Return to New Orleans

I flew to New Orleans today, with my original reason being a work conference and of course my other reason being to find out how everyone is doing. When we arrived at the airport, I think we were the only plane on the tarmac. Most gates were empty, and there wasn’t much activity outside. Inside, the airport was relatively quiet compared to before Katrina too, although my trips to NOLA were usually to busy conventions that picked up the pace here. Al’s daughter Carolyn picked me up at the airport and drove me through some New Orleans-area neighborhoods—Kenner, Jefferson, Metairie, the 17th Street Canal area, Lakeview, the City Park Golf Course. The neighborhoods near the airport (west of NOLA) weren’t hit as hard by Katrina and didn’t flood. They seemed pretty normal and there was plenty of activity. As we got closer to the 17th Street Canal area, we started seeing empty houses, boarded-up houses, and houses that still had the red Xs on them from when they were searched post-Katrina.

Carolyn took me to Deanie’s excellent seafood restaurant in the Bucktown area of Metairie. It’s just a couple of blocks south of Lake Pontchartrain and a couple of blocks from the 17th Street Canal. This is the area that Kate’s paperwork said she came from, although I was later told that the rescuers who brought her in said she came from Plaquemines Parish. After I returned home from Louisiana in Sept 2005, I spent many hours poring over the online photos of this area. The levees were overtopped and/or breached and sandbags were brought in and placed by cranes to stop the flooding. I remember seeing photos that showed only the roofs of the houses above water. Carolyn told me that in the area near the canal, the water got to 6 feet deep.

The streets around Deanie’s were all broken up, probably from the flooding. There was a new row of huge pumps at the canal that, according to Carolyn, weren’t there before, and the canal walls appeared to her to be built up higher than before. In some places, the canal walls were right in the backyards of the homes and some of the homes had been rebuilt new—right next to the canals!! Other homes had not seen any attention since Katrina and were obviously empty. Some still had broken windows and were not secure. You could look right through them.

The food was fantastic and our waiter was very dynamic and friendly. I thought he was from New Jersey, but he told us that he was from Terrytown on the West Bank (across the river) and had lived in the NOLA area all his life. He then did some imitations of the guys from the different neighborhoods.

Over dinner, Carolyn and I got to know one another (we had not met before). Her father Al owned Bruce, the Golden Retriever who was fostered by my friend Sarah in Virginia. I remember Bruce the blind Golden Retriever from Lamar-Dixon. Carolyn told me about some of the dogs she and her husband had adopted over the years, all of them from shelters. We talked about Sarah, who had fostered and then adopted Bruce. Bruce was Carolyn’s father Al’s dog. Al stayed in his home with his two dogs, Bruce and Duke, and survived Hurricane Katrina. But Al and Duke died as a result of the flood that followed, and Bruce was later rescued. Carolyn thanked me for caring, which seems funny to those of us who were compelled to come here to help after Katrina, because we were so touched by the situation. I understand why she thanked me, but what kind of world is it when we have to thank one another for caring?

After dinner, we had our picture taken in front of Deanie’s. Then Carolyn drove further east to the City Park area. She showed me the place where her father had lived, although a new house has been built there now. I took a picture anyway. Duke is buried in the backyard. Most of the houses on that block are one story. The house next door has been razed and is now an empty lot. Along that street, there is a mixture of houses that have not been repaired and stand empty, some houses that have been re-built, and houses with FEMA trailers in the front yards, where people are living until they can get their houses repaired.

Next Carolyn continued further east to the Gentilly neighborhood, where she and her family used to live. She now lives in Hammond (north of Lake Pontchartrain) and had not been into the city for a while. She wanted to check on her old house and see if any work had been done. The neighbor had bought the house and was going to fix it up and rent it out. Carolyn still felt sentimental about the old homestead since her daughter had grown up there. Along the street, some houses had been rebuilt and some still had broken windows and were obviously vacant. Some homes had nice lawns with gardens, while next door there were piles of debris. Carolyn’s former red brick house appeared to be in good condition and there was a truck in the driveway. Someone was living there. She told me about how their renter had stayed through Katrina and had spent more than a day on the roof of the house until someone came in a boat to rescue him. It was locals helping locals at that point.

Next we drove further east to the cemetery where Al is buried. Carolyn told me that she doesn’t usually visit cemeteries and I told her it was up to her whether we would go. She seemed hesitant about it and I didn’t want to push her. I was interested in going to pay my respects and to go for Sarah, who had wanted to visit Al’s grave, but couldn’t make the trip at this time. The cemetery was at the corner of Canal Street and Canal Blvd. The gate was broken off, so we didn’t have to get the person from the coffee shop next door to let us in. Carolyn pointed out the grave sites in the stone wall, and how some of the stone had been broken out and the wall came open from the flooding. The cemetery was very old. She told me that Al’s plot, where her mother Joy had been buried in 1999, had been purchased in the 1930’s. It was at the corner where you could look through the wrought iron fence that stood between the two stone walls. She said that her dad had told her to “plant me in the corner”. I took some photos of the cemetery and of the grave stone with Al’s and Joy’s names. The stone was much newer than everything around it. Al’s death is listed as August 29, 2005 on the stone. They don’t know exactly when he died, but Bruce was found by his side over three weeks after Katrina. His daughter had tried to convince him to evacuate, but he refused. Then after Katrina, his daughters couldn’t reach him. Carolyn called rescue and was assured that his house had been checked. She called all over and couldn’t locate him anywhere. Carolyn and her family were staying with friends in California by then, but her sister drove to Louisiana and had to sneak into the neighborhood (they still were not letting people back in). She pried the boards off the window to get in and there she found her father deceased and Bruce by his side, still alive. Carolyn said that the water had reached three to four feet in that neighborhood. She thinks her father had a heart attack or stroke from the surprise and stress when the water came up. She doesn’t know how the elderly dog Bruce survived all that time. He was taken to Lamar-Dixon, where Sarah and I met him. Of all the hundreds or thousands of dogs that went through Lamar-Dixon, Bruce is one that I remember, the old blind Golden Retriever. My friend Sarah took him home and cared for him until Carolyn tracked him down through the internet. Over dinner, Carolyn told me of the difficult decision she made to let him stay with Sarah, who she had never met. She said that if not for Sarah, Bruce would not be alive today. Although many people had expressed an interest in caring for Bruce should something happen to Al, he had told Carolyn that the important thing was that Bruce be with someone who would give him a lot of love. She knew from talking with Sarah on the phone that Sarah and her family had fallen in love with Bruce and he had landed in a loving home. Sarah has since taken Bruce to nursing homes to visit the elderly. He is a very old dog and we’re not sure how he’s kept going this long, but he’s living a happy ending now.

Back to NOLA…It was beginning to get dark and Carolyn didn’t want to drive in the city after dark—she had a 50 mile drive to get home. So we headed down Canal Street toward my hotel in the French Quarter. Things were hopping in the Quarter, crazy as ever, with people in the streets and part of Bourbon Street blocked off. Poor Carolyn isn’t used to city driving any more and I don’t blame her for not wanting to drive in that area. We found my hotel and said goodbye. I’m so glad I got to meet her and hear more about her family, to have indirectly brought Sarah and Carolyn together. I’ll send the photos to Sarah, of course.

Here I sit now on the 16th floor of the French Quarter Holiday Inn, looking out over the city. It will be an interesting week.

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