I personally don't think I have anything to say that has not been said a million times before. I have spent time in other areas of civil disruption. Beruit, whilst suffering the worst civil war in living memory was teaming with life and the celebration of life. I ate the best Falafel sandwich of my life in the bombed out remains of an American chain hotel. Krajina in Croatia was different, again ravaged by ethnic cleansing in the name of civil war, but lurking around every corner there was this sense of something very pure and very evil. It was a creepy feeling that made your spine tingle, and a bit like a cheap horror movie, you felt like there was a twist around the next corner. Needless to say, I am happy to never had to go back.
So the Lower 9th Ward. Silence, the absence of people, the absence of any noise that represents the sounds of life other than the buzz of insects. The heat and humidity enveloped you like that Christmas sweater from Grandma that was only worn on that day.
There was construction, some Tyvek wrapped houses, some new construction. The streets no longer caked in mud, all the rubbish cleaned away. The politicians could spin a success. But it was the row after row of concrete slabs for where a house and more importantly a family, no, a community was placed really brings home what happened here. Despite what has been done, what cannot be done is repair the gaping hole that was left behind. As the developers buy up large tracts of the 9th Ward, something else will replace the community that had been there.
Sure, it was a community in blight, but the elements that established its structure, its rhythms, and what made it tick had all been present in abundance. What changed is was not the 12 hours of a ill prepared for storm, but how a nation failed to respond to ensure that despite the disruption, life could have returned to "normal", even if that was a normal that 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue did not care for.
