Return to 'Katrina Land'

By CAROLINE FERMIN

Caroline Fermin (Photo by Jane Rubinsky)

I am driving down a gravel road. It is hot and sticky outside, and the road sounds like it is popping and splintering as the car rolls along. Outside my window a thousand dilapidated houses sit on abandoned lots, waiting patiently. They look like lonely ghosts, with gaping mouths where doors once stood and scrubby bushes where sofas used to be. These houses look nothing like homes anymore; they are simply large wooden boxes with an occasional tree thrust through the floorboards. I feel like I am in a third-world shantytown, yet sadly, it is not so distant. Instead, I am in New Orleans, in the Ninth Ward, a place where electricity and running water are conveniences of the past. This is a place where you can feel the sadness and the desperation, a whole year after the disaster. This is still "Katrina Land."

Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast region last year, prompting everything from political outrage to tender sympathy. The wave of media attention has long since subsided, but the effects of Katrina are still painfully apparent. This summer marked my emotional return home, a year after the hurricane made landfall.

An entire year seems like plenty of time to get things moving and return the city to its usual Mardi Gras splendor. However, the reality of the situation is far more complex. The initial devastation is over, but homes, families, and lives are still suffering. It is absolutely shocking to see the ruined homes, lined up one after another, stretching block after block. The real sadness, though, comes from the lack of people, for they were the life force—not these houses. There is no one on front porches sawing, drilling and repainting. No one is on the overgrown sidewalks hacking away the old shrubs and branches. There are no signs of rebuilding, because no one is there.

And you really cannot blame anyone. With a city in financial despair, water to clean the house or electricity to run the power tools cannot be provided. Without these things it is nearly impossible to return to many areas of New Orleans. So people move away.

After a whole year, not much has changed in New Orleans.

That is what we are doing. Soon my family will pack up all our belongings, sell our house and move to another state—a state in less turmoil, and one with jobs. Though our house had fared well, my family did not, and it has been one setback after another as my parents have looked for jobs and stability. Our family, like everyone else's, has struggled through the past year desperately trying to stay together under the strain of a natural disaster.

It is a whole year later, and things are still very much the way they were. I get a little weepy as I drive away from the Ninth Ward and I think of the friends who used to live here. I wonder where they are now and pray that they are okay. At the last corner of the neighborhood I see an old woman. Two men are with her and they are talking on the sidewalk. As I drive past, they look at me and smile. We wave to each other like old friends and then I am gone. Back on the highway I think about them, three brave pioneers forging ahead, clearing the way. It will be a slow start, but it is something.

Caroline Fermin is a fourth-year dance student.