Second Harvest Column - 4/19/07

New Orleans. I am writing from a conference of America’s Second Harvest central region food banks. We are staying in the French Quarter where things are getting back to normal. In fact, the French Quarter Festival is happening this weekend and people are pouring in. The French Quarter doesn’t look so different than it did when I visited a few years ago. The elevation saved it.

Not so far away in St. Bernard’s Parish and the lower 9th Ward near the Industrial Canal, things are not so good. We traveled through the area on the way to the hotel and were awed at how going on two years post-Katrina neighborhoods remain uninhabitable.

 
It is a gruesome sight. Neighborhoods are gone. Houses remain - but people are gone. The houses are a sight – some are boarded but many stand with windows and doors open or missing. You can peer into the homes as you drive by and see water sogged mattresses and heaps of trash. In many cases you see nothing. Water has swept them clean.

 
Schools and churches still standing have second floor windows announcing that everything that was moved to higher floors nearly two years ago is still there. Out of the blue you see a home that has been repaired and the yard landscaped. It is almost startling to see it standing there looking so good when as far as you can see on either side of the street other homes are empty, battered, drab and dark.

New Orleans musicians are repairing and refurbishing Fats Domino’s home. Unfortunately it sits amid devastation – a bright spot in the hearts of the city’s residents but an ‘oh my gosh’ to an outsider touring through town wondering how anybody would be able to live in such a neighborhood.

FEMA trailers are tucked in here and there in front of, beside of, and behind houses. Some continue to shelter families, others are waiting to be removed. The war zone feeling of the place is accentuated because you see so few people. Even the few FEMA parks seem quiet.

What a horrible quandary New Orleans has to face. What do they do with these neighborhoods? There is no reason to rebuild schools and businesses when the neighborhoods are devoid of people. How can homeowners move back? Where will poor people find the funds to rebuild? How about the terrible impact of the disaster on these people – do they want to come back under any circumstances?

John Keller spoke to us at lunch. His story is being filmed as a documentary that you will want to see. Overlaid with the tour of destroyed neighborhoods, his voice became the voice of the tens of thousands of people who were caught in the fury of the storm.  He is one of the great heroes of that historic moment. He could have gotten safely out early on but chose to stay and help elderly, sick people who were stranded. He is known as the “Can Man” in the city.

 A young black man who served as a Marine in Kuwait and Iraq, John’s story illuminates everything we love in our heroes – bravery, courage, decisiveness, compassion and action. He told us the story through tears and humility, still struggling with the way racism touched the rescue operation.

Tune into the news in New Orleans and you hear discussions every night about things pertaining to post-Katrina. The plans on what to do and how to do it are constantly being formulated and discussed. The regional food bank here reports that nearly half of the pantries and meal programs they supported before the hurricane are up and running now. One of the largest continued to operate out of tent until a month ago, serving 10,000 people a month. Since moving into a building the number served increased to 18,000. Reports are that the increase is due to poor people moving back home but having no home to move into and no resources to provide for themselves.

It is a dire situation but like all problems in America, it can be fixed. Mainly we have to remember New Orleans. We have to keep our hearts and minds open to solutions and be prepared to take action when we can. Work groups looking for mission projects, keep New Orleans in mind. There are schools and churches, businesses and homes that must be rebuilt and people who need you to hear their stories and stand beside them as they remake their lives. Go and help. Go and spend money. This long recovery is far from over.