After finally going to sleep at 1am, I wake up around 6:30 am. I chose to sleep in an uncomfortable part of the car, so after awhile it felt better to be sitting up instead of lying down. My friends weren’t up yet so I decided to read the Bible. There is nothing like forced quietness to make you have time to contemplate the word of God. Around 7:45 we leave the car to join others for the morning devotions. Every morning the church relief operation has a devotion. They have a time of worship, exhortation from the word, and then the plan of the day is announced. Since we arrived late we only catch the announcements. One of the long term volunteers finds out that we slept in our car and offers to provide us with air mattresses. Another offers us to find us a better room. We decide that we’ll stay at the church instead of the hotel. We find out that we’ll be going to Vieux Carre Baptist Church in the French Quarter to help with an outreach to homeless people. During the outreach we’ll be feeding folks and sharing the Gospel with them.
Since we are groggy, dirty and tired we decide that we must make take a shower before heading out to the French Quarter. We head out to Target to grab the basic necessities and return to get ready. We leave around 11am for the French Quarter. On the drive over we try to look for signs of water damage to buildings and homes. It is hard to see anything as we zip down Airline Drive. Thankfully we find the French Quarter without getting lost! However we spend over an hour looking for parking. Finally we find a parking garage about 10 blocks away from our destination. Even though parking is going to be over $10 we have no choice because we are pressed for time and none of us are familiar with the city. We park and head over to Vieux Carre. Unfortunately by the time we arrive, the other volunteers are cleaning up. We feel such a strong sense of disappointment that we missed the outreach. In addition, we learn that there will not be another outreach day. It’s like 12:30 in the afternoon and we are done with “ministry” for the day. Before leaving one of my friends decides to lead us in a time of worship. She grabs the mike and just begins to start praising God. At first the other volunteers continue the cleanup process. But then some of them decide to join in just thanking and praising God for his goodness. Even though there were only a few of us it was a sweet and refreshing time of worship. Afterwards we decide to eat lunch in the French Quarter and then try and find the Ninth Ward. That’s were the most severe damage as occurred so we want to see what’s it’s like a year later. We head out to the Ninth Ward and not surprisingly we get lost. After driving for about 20 minutes on the freeway we decide to exit. As we try to figure out how to get back on the freeway we notice that the street we are driving on is lined with empty damaged houses. We continue to drive through the neighborhood. We pass house after house, but see no people in their yards, walking around, no cars parked on the street. All we hear is the unnatural silence of an abandoned neighborhood. In addition we are lost and don’t know how to get back to the freeway and back to the Ninth Ward. After about 15 minutes of driving we see a guy with some sort of tool working on a house. He waves to us as we drive past. We decide to turn around and go talk to him, because we want to hear the perspective of a local resident. He is an older gentleman and he is extremely nice. He explains that we are in the better part of New Orleans, because most of the area has been cleaned up. He claims that the cars have been removed from roofs, most roofs have been straightened up, as well as the houses and are ready for people to return and rebuild. We are astonished that this neighborhood is cleaned up because we can still see signs of destruction all around. He offers to show us what a levee looks like and help us get back to the Ninth Ward.
We drive about three blocks and reach the levees. The levees look like a low rise wall. It looks like it is about 20 feet high. When we see how close the houses are to the levees it looks very short. We are driving down Hayne Road and there are houses and businesses lining the street which is less than a block from the levee. Our volunteer guide informs us that people can return to this neighborhood because the levee has been rebuilt in this area. And yet we see no signs of life. Gas stations, Rite Aid, and McDonald’s are all boarded up. If this is what a good neighborhood looks like, I can’t imagine what a neighborhood which sustained more damage looks like. After driving about 30 minutes west, our guide leads us the Ninth Ward. I am awestruck that the houses do look worse. Now as we drive by we notice that some houses still have people’s belonging in them. I guess the most incongrous sight is the guy doing landscaping. He’s mowing the grass on this huge lot, probably large enough to hold 5 or 6 houses. But every house on that street is extremely damaged. I’m thinking why have the grass perfect when there is no one in the neighborhood to enjoy the grass?
We continue driving and we smashed up cars, a roof sitting on the porch, a gigantic tree snapped in half. And everywhere we go we are struck by the lack of people and signs of life. We see power lines trapped in tree branches and realize no one can live here because the utilities are still off. What finally gets to me is the sight of this massive church that has been destroyed. It is a decent sized church but the roof is on the ground. Bricks are sprayed out there’s been an explosion. Rows and rows of pews surround the bricks. As we look into the church we can see items that have been stored on the second floor. We decide to pray for the churches and pastors of New Orleans. We pray that God will strengthen and encourage them so that they may return quickly to share God’s truth and love with the residents as they return.
As we leave to return to the relief center we are quiet. We are burdened by the destruction and devastation. I knew it was bad but I still wasn’t prepared for the extent of damage. I keep saying, if it’s this desolate and abandoned over a year later, what was it like in October 2005?
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