Today I have recieved news that the government in St. Bernard Parish has started demolishing houses damaged by Hurricane Katrina. After discussion with my wife, we have decided to add our own home to the list.
You can go to the St. Bernard Parish website for more information. If you click on Demolition Request List or Demolition Map on the right hand side, you can get a good idea of how many houses will be razed. The list is 73 pages long, and really left me cold when I read through it.
The St. Bernard Parish website is a useful place to see how a small community is dealing with the Katrina aftermath. This community had 68,000 people prior to the storm. The Parish now claims 20,000 are back but I seriously doubt it. Every structuce in the entire parish was damaged or destroyed by Katrina. It is doubtful that any place in Louisiana or Mississippi was harder-hit than my old neighborhood. What is greater than 100% destruction? The stats: 20,000 homes destroyed, 130 dead, 68,000 homelesss.
There is also a 30 minute video filmed during and shortly after Hurricane Katrina's landing. You may want to fast forward through a lot of it. The guy who created the video for some foolish reason decided to use pop songs about storms and floods as a soundtrack. This obscures some of the dialog and sounds from the video itself. Many pictures are out of focus, and the timeline is not very clear, but I believe all of it was shot between August 29 and September 14, 2005. There are pictures of dead bodies. Despite its many shortcomings, the film does convey the scope of the hurricane damage, and is worth at least a quick look.
If you go to the 26th minute, you will see a few intersting shots. There is a video of a train bringing in trailers for victims to live in. The line seems to go on forever. This is followed by two shots of the levee near the MRGO. The first shows gouges in the levee where the water overtopped. The second shot took place during the storm, and shows the water going over the levee. Keep in mind that this levee is 20 feet tall.