What a difficult two days...
Sunday morning I picked up a U-Haul, loaded up my parents' dog (who I've been keeping with me for the last week so he wouldn't have to stay in the kennel anymore where he was a hurricane refugee) and drove to New Orleans. The trip is about 30-45 miles longer now that the I-10 Twin Span across the eastern edge of Lake Ponchartrain is gone. The dog was surprisingly well behaved. I say surprisingly, because all week long it has seemed as though he existed only to annoy, pester, and piss me off. There was some yelling and some vomiting on carpets and some unwelcome sitting on couches. And there will be some follow-up steam cleaning. But he's gone, so I'm happy.
I got in yesterday evening and took a brief tour. The damage was worse than I expected in some places and not as bad as I expected in others. Now, this is on the West Bank, which did not experience the extreme flooding of most other areas of the city. Unfortunately, when trees poke holes in roofs or large portions of your roof disappear during an event like Katrina, the water damage seriously messes up your house. My grandmother's house, for example, will need to be gutted, and was well along that path when I arrived to pick up some furniture so I can finally pimp out my bedroom and fill up the empty bedroom.
So this morning I was up at 7:00 am to finish the job of going through my old bedroom closet to find anything I wanted to keep. At about 7:45 I had all the boxes packed in the truck and headed over to my grandmother's to load furniture. We finished up fairly quickly, at about 11:00. But still, it was pretty tiring. I'm glad I got the bigger truck. I ate a lite lunch and then packed up the furniture I was taking from my parent's house and helped them move other furniture from my grandmother's upstairs. Then I helped load their car with stuff they're going to take to Houston tomorrow morning. By the time I showered it was only about 4:00, so I decided that I'd rather be home tonight instead of tomorrow. This way I can go to work and still have time to line up assistance emptying the truck and hauling furniture upstairs in my apartment tomorrow evening.
Looking around the old neighborhood, I couldn't help but feel like I was back in 1979. The gutted addition on the back of my parents' house helped, since that's when they were building it. But so many trees are gone or snapped in half that the neighborhood just looks younger, less mature. Except for the buildings, which now mostly look like they've been neglected for several years. Things could have been much worse, of course, but the damage done was not insignificant. Almost every house in the neighborhood needs either roofing repairs or a new roof. Almost every house has some water damage, somewhere around a quarter to a third have some structural damage from trees. It may be more, but you can't really see most people's backyards to know if there's damage back there.
Some older apartments will have to be demolished, the damage is so extensive. More later with pictures.
I got in yesterday evening and took a brief tour. The damage was worse than I expected in some places and not as bad as I expected in others. Now, this is on the West Bank, which did not experience the extreme flooding of most other areas of the city. Unfortunately, when trees poke holes in roofs or large portions of your roof disappear during an event like Katrina, the water damage seriously messes up your house. My grandmother's house, for example, will need to be gutted, and was well along that path when I arrived to pick up some furniture so I can finally pimp out my bedroom and fill up the empty bedroom.
So this morning I was up at 7:00 am to finish the job of going through my old bedroom closet to find anything I wanted to keep. At about 7:45 I had all the boxes packed in the truck and headed over to my grandmother's to load furniture. We finished up fairly quickly, at about 11:00. But still, it was pretty tiring. I'm glad I got the bigger truck. I ate a lite lunch and then packed up the furniture I was taking from my parent's house and helped them move other furniture from my grandmother's upstairs. Then I helped load their car with stuff they're going to take to Houston tomorrow morning. By the time I showered it was only about 4:00, so I decided that I'd rather be home tonight instead of tomorrow. This way I can go to work and still have time to line up assistance emptying the truck and hauling furniture upstairs in my apartment tomorrow evening.
Looking around the old neighborhood, I couldn't help but feel like I was back in 1979. The gutted addition on the back of my parents' house helped, since that's when they were building it. But so many trees are gone or snapped in half that the neighborhood just looks younger, less mature. Except for the buildings, which now mostly look like they've been neglected for several years. Things could have been much worse, of course, but the damage done was not insignificant. Almost every house in the neighborhood needs either roofing repairs or a new roof. Almost every house has some water damage, somewhere around a quarter to a third have some structural damage from trees. It may be more, but you can't really see most people's backyards to know if there's damage back there.
Some older apartments will have to be demolished, the damage is so extensive. More later with pictures.
posted by Karaoke Joe at 12:31 AM
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