Hurricane Katrina Damage

New Orleans, Louisiana - 9 Months After the Storm

May 12th 2006 - New Orleans, Louisiana

In May 2006 I travelled with the crew from Cloud 9 into the hardest hit areas of New Orleans and found that the Lower 9th Ward was still a complete disaster area. Even nine months after the levees broke during hurricane Katrina, some areas looked like an earthquake had hit there the day before with tremendous destruction still very widespread even after all this time. Many of the richer neighborhoods were rebuilt but some of the poorer, hardest hit parts will still be a mess for months or perhaps years. At the height of the flood, about 80% of the city was under water.

Debris piled in the Lower Ninth Ward.	The entire neighborhood had similar damage.	Floodwaters had swept entire houses off their foundations.	Entire houses were dropped on top of cars!!	Boats were still piled up at the yacht club.

Cars flipped totally upside-down.	Limousine on top of cars.	A boat on top of cars.	block after block of complete devastation	Numerous cars tossed like toys.

Debris piled up against a flipped truck.	Me, filming a house that was dropped on a car by the flood.	A local's commentary on the media coverage of the disaster.	Somehow, this staircase ended up on top of this truck.	Spray painted signs left behind by the search & rescue teams.

An obliterated gas station.	More boats piled up like toys.	Water level marks show that only the roofs were above water.	There were many clear indicators of how high the floodwaters reached at each house.	A damage home right near where one of the levees breached.

	Personal messages left behind by those who fled the storm.	Bourbon Street lamp post in the French Quarter, still bent from the storm.	The infamous Superdome, in desperate need of some repair.

 

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