The House in The 9th Ward

by Raymond Thomson

The city is recovering … parts of the city. As you might expect, the wealthy areas and tourist/commercial zone of the French Quarter are looking the best; these areas are located on the highest ground, so they suffered the least amount of damage (people with money always gravitate to the most desirable locations). Even in these areas though, there are still abandoned and damaged buildings scattered around.

We’ve been combing a neighborhood called Gentilly/Sugar Hill for the past few days, looking for and talking to people with FEMA issued trailers. Katrina damaged this neighborhood pretty badly, but not nearly as bad as the Ninth Ward across the canal, where the worst flooding occurred.

Here and there, we’ve seen a few houses that appear to be repaired and inhabited. The grapevine has it that the people with those houses had good insurance coverage and enough money stashed away on top of that so they could repair their homes. But the people we’ve been talking to are generally living on limited means. Everyone I’ve interviewed was told they didn’t need flood insurance, since the neighborhood was not supposed to be vulnerable to floods. The broken levees changed all that of course. With only small payments from the non-flood insurance, there is no money available to make repairs.

I estimate that at least 90 percent of the homes are not habitable, and most of those are abandoned. Only a few have trailers in front; occupied by people who want to repair their home, but have not been able to do so. Some have made more progress than others. Some people I’ve spoken with don’t have much hope that they can afford to make repairs at all. But they are holding out anyway, hoping that government aid will finally come through with the needed funds.

It’s frustrating me that our group is unable to provide them with any meaningful aid. Hopefully, the survey data we’re collecting will be put to good use somehow, but being the cynic that I am, I find this doubtful. If appropriate resources have not been allocated a full year and a half since the disaster, it means those with the power to help simply don’t care. I don’t think a few statistics will change their minds. All it takes is to open your eyes to see what the conditions are like. Maybe a different presidential administration will see things differently in 2009. America is by far the richest, most powerful country in the world; there is no excuse for what has happened here.