Working and waiting

Posted at 8:22 AM

Today we arrived in the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans. The Presbyterian volunteers were assigned a house on Warrington Drive. The drive into the neighborhood was an eye-opening one. There was a progression of destruction. The closer we got to the assigned house, the emptier the streets were and the more noticeable the damage was.

Isabelle already introduced you to Yvonne, the homeowner. Yvonne's house has only been entered by rescue teams and assessors since the levees broke. Nothing had been removed from the house in the last year, not even the rotten food out of the fridge. This seemed bizarre to me, but the more we talked to people and drove around, the more normal it seemed.

Blocks of empty houses surround Yvonne’s house. No one has moved back into this area. The houses either haven't been touched, or they've been completely gutted and boarded up.

It's a tough situation for homeowners. They don't know what's to become of their neighborhood. Yvonne's back yard runs right into the levee. In fact, one of the breach sites is just down the road from her property. Many residents don't seem to feel safe around the levee anymore, and it's understandable.

For now, the houses still have to be gutted out to show the owner's intent to do something with the property. Technically the deadline has passed to finish gutting out houses and the city has the right to seize houses that have not been touched in the last year. Everywhere in these neighborhoods there are signs on the lawn saying, "We're coming home!"

As the volunteers entered the house for the first time, it was like being an explorer in some forgotten city. There were still dishes in the sink and clothes hanging in the closet. The whole neighborhood has the eerie feeling of a ghost town. But, everything I've seen looks like any typical house would on a normal day, except a layer of dry cracked mud covers the normal scene.

Click here to see the neighborhood and watch the volunteers gut the house.