best friends animal societynew orleans

From Feb 8th to the 16th, 2006 I was able to take a trip to Celebration Station to help out at a Best Friends animal adoption. I was with Los Angeles Staff Billy Criswell and newly minted LA Volunteer Pavel. This is the in-site location that Best Friends ran while they were in New Orleans. I was able to go out into the 9th Ward a few times to see how the devastation was still present, as well as to get a small glimpse of folks who were in the area.

Just want to also note that while so much focus has been on the folks who lost homes and animals in New Orleans, FYI, the huge majority of damage done by Hurrican Katrina and Rita were to Missisppii and the other Gulf States.

Landing in New Orleans

Hanging in the entrance of the airport. These shirts are for sale in many spots all over New Orleans, especially in the Bourbon Street and the French Quarter areas. Those sites weren't hit too badly. I saw flooding lines up to about 2 feet max, though in some areas is was worse.

General Debrii

Such strong winds and water damage, denuding huge trees that are nearly 4 stories high, now knocked on their sides. The water weakens the soil consistency, essentially making it like quicksand. All that is needed then is a gentle push to topple this tree. The roots are about 25 feet in diameter. Besides the general distruction of the man-made objects, it seemed to me that the positions of the upturned tree roots and broken branches here have an uncanny resemblance to hands grasping. General debrii of some childs championship or awards statue. Half buried bottle of tobasco. Random sets of dishes. I have no clue as to what the S in the stone block refers to. Maybe the homeowners initial. Me being a techy guy, I just had to take pics of this and the next one. This Gateway computer got buried! I found this vhs tape. Perhaps it's too morbid a picture, but I felt it should be included. On a side note, notice that there are all those seashells surrounding it. All over the disaster area were thousands of these shells in the homes and in the streets. /

The "Barge"

The infamous barge that broke through the levy and flooded the lower 9th ward. This is the front of the barge. Just for scale, the house to the left was a two story home, and had about only half the footprint than the barge. This is the view from the on top of the rubble of the house, facing the barge. The 'no trespassing' sign is there because of taggers who would just spray paint it. During the day it'd be fine, but at night, while there is a curfew and no one is allowed in the lower 9th Ward then, still there are folks who hoof it to loot the homes. One of the more odd pictures is of this house debri found here. There is an urban rumour that bodies were found there, that folks were in the house that was crushed. This is a mailbox that seems to lend credence that the barge landed on a house, unfortunately, this is also right in the middle of the road, so is there enough space to have a house across the street in between the levee and the homes that are on the other side of the street? This is another picture to show scale. On the far left is Billy Criswell, walking along looking at paw prints of roaming animals.

School Bus

This is the school bus trapped under the barge as the waters receded. Luckily no one was in it. Rear shot of the bus. The interior of the bus. Like so much of the outside areas, there was loads of clay that covered the floors. I had to take this photo of my Mary Miller who was taking a video of a gentleman who was painting the bus that was trapped underneath the barge. 3 Mediums. The man has done a few different paintings in the days that I was there.

Housing

Homes that have been wiped clean off the foundations. Empty lots of homes. There seems to be very little rhyme or reason as to why houses were cleared off the foundation or filled with debri. Many homes very close to the levy were just packed with debrii of fallen houses, while a couple of miles away, they were clean off. It's probably that the empty lot homes were of much poorer construction, with no real foundation constructed to speak of. There were a lot of areas that had broken pipes of running water. Most of the water is contaminated because the sewer lines and the feeding pipes have been smashed and mixed in. Unfortunately, many of the stray animals that were running loose drank from such waters. You can see how the water just weakens the framing supports of the house, and then the pressure and weight of stuff just pushes at the house like folding a piece of paper. Just more of the general houses being washed out. Funny for me is how folks have tried to get great pictures for whatever reason, and seem to feel the need to place items like the castle statue up front on top of the wall siding. I mean, maybe it did land there, but the cynic in me doesn't think so. Another shot of the SUV and the house from the previous picture. At first, I took this shot because of all the various tags that rescuers had done on the house. It was visited four times. Then I saw the 'drug free' sign on the street post. Just struck me as funny. Crazy crazy situation here. The rushing water must have been so quick that it just sheared off the bottom half of the house, and the rest just flopped down. With the flood waters just grabing anything in its path, there were two boats that I saw in people's yards. The train tracks in the background were running. As human rescuers would go through the abandoned homes, they would mark them in a code that would indicate what was found there. This is an org that set up shop here to help residents who are trying to return or who haven't still left the area and need help. I know that they are doing good, but unfortunately there seems to be a lot of opprobrious folks. While I was there, this car drives up, a nice clean washed/polished benz. Out of the car comes three folks who proceded to talk with the folks running Common Ground. When they leave, they take a bunch of towels and some other small sundry items that CG has left for folks to use. It may be just my cycnism, but those folks really didn't need more towels. I get the feeling that they just like to take freebies, regardless of folks who are definately and obviously in more need of such items. But that's just me.

Entering the homes

One of many signs posted by the city. It says that: DEPARTMENT OF SAFETY AND PERMITS CITY OF NEW ORLEANS Contact numbers 504-658-7200 504-658-7130 This structure is unsafe and its use or occupancy has been prohibited by the building official. Interior shot of House # 1918. As you can see, there is a lot of that mud caked all over the floor. Another room in House # 1918. That dried mud, when it was wet, is very toxic and would burn through rescuers soles of their shoes. Even breathing it in as dust particulates is not advised.

Street Level

This was a common if odd scene all over the 9th Ward, that of vehicles at all the street corners. One of many residuals of mass transit. The streets are clear of debrii because the city had bulldozers and giant shovelers moving all the rubble off the streets to facilitate rebuilding and/or inspections. This sweet pic of car was taken right near the big barge, which is off camera behind me to the left. In the background is a nice hippy party can, and attached to it seemed to be remnants of a big float. No parking sign. Odd thing was that it was newly placed and ziptied in, but there was about 10 feet of rubble surrounding it, so I couldn't see how a vehicle could be parked nearby or not. I must mention since Best Friends is in the animal rescue and adoption business, that everyone kept an eye out for fresh dog prints. It would indicate where we would need to send out a rescue team or traps to the location.

Levy Building

Here are workers going over the grading of the new levy site. Later that week, now we are getting big machines leveling and digging big holes. On the last day, the 16th, they started pounding in these huge support pylons. Eventually these will be the bases where the cement for the actual levy will be built on. In the distance is the blue Florida Avenue Bridge, which is a vertical lift bridge.

Finally leaving

This is what I looked like after I struggled and got taken down by TSA. But forget about that. Isn't that cool backpack that guy hs in the background? How'd it glow like that?

For more info and other stuff, take a look at the Best Friends Animal Society network. I am registered there as 'consul'.