New Orleans-Anyone taken a Katrina Disaster tour lately?
Jan 22nd, 2010, 06:21 AM
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New Orleans-Anyone taken a Katrina Disaster tour lately?
Has anyone taken a bus or van tour of the devastation of Katrina lately? Is there enough to see--both original devastation and current recovery? We will have a car but I haven't seen any self-driving tour of the area so maybe an organized tour would be best.
What do you think?
What do you think?
Jan 22nd, 2010, 08:35 AM
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I will be very interested in the answers you get, as we will be in NO in late April. I'm usually loathe to be a voyeur in such a setting, but I've read that the people in the area actually WANT people to see what havoc Katrina wreaked on them. Is that still true?
Jan 22nd, 2010, 08:43 AM
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We've gone to NOLA every year since the storm, but haven't been able to decide on a Katrina tour. I've spoken to quite a few locals and their answers weren't consistent. Some thought it was good for people to see just what a disaster it was, and others considered it ghoulish gawking. I guess it's up to you - like everything else, somebody will appreciate your thoughts and others will be disgusted. Ya can't win.
Feb 2nd, 2010, 09:06 PM
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Just do a driving tour. Make sure you have GPS so you won't get lost. Get the address of one of those "Make it Right" houses as your destination and just follow the GPS. That would probably be easiest. Then you can just look at the devastation and not worry about navigating. I think the Make it Right houses still do tours, so you may want to do that upon arrival.
Feb 3rd, 2010, 10:00 AM
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Feb 4th, 2010, 11:15 PM
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"Make It Right" is a project sponsored by Brad Pitt to rebuild the lower 9th Ward with more ecologically and environmentally friendly yet durable homes. These homes are "cradle to grave" which means they are made from recyclable materials, and are totally "green" with solar panels, water harvesting systems, designs that allow minimal heating/cooling, etc... Also, these homes are elevated and have "escape hatches" on the roof so that if there is another hurricane, residents can safely get on top of the roof.
Check it out:
http://www.makeitrightnola.org/
Check it out:
http://www.makeitrightnola.org/
Feb 16th, 2010, 05:49 AM
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We are back from NO and we did take a van tour with Cajun Encouters called New Orleans Rebirth tour. It cost $49pp and lasted 2 hours. It did a brief tour of French district and the garden district before heading to the Ninth ward. There
are still many blocks of empty lots now overgrown with grass and weeds in the Ninth ward. Lots of concrete slabs and foundation blocks around. It would be hard to envision the area as closely populated before the flood. We did go by the Brad Pitt houses and they are being built in the middle grassy fields where the neighborhoods used to be. It seemed to me the empty spaces should have been made into a park or something and the houses built closer to a more inhabited site. I don't think there will be enough people to ever fill the remaining blocks.
We also drove from NO through coastal Mississippi and Alabama and there were very few coastal block reinhabited--just slabs and brick walls in some cases to denote the former houses.
It was an interesting trip overall.
are still many blocks of empty lots now overgrown with grass and weeds in the Ninth ward. Lots of concrete slabs and foundation blocks around. It would be hard to envision the area as closely populated before the flood. We did go by the Brad Pitt houses and they are being built in the middle grassy fields where the neighborhoods used to be. It seemed to me the empty spaces should have been made into a park or something and the houses built closer to a more inhabited site. I don't think there will be enough people to ever fill the remaining blocks.
We also drove from NO through coastal Mississippi and Alabama and there were very few coastal block reinhabited--just slabs and brick walls in some cases to denote the former houses.
It was an interesting trip overall.
