The New Orleans Katrina Memorial

Hurricane Katrina is still present in every aspect of New Orleans life. It is as much a part of our culture and community here as is our speech, our streetcars, our bars and our music. It is as defining an event as the Civil War, Emancipation or Brown Vs. Board of Education: more so, as everyone here experienced it in their own lifetimes. If you want to strike up a conversation with anyone in New Orleans, you simply start by asking “were you here for Katrina?”

Often I don't even say the hurricane's name. It has too much emotional impact. I say “the storm.” My friends down here who bear that name have come to spell it with a C, Catrina; one friend goes by Karina. Some just go by Kat.

Back in May, just days before I left New Orleans to go on tour, Lauren and I were at a favorite cafe/headshop/herbal/botanica on Canal Street. The cafe portion borders Saint Patrick Cemetery, and as we had some time to kill, we decided to walk through the cemetery, which occupies sites on either side of Canal Street. When we crossed Canal, we found something new to either of us: the New Orleans Katrina Memorial, a tiny area wedged along the side of Saint Patrick. Armed with only my phone's camera, I took a few shots, unworthy of posting, and swore to come back after my tour to do a proper blog post on this very creepy, very beautiful shrine. 

Like many things Katrina, the shrine itself was built around emotional outpouring and heated controversy: though by 2008 the mayor's office had allotted a million dollars for the shrine to be built, and $200,000 more had come from private donations, as the third anniversary of the storm approached there was still no memorial, and 85 unidentified bodies were still unburied. But weeks before the 2008 anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, heaven and earth were moved, permits were pulled, and the memorial was built. On the third anniversary of Katrina, August 29, 2008, a jazz funeral second line marched along Canal Street; amidst weeping and a few sighs of resolution, the final seven unidentified victims of Katrina were carried to the memorial and interred. It was not until the following year that work was completed, and a marker stone laid.

The Katrina Memorial sits on a plot once used to bury the poor and indigent of Charity Hospital, and the gates of the memorial still carry Charity's name above them; along the edge of the gate is the current name, New Orleans Katrina Memorial. As one enters, a small reminder of Charity sits off to the side: a stone commemorating those who donated their bodies to scientific research upon their death. 

The memorial is built in a huge spiral, the shape of the hurricane itself as seen from the air. 

The spiral of the memorial, and neighboring Saint Patrick Cemetery #2, can be seen in the reflective surface of two of the crypts that house the unidentified Katrina dead. 

 At the center of the spiral, the hurricane's eye, sits a carved stone marker, which reads:

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall upon the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf coast, bringing devastation to many communities. In New Orleans, storm surge and the failure of the levee system caused flooding in over eighty percent of the city, trapping thousands. In the chaotic aftermath New Orleanians faced desperate circumstances in homes, hospitals, the Superdome and other makeshift shelters. Despite the heroic efforts of first responders, medical personnel, volunteers and the military, over 1,100 citizens lost their lives in the disaster.

Most of the deceased were identified and buried by loved ones in private ceremonies throughout the nation. Here lie the remaining. The unclaimed and unidentified victims of the storm from the New Orleans area. Some have been forgotten. Some remain unknown.

This memorial is dedicated to these individuals and to all who suffered or died during Hurricane Katrina. Let the victims here forever remind us of those harrowing days and the long struggle to rebuild our city. Let their final resting place call us to constant preparedness. Let their souls join into an eternal chorus, singing with the full might of the indomitable spirit of New Orleans.

Jeffrey Rouse, MD, Chief Deputy Coroner

August 29, 2009

Around the marker sit stone benches, and beyond these, forming the outer spiral of the storm, are six crypts, the final resting places of the bodies of eighty-five victims of Katrina.  They are made of dark, reflective stone. One cannot sit or stand at the memorial without seeing one's own reflection, as well as the street beyond, the traffic, the bright red street cars: the constant reminders that New Orleans has been rebuilt; and that for the living, work continues, music is played, tourists visit, old men argue on the decaying sidewalk outside the liquor store, children in plaid uniforms hurry off to school: despite the best efforts of Katrina, life in New Orleans goes on. I am certain that those lying here take satisfaction in that.

The place is still, peaceful, as if the souls of those victims, unidentified for three years and finally mourned and interred with a jazz music second line, are now at rest. As I sat on a bench around the marker, preparing my camera equipment, a bird sat in the huge oak tree above the gates, singing to me. It sang for long minutes, a joyful song that rose above the sounds of traffic or the street car on Canal, just beyond the memorial gates. 

“Let their souls join into an eternal chorus...” the bird seemed to sing to me. And I thought: perhaps they have done just that.

The stone marker, benches, and reflective, spiraling tombs of the memorial. 

From the New Orleans Katrina Memorial on Canal Street, this is Kenny Klein explaining it all.

Driving Into The Hurricane!

What do you do when you are twelve hundred miles away, and your girlfriend is facing a hurricane alone in your house? You drive through the storm!

As Blue Star Owl said in her blog, a hurricane is a very surreal experience; a force so much larger than you, than anything you can conceive (sure, your educated mind knows what a hurricane is, but your emotional self can hardly accept the magnitude), is about to come bearing down on you with all of its force. Many people think of Nature as sweet and beautiful: bunnies hopping through spring grass, bluebirds singing on your back fence. But visit a hurricane sometime and see how pretty Nature can be.

The original predictions for Isaac had him hitting Florida. When we learned that lumbering, fickle Isaac had changed course and was headed for Louisiana, I was finishing my tour at the haunted hotel in Pennsylvania. I spoke to Lauren who was home in NOLA, and we decided I should stay in the hotel in case she needed to evacuate and meet me there. When no evacuation was called, I began packing to drive right into Isaac and get home as fast as I could.

On August 29, 2012, exactly seven years to the day after Katrina hit, I began the twelve hundred mile drive to NOLA.

I drove as far as I could the first day, making it through Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and stopping in Alabama at our favorite rest stop: one of the Apollo rockets towers over the rest area. I slept in the shadow of the spaceship. All was sunny and beautiful the entire drive. A clear sky revealed a nearly full moon that night.

But the next morning was very cloudy. Sh*t was about to get real, as they say around here. By the time I got through Alabama and reached Mississippi, I was in Isaac's swirl of clouds, wind and rain. My entire drive through Mississippi was marked by periods of intense rains and high winds, so bad sometimes that I had to pull over and wait for them to pass. Oddly, I would also drive through pockets of sunshine and dryness: that's the nature of a hurricane. 

I-59 through Mississippi, taken from my truck window.

Part of the Interstate was shut down outside of Hattiesburg. I spend about thirty miles driving on winding, partially flooded local roads. When I returned to the I-59 I saw why the road had been closed: trees had fallen across the Interstate, and crews were closing off sections of road to chainsaw away the huge tree trunks.

Caravans of FEMA rescue trucks and utility trucks traveling into Louisiana.

As I drove I encountered several caravans of FEMA trucks headed into the storm. I also saw caravans of Red Cross and Salvation Army teams. I cannot tell you how emotional I felt when I passed a convoy of Red Cross trucks (which sadly I failed to photograph: driving required about three hands at that point). FEMA workers are federal positions, paid to deal with emergencies (or not deal with them). But when I passed the Red Cross, and later this convoy of Salvation Army trucks, I was passing volunteers from all over the U.S. (and in the case of the Red Cross, perhaps all over the world) rushing to help Louisiana. If Katrina taught us anything, besides how completely unprepared the Federal Government is to handle a catastrophe, it's that Louisiana, and NOLA especially, are national treasures that are sadly vulnerable to the elements of wind and water, and people's response now to our needs are gallant and immediate. Thank you Red Cross and Salvation Army volunteers!

The worst weather was in southern Mississippi. The hurricane had passed slowly through NOLA at that point, and its fury was unleashed now on northern Louisiana and Mississippi. I saw downed trees and downed highway signs everywhere, and the wind was blowing furiously in some places. In others blinding rain was so intense I had to drive twenty MPH, or pull over completely. Believe me, if I had not had a wonderful, brave girlfriend at home facing this storm alone, I would have found a comfy hotel with power and AC in northern Mississippi that night!

But weary from lack of sleep and alert to the weather, I drove on. At one point mine was the only car on I-59. Then I saw some other cars with Louisana plates. Several waved at me as we passed by each other. By the time we neared the state line, we were a caravan of Louisiana cars all braving the wind and rain to get home. 

After 2 days and 1200 miles of hurricane rain and wind, Louisiana at last! That's my pet possum Lady Gaga helping me navigate, my constant reminder of home while I am on the road.

 Flooding north of New Orleans.

The storm over Lake Pontchartrain, coming over the causeway.

When I finally reached New Orleans, there were no traffic lights: all power to the city was down. Trees had fallen across major roadways, taking power lines with them. There was a city-wide curfew in effect to try to prevent looting. All was as it had been seven years ago to the day on this day.

Lauren walking through flooded streets in our neighborhood.

300-year-old oak trees fallen across Carrollton Avenue.

But New Orleans is a resilient city. By Thursday afternoon, amidst fallen oaks and downed power lines, despite lack of electricity, Internet and other services, children were playing in the playgrounds. Neighbors were cleaning up downed branches. The utility workers were racing to restore power and phone lines. I sit now in Buffa's, the bar where I perform every Saturday; the only bar in the Marigny with power (Buffa's is on the French Quarter power grid, which held in the storm). The place is packed with locals eating hot food (no power = no stove at home), using the Internet, and charging their cell phones. The mood here is light, the bar workers racing to fill orders and laughing at the very limited menu. People are sharing tables in the crowded room, and making friends.  Someone is on the piano playing spirituals. New Orleans is still New Orleans. 

Beyond fallen trees, children play in the local park.

Flooding on the neighborhood (above and below)

 Above, utility workers restoring lines and clearing downed trees in my neighborhood; below, as a neighbor surveys the damage, the sun peaks out for the first time in three days.

From New Orleans, (and risking my life driving through Isaac), this is Kenny Klein explaining it all.

Life On The Levee

I have to apologize for not posting here for some time. I was being productive: I have a new CD coming out in just a few weeks, and a new book of my poetry, lyrics and photos has just been released, and is for sale as an e-book on Lulu dot com and on Smashwords. I'm getting ready to leave in just two days for my summer tour, a little torturous excercise I put myself through every year (see my schedule here). With all of this going on, I just haven't had time to post until now. Sorry.

Last time we took a tour of the French Quarter, looking at some of the lesser known sights. Today I want to talk about an area that is essential to New Orleans life. We are constantly surrounded by it, constantly aware of its importance in our world. It stands guard over us, nurtures us, and gives us recreation, economy and beauty. The one time it failed, 11,000 of us died. I'm talking about the New Orleans Levee.

A levee is a dam that holds back a body of water that is higher in altitude than the land around it. The New Orleans Levee is part of a system of levees that runs pretty much the entire length of the lower Mississippi River. Here in NOLA we have levees around the river itself, and around the various canals that were dug in the late eighteen and early nineteen hundreds to allow shipping from the river to enter Lake Pontchartrain.

I live just a few blocks from the levee (the part near my house held up during Katrina, thanks), and it is a pretty fascinating location: a combination of industry, recreation and wildlife, all functioning together in a sometimes uneasy partnership. It even contains a few mysteries...

Let's take a bike ride along the three or four miles of the levee closest to my house.

Nearly the entire length of the levee, from the French Quarter upriver to Metarie and Lake Pontchartrain, features a bike/jogging path. In the above shot, I set my bicycle beside the path to take a photo of the path and my bike with the river and the Huey P. Long Bridge in the background. As you can see, several bike riders passed through the scene as I was shooting, making for a dramatic pic.

Right in the spot where one enters it from my street there are 11 houses on the river side of the levee. This is the only place in New Orleans where houses sit on this side of the structure: while very romantic and picturesque, they are also in constant danger of flooding. I know them by color: the Blue House above, the Red House below, and the Natural Wood house somewhere down there.

Last year, after heavy snow melt and intense rain up north, the river rose about fifteen or twenty feet. Below are the same homes seen above, back in May of 2011. You can see that the Natural Wood House had flood waters inside the house, coming just over the floor, while the Red House was a little luckier (or a little higher): its yard was completely submerged.

Just across from the levee houses we find a working horse stable. Riders use the wide green lands on either side of the raised levee to ride, work and to graze their horses.

There are several beaches along the river. The largest one is just downriver from the levee houses. On the day I was there, there were sunbathers and people fishing, both pretty common activities (although this was the first time I saw a levee sunbather quite as bold as this one...take a close look at the photo below).

These two guys were fishing on the other end of the beach. A homeless guy walked by and told us he'd just seen an alligator a few yards away in the forest.

A lot of homeless people set up tents in the thickets along the levee. Here's a glimpse of the forest where the homeless and the gators dwell together. On my way to take these I passed through a tent village, but I didn't want to disturb their privacy: I shot a bit of the forest just beyond their camp.

I never did see the gator (though I know he's there---I can feel their presence on the levee). But wildlife abounds on the grassy structure: here's a little guy who was grazing just outside the forest.

Industry is everywhere on the river and the shore. While New Orleans has a booming tourist economy, like the rest of Louisiana our major industries are maritime: oil tankers, fishing and freight. I caught this oil tanker sailing upriver, passing under the Huey P. Long Bridge.

On the shore we find various shipping yards and salvage yards, like Bertucci, a salvage yard just on the other side of the levee houses. Here's a scene from that yard...

As I biked further upriver, a few miles past the salvage yard, I found a patch of forest. I locked the bike up and walked into this grove of cypress and oak, where I discovered a mystery that occupied my simple mind for several hours. Here is the forest that lured me in, with leaning cypress and tangled oaks. You can see from the marks on the cypress trees just how high the river has flooded in the recent past.

Deep in the forested area I found this stagnent, muddy course of water. The ground around the shallow murk was thick and wet, and had turned to quicksand (quicksand is sandy soil with water running beneath: it will suck you down pretty deep, as seen by the deep tracks left around the brackish water, but it's not like in the movies; you won't sink all the way in. it just kinda sucks for your shoes and your pants. Literally!).

Just to the side of the drying water flow, I found these structures. Obviously unused for many years, the forest growing into them, I wondered what they could be. My initial guess was that they were docks for barges or for tugs, unused because the river had once reached this area and had somehow receded. I even wondered if they were barges that were left aground when the river dried, and that became embedded in the silt and sand.

My girlfriend Lauren is much smarter than me, and every once in a while she has to remind me of that. She looked at these photos and solved the mystery. Can you guess? I'll give you one more look, and then reveal the somewhat obvious aswer Lauren revealed to me:

Lauren's solution to the mystery: New Orleans is full of canals. In the late eighteen and early nineteen hundreds, thousands of Irish workers were brought here to dig a series of canals. They all died of yellow fever, so Italians, immune to that disease, were brought over to replace them. This little course of mucky quicksand was once a barge canal! And the structures? Locks! Canal locks, to control the flow of water running through the chanel. Lauren is so smart...

So this got me thinking about canals. the following day I found myself in the Lower Ninth Ward, where I took the time to photograph the Industrial Canal that separates the Lower Ninth from the Upper Ninth Ward (built by those disease-free Italians in the late eighteen hundreds). The levee here is very open and grassy. Below is the view from the Levee into Holy Cross, the lowest end of the LNW, where some really beautiful houses stand. Holy Cross was not hit as hard by Katrina as the rest of the LNW, and many people are returning to this area to live. There is a lot of wildlife here too. Beside herons, egrets, hawks and eagles, there are hundreds of feral chickens.

The Industrial Canal unites the river and Lake Pontchartrain, a journey of five-and-a-half miles. Here is the spot where the canal meets the river. We see a tug pushing a barge from the Industrial Canal into the Mississippi.

Up the canal, at the center of the Lower Ninth Ward, the levee is really nothing more than a long, high concrete wall:

Here is the wall, seen from my car window as I crossed the Claiborne Bridge headed back uptown. That's the Florida Avenue bridge in the background, just down from the lake.

This concrete wall is the reason the flooding was so horrible in the Lower Ninth during Katrina. The levees were built to protect NOLA from the river rising. But no provision was ever made for water coming from the other way! On August 29, 2005, the storm flooded the river and the canals so badly that the lake rose and sent water back into the canals. Water coming south from Lake Pontchartrain overran the canals, and these flimsy concrete walls were no protection. They ended up like this:

(Photo above courtesy of this site).

What is being done to prevent this from happening again? All along the levee vacuum pumps are being installed. Here are the ones that stand just up the street from my house:

They're very Steampunk! These pumps can drain water from the river and divert it to flood chanels flowing away from the city. Also, safeguards are being built on the Pontchartrain end of the canals, locks that can be closed if the lake ever rises again (and it certainly will, we all know that). Hopefully the scene below will never happen again!

That placid beach full of grazing horses and lovely sunbathers? This was the same beach in May of 2011.

Wanna see the Levee yourself? To get to my end of the Levee from the French Quarter, just take the Saint Charles Streetcar line to Riverbend (right now it's the final stop until they finish fixing the upper tracks), get out and walk in the direction of the rising green slope. You're there! And don't worry, the beach is lovely right now (though I cannot guarantee nudity...).

From the New Orleans Levee, this is Kenny Klein explaining it all!