DownloadSept. 1, 2008 issue
MDS plays important role in recovery
By For Mennonite Disaster ServiceNEW ORLEANS — Bourbon Street was rocking, the bars and clubs filled with people enjoying one of New Orleans’ most popular tourist spots. A cacophony of jazz, blues, rock and country filled the narrow balcony-lined avenue, giving the area a bright and festive air.
Mennonite Disaster Service volunteers from River East Mennonite Brethren Church in Winnipeg, Man., work on a house in New Orleans. — Photo by John Longhurst/MDS
Three years after Hurricane Katrina, it seems the city is back in business, as far as tourism is concerned.
Down in the city’s lower Ninth Ward and Gentilly neighborhood, where Mennonite Disaster Service is rebuilding houses damaged or destroyed by the storm, it was a different story.
The only sounds heard there were those of hammers and saws as volunteers from River East Mennonite Brethren Church in Winnipeg, Man., toiled in the heat to frame, drywall, tile and finish houses for residents anxious to return to their homes.
“I know that tourism is the lifeblood of this city,” said Robert Green, 53, an accountant who lost his home in the Ninth Ward, and whose mother and granddaughter were killed when a wall of water broke through the levee on the nearby Industrial Canal.
“People see places like Bourbon Street and the French Quarter and they think the city is healed. But there’s still a lot to do to help the residents.”
Almost three years after the storm, there still is a lot of work to be done in New Orleans.
Green’s once-vibrant Ninth Ward community is mostly a collection of empty lots and a few abandoned houses.
In other sections, house after house is boarded up, the owners still trying to decide whether to move back and rebuild.
It’s the same for businesses. A drive through the hardest-hit areas reveals empty and abandoned banks, hotels, restaurants, grocery stores, strip malls, department stores and gas stations.
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