the $1 Breakfast'') on the other.
A brown line runs across every building in the block of Broadway from Earhardt to Colapissa, showing where the flood water sat for weeks. It climbs over the few cars on the block and almost to the roof of a van.
The storm decorated the street with black roof shingles and dried mud. Wires still snarl the sidewalk where a toppled telephone pole lies. Trash fills the yards -- a little girl's Barbie doll, clothing, a basketball hoop.
The bright orange circles that searchers left deface the houses, the X inside them indicating that no one was found, alive or dead. Two and a half months after the storm, there is still no one here.
``There's no way to live in my house now,'' said Shirley Jackson, 68, who lived on the street for 30 years. ``It will have to be torn down and start over.''
Jackson, who evacuated to Jackson, Miss., has seen her house only once; she found nothing to salvage, not even personal treasures.
``It's trash now,'' she said. ``Drowned or blown away.''
Even the pets are gone now.
Spray-painted messages from the Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals detail animals removed from the houses. One, on a house with an opened bag of dog food and water on the porch, reads, ``Tan pit bull under house.'' A dog, hardly more than a puppy, emerges eager for company, its tail wagging. A day later it's gone, too.
Many of the doors along the street stand open. A huge television, now ruined, covers much of a wall in one living room. In another, dog feces dot the floor and the matching couches. In a third, furniture is overturned and mold grows on the floor and walls.
``I have mold on everything,'' said Dorothy Warren, 34, who evacuated to Dallas with her mother and five children, ages 6 to 18. ``It's even growing out of the mattresses.''
Warren and her family lived on the street for five years. She made a hurried trip back in early October, just long enough to cry over her losses.
``I'm really scared,'' she said. ``I don't want my children to see the house like that. We stayed there until the water came in, then had to wade out through it. I thought we were going to die before they got us out.''
They are now settled, at least temporarily, into a Dallas house and her children are enrolled in school there.
``I want to come back,'' Warren said. ``I don't want to live the rest of my life in Dallas. But it probably won't be for two or three years. I don't have anything there now. No house or job and my family is scattered all over.''
Doris Williams, 63, was evacuated by helicopter, ending up in Baton Rouge. Williams owns two houses on the block. She's lived in one for 35 years, raising two sons.
``The people are very, very concerned about each other,'' Williams said. ``It's a nice community. Everyone looks out for each other.''
The people who lived on this block are black and mostly working class. Williams and Jackson are retired. Warren worked at Wendy's for the past 10 years.
The street was always filled with life, Williams said -- kids playing football or basketball, adults sitting on porches talking.
``It was a peaceful area,'' Jackson said. ``We used to sit out and talk to the neighbors until midnight, just catching up on things after being inside or at work all day.''
Now, every house has flood damage, most are missing roofs and many have other problems.
Because of the extensive flooding, electricity and gas to the area can't be restored until the houses have been inspected by the bureau of safety and permits, said Entergy spokesman Chanel Lagarde. And Sally Forman of the mayor's office said a group of inspectors from the New Orleans housing, safety and health departments also must inspect the houses.
Jackson, who rents, said she may look for a house near her daughter in nearby Jefferson Parish or stay in Mississippi for the time being.
``I'm looking at maybe two or three years, but I'll be back,'' Jackson said. ``I'm going to come back.''
Williams will repair her houses, but she's not sure she'll move back. She's buying a house in Baton Rouge, where she has family.
``The neighborhood would really change if all new people moved there,'' Williams said. ``I hope that doesn't happen. But who knows now? We don't even know where everyone is.''
