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I worked in New Orleans East the other day. Took the Downman Rd exit. That highway used to be congested with bustling businesses and traffic. Not anymore. It is a devastated area with at least a couple of miles of boarded up and half-destroyed buildings; debris in front of some of them. I hadn't been down that way since Hurricane Katrina hit us over a year ago. It was a shock to me. What's it going to look like in another year of neglect? Not a pretty picture.
Then I took a left onto Haynes blvd. Neighborhoods like this above. The picture doesn't do it justice, but it's one of the better ones I got from my car. Every now and then, I'd see a trailer in the front, but mostly it was houses that were boarded up, or in various states of decay. Many had spray-painted writings near the doors - probably from the people who did search and rescues.
Oddly, the casino around that area is a gorgeous-looking establishment with pristine parking and colorful facing. I don't know if it is operational, though.
I overheard conversations between people reconnecting in the grocery (I often do) exchanging stories about where they've been since "the storm", and what they are going through to try to get back to normal, or some semblance of it. The things I have overheard...
Some of the stories are of how many residences they've had in the past since H.K. Some have been of horrendous, or stupendous, life changes they've experienced since. We are an adaptable race. Some of the changes are definitely for the better.
I have seen resiliency in couples who've lost everything, but still had each other and the memories of going through such trials. They say it isn't the good times, but the bad that make a family.
One couple I met when I waited tables got married after living through the experience of clinging to a tree in Lake Catherine for three days; She said she didn't know her house floated into the lake, though she felt it tip over - previously being on tall pilings. Actually, the lake wasn't that large before. At one point during her tree-clinging days, she was eye-to-eye with a 6 foot alligator. Their story made the newspaper. I guess you are ruined to be with anybody else once you share that kind of experience with another.
I don't like the Downman Road exit. It steeply goes down and then curves under another bridge and then banks and curves bringing you up a little and then down again to a traffic signal. It is a roller coaster for cars. Not fun in the rain. I dated a guy when I was a young lass (really young - about 20). He didn't have a car and I had to pick him up at his house off Downman Rd. I did that maybe twice.
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