Still Gutting

22 months after Katrina, and the gutting of homes is still going strong, as these volunteers from Raleigh, NC can attest to. This is why it bothers me so much to hear those who visit and only stay downtown and have dinner in the French Quarter say that New Orleans is back to normal. Has there been progress? Yes. Is it back to normal? Far from it. It's not that the people who say that, often people who are in town for business and stay at one of the big hotels downtown, are negligent on purpose. They're just misinformed. They see the inside of conference centers, 4-star hotels and the bars of Bourbon Street. Drive 20 minutes and it's an entirely different story. These particular volunteers in the photos above are part of a Church Group in Raleigh. They brought down over 50 people. I took a drive at lunchtime and passed by this house and decided to stop. Sometimes it's as interesting and insightful to talk to volunteers as it is to talk to residents. Most of the kids in the group are just freshmen in high school, and a few mentioned how struck they were when they shoveled through the house room by room. They found things like jewelry, books, photos, all of which just had to be put into piles and wheeled out to the curb to be thrown with the rest of the garbage. Remarkably, despite how much times has passed since the storm, there are still many homes that need shoveling.