words are not enough » New Orleans

[K+5: Remember]

Joe Kennedy — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 10:10:15 +0000

At 5:10 AM on August 29, 2005 Hurricane Katrina made its second landfall on American soil near Buras, Louisiana, obliterating almost everything in its wake, from New Orleans to Mobile, Alabama. Five years later we’re still recovering.

You’ve probably been inundated with Katrina memorials, specials, and documentaries this past week. The media (and many regular folks), especially those who spent time in New Orleans during and after Katrina, don’t want you to forget what happened. It’s not about how much Katrina cost ($81 billion). The economic factor is minimal compared to the 1,836 people who lost their lives. It’s about all the families who returned to New Orleans and all the towns along the Mississippi Gulf Coast to rebuild their lives. It’s about making sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen again. Hurricanes happen. All of us along the Coast know that. But what we saw in New Orleans in the days after the wind subsided was unnecessary and inhumane. So we beg you to remember what happened. Remember so it doesn’t happen again.

[K+5: The Long Road Home]

Joe Kennedy — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 15:00:12 +0000

For so many people in New Orleans, the road home has been long and difficult. In almost every neighborhood in town you’ll find blighted, hollow shells of former homes. Some still have markings from Katrina search crews. It’s not unusual to find gutted, empty buildings standing next door to beautiful new homes. Good neighbors take care of the lawns around them to keep up the property value or for their kids’ safety. Others do it simply to maintain the illusion of normalcy.

[K+5: Progress]

Joe Kennedy — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 19:00:18 +0000

So in July 2010 I was back in New Orleans for a conference, and I took a little time to grab shots of Canal Street in the CBD and a couple down New Orleans Avenue in Mid-City. You can definitely see progress downtown, and it looks like a lot of the roadwork is being done in Mid-City, just as it’s very extensive in Gentilly. The sign on the Saenger Theatre says it’ll be open in 2011- a sign things are slowly getting better.

K+5: What It Was All About…

Joe Kennedy — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 09:14:10 +0000

I wrote the following very early in the nighttime morning of Saturday, August 27, 2005. It went live at 4:14 AM, about the time this post should go live, five years later. It was a lesson I needed to learn, a life-altering moment. Looking back on the events nobody saw coming, I see much of post-Katrina New Orleans in those guys on the street corner, and America so much filling my shoes.

Tonight, Amy, Clint, and I went down to the Quarter to survey the locals for the VCBC re-start. We got there and met Tiffany, Amy’s roommate, at Hard Rock, and said hello. Standing outside, a corner-stander named Bobby caught me and we started talking. He wanted money because he was hungry. He tried to put beads around my neck so I would give him money. I prayed for him. I prayed that God would give him food, because he was hungry. I prayed that he would have a place to stay. I prayed for him.

If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? (James 2:15-16)

I prayed. Amy said, “come with me, let’s go get something to eat,” and took off with him across the street to Bubba Gump’s. Tiffany yelled after her, “don’t go, he’s trouble!” and I rushed after Amy so she wouldn’t be alone. Clint followed a few steps behind. We stood in line at Bubba Gump’s and then just as we sat down, they kicked us out because of Bobby. They said he had come around a lot and bothered everybody all day long. So Clint got food though, courtesy of the folks at Bubba Gump, as Amy and I stood outside and Bobby went back to his corner.

Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins. (James 4:17)

Clint brought half his meal out to Bobby, who didn’t eat it. But on that corner we met Ali from Ghana, his friend in a wheelchair. We learned that Bobby was from Liberia. Later we met Testimony, his East African friend. They all sat on that corner and talked to us for a few minutes. Close to two hours after we got there, we hadn’t traveled more than three blocks from the car, and had done zero interviews.

I was looking forward to the interviews, because I have this whole personal philosophy of “anyone, anywhere, anytime.” I stole it from Southern Miss’s football slogan, but it works. Or, it did. But as I stood there in front of Bubba Gump, watching the people as they walked by- the guy who had the walker and seemed to have cerebral palsy, looking sheepishly like he wanted to cross the road; or the Bobby on his corner; or any one of the other random people walking by- I thought about that slogan. I thought about how that’s all it was- some pumped up slogan about evangelism or whatever.

And it’s like this. I can talk to rational, everyday, normal people… all day long. Seriously- anyone, anywhere, anytime. But then there are those who I can’t hear well, can’t understand, who aren’t rational, who go on and on about some random political issue native only to Liberia or Ghana or something, who rant and rave and get real good at it. And I freeze up. And I pray for them and wish them well, and tell them God Bless, and walk off. Sometimes I even feel good about it. (Not usually though; I’m a naturally melancholy and reflective kind of person.)

So Clint reminds me tonight of what Dr. Ortiz told us in Encountering the Biblical World. After he reconciles the gospel accounts of the disciples and Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and the healing of the blind men, Ortiz explains: “That’s not even the point. The point is that we get so busy doing God’s work that we forget to DO God’s work. We completely miss the folks standing right there asking for our help.”

A refugee crosses the ocean to stay in the land of the free and begs for food. One night he meets a disciple of Christ, and says he is hungry. The disciple prays for the refugee and sends him on his way. “Be well fed and stay safe,” he says, but does nothing for him.

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:37-40)

[K+5: Slow]

Joe Kennedy — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:00:49 +0000

If you drive through the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans today, the scene looks similar to 2007 and 2008, when I took the photos below. The Milne Boys Home (top left) is still hollow, with plans for renovation scheduled sometime in the next year or two. Gentilly struggled to rebuild as much as any neighborhood in the city after Katrina, although I saw significant progress on the roads and in some residential pockets when I was there in July 2010. (The buses, top right, are actually from a junkyard off of Chef Highway in New Orleans East.)

[K+5: City Lights]

Joe Kennedy — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:00:05 +0000

October 2006: The city lights shine bright at 11PM as we sneak photos from Algiers Point Levee on the West Bank. The City that Care Forgot became the City that Volunteers Rebuilt. While the Central Business District and French Quarter were quickly returning to pre-Katrina normalcy, the rest of the town remained dark. Crime increased exponentially (exploding into protests by January 2007).

[K+5:Paris Avenue, Then and Now]

Joe Kennedy — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:00:36 +0000

In September 2006 my friend Blaize and I went over to Paris Avenue near our church gathering place and took photos of the dead trees lining the street. On the left you can see the eerie scene, straight out of a horror show. Empty. Dead. The city ripped up the trees several months later. Last month (July 2010) I went back to the same spot we took those original photos. The old Catholic church off to the right has been replaced by Holy Cross School. Behind me, Edgewater has rebuilt, and the elementary school is now a brand new technology high school.

[K+5: Broken]

Joe Kennedy — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:00:56 +0000

Mississippi and New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. My friend and I drove along the Gulf Coast first in February 2006 to survey our hometowns of Long Beach and Escatawpa, Mississippi. Below: a house on the waterfront in Long Beach (top left), the remnants of the Treasure Bay Casino in Gulfport (top middle), and a storage truck in someone’s front yard in Pass Christian (top right). Bottom row: the broken cross of St. Francis Cabrini Catholic Church on Paris Avenue in New Orleans (bottom left, now the site of Holy Cross School), a bent palm tree on a windless day in Gulfport, Mississippi (bottom middle), and repairs beginning on the London Avenue Canal Levee in Gentilly, New Orleans (bottom right).

[K+5: Amidst the Rubble]

Joe Kennedy — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 19:00:29 +0000

Below is the scene in the Lower 9th Ward on July 1, 2006. Ten months after Hurricane Katrina, much of New Orleans hadn’t been touched. To this day you’ll find lots across the city that haven’t been touched since the flood. All photos, except the bottom middle photo (which was taken in nearby Chalmette) are from the Lower 9th Ward.

[K+5: Beginning Again]

Joe Kennedy — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:00:53 +0000

When I first moved back to New Orleans in June 2006 I drove through some of the worst-flooded parts of town: Lakeshore, Gentilly, and Chalmette. Over the course of the next week I’ll be offering a selection of photos from the last 5 years in New Orleans. Below: Residents on Filmore Avenue offer their take on FEMA’s response, FEMA Farms (as we called them) in the parking lot of the UNO Lakefront Arena, and a boat washed up in a Chalmette resident’s front yard.