I, too, visited NO in the post-Katrina era and was horrified by the destruction which, in turn, fractured communities. More survivors who escaped the storm's wreckage are reportedly returning to a city that has somehow managed to retain its cultural roots despite an unforgiving Mother Nature. However, high crime remains a factor and housing prices have since skyrocketed, shutting many of its former inhabitants out.

Rebuilding NO is akin to saving GM but the wheels of capital will always roar the loudest.

Well, I figure GM is soul-less and New Orleans is the city with the most authentic hand-me-down street culture and soul in the whole country. So that makes me sympathetic.

Prices soared in the high ground along the river right after Katrina, but now there are less expensive opportunities in the areas being rebuilt. Should the lower areas be rebuilt? It's already happening. Can families return home? Some have, some have given up and moved on. Will most of the city be gone in the long run? Perhaps. Right now it's a center of completely audacious hope, once you get into the neighborhoods.

Love the pictures; love the (not coincidentally) blues. Please post more. "Drowned tragedy" for sure.

Was last in NO before Katrina by a few months. Hurricane aftermath broke/breaks my heart. Intend to retire there. Unhappy about the home prices skyrocketing; and the neighborhoods Not being rebuilt. NO should secede and become the province of Quebec. Then we'd take care of business.

I know what you mean. I miss New Orleans.

Gail - thank you for this. I get my daily dose of updates on Facebook from my NOLA friends and family and my quarterly doses of NOLA je-ne-sais-quoi with visits, but it is important to keep it in the public's eye.

BTW - there was quite a dust-up on www.nola.com over the wording of President Obama's White House web page on day one -

Under the "agenda" portion of the site regarding Katrina, it reads: "President Obama will keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. He and Vice President Biden will take steps to ensure that the federal government will never again allow such catastrophic failures in emergency planning and response to occur."

well...then...

as you can tell, this is a subject near and dear to my heart...I was there in November 2005 (the year the storm hit) and took 273 pictures in a single day, including the 9th ward, and the damage that 10 feet of water did to my Mom's house and neighborhood in NO East (I will get around to posting some of these here sometime)

you are right, there are still vast areas of abandonment, but it is slowly coming back together and is still a vibrant and vital community

Lisa

I was in NO two years ago and was appalled at how little had been done to rebuild the city. I stayed in the French Quarter, and half the shops were closed. I salute the citizens of NO who are rebuilding, and pray for a time when the city regains its austere audaciousness.

Its definitely one of the most interesting cities in the US, because like all cities its culturally bastardized, but small enough to have distinct and unique characteristics. French, Black, Native American, Jazz, blues, Gumbo, Creole. The Mississippi and funeral dirges. Other cities seem alike in comparison, other than a few monuments. New Orleans, is New Orleans. If only they had a financial district, while we are on the subject of BAIL OUTS. I guess you have to be a billionaire to have friends in government.

I hope you'll post more. Stories and photos of Katrina's aftereffects touch me tremendously. I cannot believe that three and half years later, things are still such a disaster there. The response to Hurricane Katrina has got to be the greatest embarrassment ever for our country. It's unfathomable that we can't take care of our own citizens. Sad, evocative photos, Gail.

more, please. incredible art and a reminder we all need.

I haven't forgotten and will never forget! Thank you for this and finding beauty amidst the destruction.

I'm sorry to say that re-building New Orleans is probably pointless. Yes, it's a wonderful city. I've been there, too. But its location below sea level is ridiculous, and it's only a matter of time before another huge storm hits. As a news report recently pointed out, "Global warming is even worse than expected." I was reading the scientists' predictions 30 years ago that predicted all that is happening now: huge storms, one after another, extreme weather such as tornadoes in February, massive flooding, hot weather in cold places and vice versa, on and on....and they were right!

The Indians told the French not to build New Orleans at its present location, just as I'm sure no Indian would settle on Florida's hurricane-ravaged coast or on the banks of most rivers. But they were ignorant savages, and the white man knew best, of course. Western civilization has always tried to control nature, but then, nature always gets the last laugh. We can expect the kind of winter we're having now from now on....and the summer should be a cooker! Nothing can change things now, and the polar bear and Emperor penquin, among the 30% or so of plant and animal species to be extinguished by global warming, will disappear within a few decades, if not long before. Then there's the effect on business, transportation, food production, on and on.....it's going to be ugly, I'm afraid.

As I read the title of your post, I thought about how so many people have already forgotten. They forgot so soon that is why the city is still in the same condition. I was planning to go to New Orleans(for the first time) in January 2006 but when Katrina occurred, I had to cancel my trip.

I am not sure if the flava will be the same if/when the city is rebuilt. What fathoms me is this: How can a country that is 'supposed' to be the richest one do this to their own? I also want to know, why/how the Saints{oh how befitting (the football team)} could celebrate when the rest of the city looks like poo (shit). I guess that's one of those mysteries we will never know, like which came first the chicken or the egg.

If were going to spend 700 billion on a stimulus, how about Bourbon street instead of Wall Street?

The fact that Gov Jindal will be refusing federal money when his largest city is still suffering is criminal. Talk about putting politics ahead of all else.... what governor in his right mind wouldn't do everything possible to rebuild his/her number one tourist destination?? It is just completely illogical.

As for those who state we shouldn't rebuild, I disagree. California has earthquakes, mudslides and fires. Florida and the gulf coast has hurricanes. The midwest has tornadoes and flooding. Shit happens and it's ridiculous to try to only build where nothing will ever happen.

Besides the entire country of Holland in below sea level, and they seem to be doing just fine, thank you. That is because they have built 10k year levees to protect their lands. Too bad we are too short sited to ever fund anything like that.

Powerful pictures. I missed this one before. Sorry I'm late.

I remember riding in a train past the devastation. We rode past it for a very long time. And it was a year later. Awful.

the top photo is stunning - colors, composition...and having the story behind it makes it so poignant. thanks for these pics.

On talk radio the other day, I heard a caller claim that jewelry sales were “through the roof” in New Orleans after Katrina. The host said, “That’s where all the money went.” I was incensed. I know hundreds of New Orleanians, and not one of them walked around flashing new jewelry after Katrina. Those jerks can spin it, and make it something other than what it was - a tragedy. They try to blame the victims so it becomes OK to forget.

I can never forget, for one.

If you want my whole story, it’s at:
http://open.salon.com/blog/denise_leblanc-bock/2008/08/26/tales_of_a_middle_class_katrina_evacuee

Oh, and nice pics.

Yes, I'd like.

I don't think New Orleans will be quite the same in my lifetime, if ever. Something was lost. How could it not be? The devastation was too huge not to have a profound impact on the city. There were just too many deaths, too many horrors, too much abandonment by the rest of the nation.

It won't be the same, but it isn't entirely different, either. The French Quarter, which did not flood, is in full swing. The people of New Orleans are still... all those things they've always been. We tend to think of New Orleans as if it is an island, but it is part of the rich culture of Southern Louisiana. There are more where them NOLA people came from. Thank heavens.

But the city--and Southern Louisiana--still need help and as karinb says, the new Republican darling, Bobby Jindal, is going to turn down some of the stimulus money, as is Haley Barbour, Mississippi's sorry excuse for a governor. For the life of me I will never understand the self-destructive voting practices of people in my part of the world :(

I, too, have been to N.O., and it's a fabulous city, but do we really think another Katrina won't happen in New Orleans? As the Indians told the French, "You're building where?!!"

Now that the effects of global warming are accelerating, just as scientists predicted 30 years ago, it's only a matter of time. Storms such as Katrina are going to become routine, I'm afraid....and there's no re-building New Orleans....I suggest N.O. moves!!

It's good to hear, that sense of renewal you speak of. How important OS can be, for this reason. To get first-hand accounts of special places, as if from a friend.

Excerpt from The Beatitudes: A Pinch and Scrimp Adventure by Lyn LeJeune, amazon.com in both Kindle and book. A book for and about New Orleans (proceeds go to The New Orleans Public Library Foundation)

She had grown up in a New Orleans housing project shamefully named Desire. Desire had been constructed in an isolated area northwest of greater New Orleans, bordered by industrial canals and railroad tracks. Pinch often recounted her nights as a young child lying on the floor under a matted blanket listening to gunshots in the night. Desire had been built in the late 40s over the Hideaway Club where Fats Domino had played his first gigs. Pinch swore she could hear Fats sing “My Blue Heaven” just for her. As Pinch’s childhood tumbled forward, she learned survival skills. By the age of twelve, she had tried just about every street drug going and stole to keep from going hungry, acquiring the nickname Pinch. She would have been doomed to a child’s death but for the help of an aged aunt. Pinch pulled herself up, finished high school, and made it through college by working sometimes two shifts as a housekeeper in seedy hotels that bordered the Ninth Ward. A city auditor once asked her why she hadn’t worked in the Lafayette Square District or the famous 625 St. Charles suites. “You could have paid for a Ph.D. with the tips alone.” And she replied: “Well, I guess ‘dis sista just feeling mo’ secure wid da brothers. Ozanam Inn be my place, homeless peoples and all.” Then she rubbed his arm. The poor guy broke out in a sweat, brushed his thinning hair back with an aged-spotted trembling hand, and looked at me for intervention. Later I asked Pinch why she’d stuck it to the auditor; she shrugged her shoulders and replied: “I guess just every once and a while I have to remind myself where I come from. Pride has many forms, love.” Pinch had overcome. She was the bravest person I ever knew.

Elijah Rising