Katrina: T+14 months (New Orleans, LA)

My father and I drove along the Gulf Coast from Biloxi to Gulfport. The entire coast has nothing. Not even shells of places, just nothing. You can barely tell that houses and businesses used to line the scenic byway. New Orleans is like a ghost town. In some parts of New Orleans, you can drive streets and streets without seeing a business or residence that is inhabited. It's been over a year and there is still so much work to do. Most of it will probably never get done. There seem to be 4 options. #1) clean up your house and live in it. #2) clean up your house and sell it to FEMA for not even half it's worth. #3) attempt to clean up your house but you can't for a myriad of reasons one of which may be that you are required to raise your house 3 feet before you can get any money. Or #4) do nothing with your house, possibly never even come back to see it.
These were all pictures taken in New Orleans or on the way there along Hwy 90 from Slidell. There were so many photographs that I passed up. I just couldn't take them all in one outing. Among them were an endless number of boats randomly deposited along the roads, in trees, on houses and elsewhere.
This one shows the water line on the house as well as the markings made by the government agency that checked the house. I've been told that they top mark is the date, the left is where the agency is from, the right is the number of animals dead, the bottom is the number of humans dead. Luckily I never saw a house with any numbers on the bottom. I did, however, see things about cats and dogs and ducks and ponies. The earliest date I saw was Sept 5th. If I'm not mistaken, the hurricane hit on Aug 29th. An entire week earlier...
A trailer park filled with over 500 FEMA trailers. Tiny things, barely a window, but they have Dish Network! A Bible laying on the window ledge. The house itself looks like the owners are slowly being able to get it cleaned out. A few doors down from them is the next picture.
Living in a trailer and still cheerful enough to decorate for Halloween. I bet it will be better for Christmas. You can see the PVC piping connecting the trailer directly to the sewer. BTW, this one is not a FEMA trailer. This one is much too fancy!
Yes, that is a refrigerator stuck in a tree...
Standing on a broken up concrete slab representing a broken up house foundation looking at a broken up walking pier. The entire water way along Hwy 90 looks like this. Nothing.