The New Hampshire

Issue date: 3/27/07 Section: News

Media Credit: John Reilly A scene from New Orleans over spring break.

Hurricane Katrina's landfall on August 29, 2005 was the most catastrophic day in our country's history. In one day, 90,000 square miles of land, an area roughly the size of the United Kingdom was devastated. A total of 118 square miles of coast was lost forever and 1836 people were killed. The hurricane itself and the subsequent failure of the New Orleans levees led to the destruction of 851,000 homes. In Louisiana alone, 2.5 million people received FEMA assistance after the hurricane. Certainly more lives were lost on Dec. 6, 1941 and on Sept. 11, 2001 and both of these events served as catalysts for wars; but more was destroyed and more was lost on Aug. 29, 2005, a lot more. Before Hurricane Katrina, the scale of destruction seen on a single day in New Orleans and in Mississippi could have only been caused war. Millions of people are struggling right now in New Orleans, Mississippi and spread across the country, with the storm's effects on their lives.

I went back to New Orleans 133 days after evacuating from the city on Jan. 7, 2006. This time I saw New Orleans first from the road, driving in from the east on I-10, the coastal interstate that connects Florida to California. The I-10 bridge over Lake Pontchartrain, connecting the north and south shores of the lake was immovable and enormous. It is as wide as the I-95 bridge across the Piscataqua River connecting New Hampshire and Maine but 20 times longer.

On my return trip into the city I saw the bridge had been warped and ruined like a balsa wood bridge in shop class when one too many weights were attached. Its guardrails were missing, with rough, chewed concrete edges where they had been anchored. Lengths of bridge decking, countless tons of concrete, steel and asphalt had been ripped from their pilings and dumped into the lake. That day, and presently, there are erector-set-like prefab metal spans to carry traffic across these huge holes.

On the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain, still about 30 minutes from New Orleans, the landscape is bleak and dismal. It's a swamp. Drainage ditches run alongside the road to catch and channel the water from the area's regular torrential rains. Small bushes and shrubs line the ditches on the side opposite the road. Beyond these shrubs, green grass and blue water weave together towards the horizon.

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