New Orleans

Today (Wednesday) we set out to visit New Orleans.  This is the part of the trip where I really got a feel for the scope of the damage remaining from Katrina for the first time.  Driving down 90, the coastal highway between Ocean Springs and New Orleans, we saw whole blocks of devastation, shattered husks of buildings, and new construction sprouting up to replace them. After arriving in New Orleans we spent a couple hours touristing about in the French Quarter, which was untouched by the hurricane.  After a surprisingly challenging quest for lunch, we gathered our stray members and met up with our hosts in New Orleans, Marta and Peter.  Marta is an alum from Princeton's first female entering class, and she took us to a meeting with Janet Howard, another alum, who works for the Bureau of Governmental Research, which has been studying the rebuilding of New Orleans.  We had an amazing discussion with Janet and two of her colleagues, who brought home the challenges facing New Orleans in the rebuilding process.  It's really quite extraordinary - the population is estimated to still be less than half it's pre-Katrina levels, and lack of political will has crippled the recovery.  The city even still lacks any kind of comprehensive recovery plan, which means that rebuilding projects are proceeding higgeldy-piggeldy. Janet emphasized the need for recovery to become a national priority, without which the opportunity for a full recovery looks dim.  Our hosts then drove us around some of the affected areas.  In the Lakeview area we saw extraordinary contrasts - shiny new mansions complete with ostentatious landscaping next to boarded, shattered husks, next to empty lots.  In the 9th Ward, it was more distressing, because much less construction is occuring, and even where it is, it is very limited in scope, resulting in what appeared to me to be a grim ambiance of decay where it is hard to tell the abandoned buildings from the refurbished ones.  The trip brought home both how energetically the locals are striving to rebuild, and how enormous the challenges they face are. Insisting that a visitor to Louisiana must have at least one good meal, Marta invited us back for a lovely dinner, and rooftop views of the night sky.  No mean feat feeding 15 college students, but she didn't miss a beat, laying out a fantastic spread  of jambalaya, ravioli, salads and desserts (mmm... pralines).   Finally, most of us headed back to the French Quarter for another couple of hours soaking up the music and street culture, before driving back to Ocean Springs to ready ourselves for another day.

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[Source: Princeton Alternative Spring Break Blog]