Neater Piles: A Return to the Parish

An article documenting my return to Saint Bernard Parish a month after hurricane Katrina.

Neater Piles: A Return to the Parish

By: D. Patrick Yeck

 

            The toxic waters had long since receded when my wife and I made our first return trip to New Orleans in late September of 2005.  It had been a little over a month since hurricane Katrina made landfall but, looking at the destruction she left in her wake, you were left thinking it had happened yesterday.  It was beyond surreal.  Passing through the outskirts of the city, we made our way to the check point leading into St. Bernard Parish where we resided in the small town of Arabi before the storm.  Only those who could show proof of residency were allowed in.  Once through the checkpoint we were directed to Chalmette High School where we were to receive our required tetanus and hepatitis vaccinations before being allowed to return to our homes to assess the damage.  Numbed by the surrounding destruction none of us felt the needles piercing our skin.  After receiving our shots we donned our wardrobe for the day which consisted of rubber boots, rubber pants, a rubber overcoat, rubber gloves and a dust mask. During the storm an external storage tank ruptured at the Murphy oil refinery in Chalmette and released approximately 1,050,000 gallons of mixed crude oil blanketing adjacent neighborhoods in a thick layer of toxic sludge.  Mold and mildew were rampant threatening anyone who inhaled the abundant spores with serious respiratory issues (a.k.a. “Katrina Cough”).  We loaded the car and began our journey through a city that easily resembled a post apocalyptic war film.  The scores of military hummers patrolling between Chalmette, Arabi and the lower 9 accompanied by the distant thump of Blackhawk helicopters cascaded the surrealistic landscape.  After they had passed it didn’t take us long to realize we were the only ones on the road.

            The streets were elaborate obstacle courses.  Debris ranging from street signs to entire houses washed off their foundations peppered the roadways.  We drove past neighborhood after neighborhood of flooded homes each adorned with its own unique array of destruction.  Cars could be found leaning against houses, appliances on roofs, boats in yards and various other scenes that just didn’t coincide with what our minds were use to processing.  The one common factor that all the homes we passed shared were the markings left by search and rescue teams.  Found usually on the wall adjacent to the front door, a spray painted “X”, varying in color, with a date spray painted above it was the sign that the house had been inspected for survivors.   Painted to the left of the “X” showed the search crew’s ID.  Below the “X” listed the number of bodies found and the right of the “X” was reserved for notes such as any pets found etc.  A necessary yet morbid graffiti.  91 people lost their lives in St. Bernard Parish and I found myself looking away when I would see houses clearly marked with numbers below the “X”.   We continued to weave through the endless maze of eclectic debris finding ourselves, at times, almost lost in a very familiar town. 

Our apartment was roughly half a mile from Jackson Barracks, 1 mile from the lower 9^th ward and roughly 2 miles from where the levee failed on the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (a.k.a. MRGO). With all the news footage of the destruction of the lower 9 and the continuous film loops of the broken levees in St. Bernard Parish, we were expecting the worst.  We weren’t disappointed.  Deep in our hearts we knew the damage to my wife’s hometown of Arabi was bad.  We had heard stories in Texas from those who made it out of the Parish but their words could never paint the portrait we were seeing now.  The reality of what had happened here slowly began to rise in the pits of our stomachs.  The stories; the words, were now all very tangible.   You could smell it, you could touch it, and you could taste it in the air.  Reality tasted very bitter.    It is this sense of reality that, in most cases, begins the grieving process which eventually ends in acceptance and closure.  In other cases, such as my wife, this reality opens even larger wounds that refuse to heal; and rightly so.  Though many survived the storm there are those whose hearts remain submerged in the sea of hopelessness that didn’t subside when the flood waters did.  What once was is no longer and it is difficult to move forward in life when time is standing still.  Time has stood still in St. Bernard Parish. 

Two years have passed and though there is evidence of some progress, it is nowhere close to being what it once was and it is common knowledge that it never will be.  There are many reasons for this.  In the days before hurricane Katrina the population of St. Bernard Parish was roughly 67,229.  As of 2006 the population was estimated at 25,489[i].  Since hurricane Katrina there has been very little for former residents to return to and for those who have chosen to return they have more than flooded homes and business waiting for them but staggering living costs as well.  Before Katrina a 2 bedroom apartment in the metro New Orleans area would run $676.00.  Two years later the same apartment rents for $978.00[ii].  This increase is anything but encouraging to those who have called St. Bernard Parish their home and want to return.  Despite the increased cost of living, lack of public services and desolate landscape there are those who will not allow this force of nature to deter them from residing in a place where their roots have been anchored deeper than any floodwaters could reach.  Many streets are lined with the infamous FEMA trailers sitting in front of homes or slabs where homes once stood.  There is a sense of pride in St. Bernard parish and Katrina is responsible for bringing this tight knit community even closer.  Unfortunately these are the few.  The majority has fled to other cities much further inland such as Hammond, LA.  There is still an uncertainty that blows through the air in St. Bernard Parish.  From June until November, hurricane season, each year since Katrina has been one of high anxiety.  With every squall, depression or storm that develops in the Gulf of Mexico residents are left wondering if they again will be struck with nature’s wrath and if so, could the Parish survive another blow like the ones dealt in 2005.  It is this thought process that has kept St. Bernard Parish stagnant in so many ways.  It is the thought of yet another Katrina that causes those who want to rebuild to stop and hesitate.  The truth is simplistic yet sad.  St. Bernard Parish would most likely never recover from another catastrophic flooding.  The drainage systems still have not recovered from Katrina and flooding is common in Chalmette with just a simple rain storm.  The levees were never, and still aren’t, designed to take the brunt of a storm like the ones of 2005.  The politics of the Parish have further stalemated any progress.  Moneys mishandle my Parish Government officials have left garbage uncollected, resources unavailable, and residents wanting the Parish they’ve always known and loved back, angry.

In 2006 I returned to New Orleans.  I worked in the city and the surrounding Parishes daily and noticed very little change.  I remember driving into St. Bernard Parish at night and amazed how, after a year, there were still only a few street lights working.  There were FEMA trailer parks surrounded by high chain linked fence, concertina wire and 24 hour armed guards.  The air still smelled of mildew as people gutted their homes and placed their moldy carpets, walls, and furniture on the curb in hopes of being picked up by garbage trucks that never came.  There were no open grocery stores within a 15 mile radius of Chalmette so the government had set up a food distribution center in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart Super Center that had opened a month before Katrina struck.  There was also the “Hippy Tent” which served hot meals throughout the day to feed the residents as well as the volunteer workers helping to restore what they could in the Lower 9^th Ward.  Occasionally at noon they would distribute things such as food items, small televisions, and other commodities that most evacuees lacked, from a local church.  Cars would park in a line that stretched through the abandoned neighborhoods and wait for sometimes hours to get these items.  No one hurried as there was very little else to do.  No matter where you went you could hear women telling stories of the Parish in their thick accents (or “yat”) that sounded like a combination of someone from the Bronx and a French Canadian.  Stories of Hurricane Betsy from the 60’s are now belittled in comparison to the destruction of Katrina.

 Everyday I would drive throughout the Parish and everyday I would look for signs of progress.  As sad as it is to say, I noticed very little.  There were times, though, when I would look over at an abandoned house and notice that the trash lined up on the curb was still there but someone had gone through and placed it in a nice neat pile.  It didn’t take long before I began noticing this more and more often throughout the Parish.  The heaps of debris that had been lying in the same state for over a year were now being made neater.  There had been no new law passed requiring residents to stack debris in neater piles.  Sure the increase in rats was always a concern but there would be rats no matter how neatly the garbage was stacked.  I’m not sure of the reasoning behind the neater piles of debris but it spoke to me in an odd way.  It said to me that no matter what horrors had taken place here and no matter how much destruction lay sprawled out for the world to see that residents here still had control.  They couldn’t hide their tragedy but they sure as hell could make it look nice.  That is the spirit of St. Bernard Parish. 

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[i] [i] New Orleans population still cut by more than half. 29 Nov 2006 article by Reuters.

                                     

[ii] New Orleans: The 2005 flooding and the destruction that remains. 2006 Detroit Free Press