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October 26, 2005

Entering Slidell. . .

It's been almost three weeks now since I returned from New Orleans and Slidell. The original purpose of the trip was to help my grandfather clean out his house and begin the process of reconstruction (or more appropriately, to figure out if reconstruction was even an option).

Just two days before I left Birmingham, Mayor Nagin of New Orleans announced that the city would re-open for "look and leave" visits to the worst areas of the city, but that New Orleans East, Lakeview and the flooded Uptown areas were now open for residents to return. I knew that given the opportunity, I'd have to see what happened to the city I grew up in and maybe for the last time see the homes I lived in and schools I went to before the major demolition of entire swaths of the city began.

There's really only one word to describe the trip in total, and that word is "surreal". Everything about the trip was surreal. It began with the drive down. The journey west from Birmingham on US 20/59 was normal enough, but once I turned south on I-59, the whole "feel" of the trip changed. Within a few miles on I-59 out of Meridian, the first downed trees could be seen. By "downed trees", I mean ALOT of downed trees. Hundreds of them, probably thousands. When you hear the reports of how difficult it was for troops and material to be transported to the Gulf Coast and Louisiana, most people dismiss the claims, but just 25 miles out of Meridian, it was obvious that the highway itself was undoubtedly closed due to down trees and debris. The Mississippi DOT was still present in force along the route (keep in mind this is still one month AFTER Katrina's passage) the roadway itself was clear, but the median along almost the entire route was transformed into holding areas for three story tall collections of cut up trees and debris.

It was obvious that the destruction along the road had a significant effect on the drivers, many were obviously returning to New Orleans for the impending opening of the city. Many cars were loaded down with luggage and supplies, more than a few were towing UHaul trailers or flatbeds with generators, cases and cases of water and the necessary tools and equipment most would bring to reclaim their homes. That wasn't the "effect" I speak of though, the effect manifested itself in the attitude of the drivers and their behavior on the road. The politeness of the travellers was actually disturbing. On this road that I'd travelled many times before, the normal rate of speed is 80 and just like most other major highways in the nation there should have been the hotrods and leadfoots that zipped in and out of traffic, trying to race ahead of each other and make good time. None of this was evident today, people were courteous and beyond polite, and despite the heavy amount of traffic with 18-wheelers, and literally hundreds of FEMA travel trailers being transported into the area, the traffic moved efficiently and at a good clip. The drive down set the tone for the rest of the trip. Simple shock seemed to be the feeling on the road as traffic slowed with each new collection of Katrina's carnage piled on the road.

I'd been on the road about two and a half hours when I decided to stop at the next rest stop along the way. When I pulled off I didn't notice anything too wrong, there were the normal amount of travellers pulled off the highway, people letting their children out to wander around a bit and plenty of tired drivers streching and getting ready to make the next leg of the trip to the coast. Then I noticed it. Where once stood one of the many Mississippi DOT rest area facilities was merely a slab. Once I realized that this had once been a rest stop with facilities and a welcome center and it was now reduced to a large cement slab and a pile of brick, lumber and twisted metal that was now covered with hundreds of treetops and cut trunks at one corner of the rest area property, the effect was powerful. Here was just a taste of Katrina's destructive force.

I spoke briefly with a Mississippi DOT official camped out under a portable awning who related that the rest stop had been the final target for a tornado that had rolled through the area. The tornado had torn off the roof of the building which then imploded and then exploded from the sudden under- and overpressure. They had only re-opened the rest area a few days earlier, before that it had been a collection point for abandoned cars and debris from destroyed farmhouses which were unceremoniously deposited along the roadway. I was also informed that what I thought was an empty field behind the rest area was actually the path ripped by the tornado which had destroyed the rest area buildings, and I was still over 150 miles from the coast. Closer examination showed that the tornado had ripped what had to be at lest a 300 yard wide path of ground scrubbed clean by the twister stretching off into the distance.

The rest of the drive down was similiar until I arrived in Slidell. Slidell, Louisiana has long been a bedroom community to New Orleans. Heavy traffic in Slidell was rare, but now, with thousands of contractors using the city as a base of operations, FEMA set up to distribute supplies and thousands upon thousands of returning refugees waiting for the morning and the reopening of the city, Slidell looked more like Los Angeles at rush hour than the suburban bedroom community I'd always remembered it to be. Every traffic light was a choke point, where vechicles got caught in the intersection trying to squeeze just one more car through a green light. Horns honked and patience was tried everywhere. It took 20 minutes just to exit the highway into Slidell.

It was beginning to get dark when I got to Slidell and before the last light faded I decided to make a pass through the length of the town to get a quick survey of how Slidell had fared. The heavy traffic took time to negotiate and before long, I'd only travelled a few blocks, but it was now fully dark. The darkness was telling in the number of closed businesses on the major streets. Many had power but were unable to open for buisness yet as the floodwater damage had yet to be repaired. The few businesses that were open seemed to be only chicken joints with lines stretching back into the street and down the block and one CVS drugstore with a full parking lot and people waiting for another spot. In the many "big box" store parking lots along Gause Blvd, people were setting up camp for the night since there were no hotel rooms available for the throngs waiting to make the mad dash into the city tomorrow. I stopped to speak with a few families settling in for the night and the overriding concern was to get back into the city and check on their homes. Most were resigned to the fact that their homes were unlivable and probably had to be demolished, but they wanted to get in on that first day and pull those few valuables they could before the eventual looting began again.

The "old town" of Slidell, was deserted, the area of town that existed as a minature version of New Orleans French Quarter experienced 6 to 8 feet of standing water destroying what in the past decade had become the centerpiece for a new Slidell, with many trendy shops and boutiques interspersed with nightclubs and eateries. Now it was a ghost of a neighborhood, totally destroyed and only just beginning to clean up and rebuild. Further into town, the Hwy 11 side of Slidell was even darker, many blocks were still without power and shattered storefronts and homes were everywhere. Here and there were collections of New Orleanians who were a little more informed than others, as the only route into the city in the AM was the old Hwy 11 bridge. These people were trying to get a jump on the rest, a police officer told me that they expected many traffic problems in the morning when the city was opened and thousands upon thousands of cars mingled in with the contractors and big trucks that already clogged the highway in the morning. There was also a real concern that the residents of the Hwy 11 stretch to the bridge would try to disrupt the flow of traffic because residents in that area of town were still without water, sewer or electricity while the affluent Eden Isle area seemed to be bouncing back the residents of the Hwy 11 stretch felt that the city and FEMA had forgotten them. The officer explained that it wasn't a case of the city of Slidell forgetting about them, it was just that the infrastructure in that area was totally destroyed and had to be laid in from scratch, and considering that Hwy 11 was the only inlet into New Orleans, they couldn't go in and rip out the old infrastructure without cutting the only lifeline into the city.

I decided to head back to a family friends who was going to let me spend the night with a roof over my head instead of camping in my grandfathers yard. The trip so far was not necessarily eventful but signifcant as what had until now been a over-hyped and misleading news story was now becoming real. Here were stores and neighborhoods I was familiar with, irreparably changed and in some cases, completely GONE. Places that should have been familiar were mere shells indicating a life now gone. What was a sleepy little town, had taken on the appearance of a refugee camp, the streets were littered with piles of debris, downed trees and what were once the some of the oldest homes in the city were now piles of matchsticks.

The media focused on New Orleans throughout the Katrina coverage, and as I'll relate in future posts, the devastation in N.O. was certainly great, but here was sleepy little Slidell, a city just across the lake from New Orleans. A city that was unprotected by levees from the fury of Katrina, a city closer to the epicenter of the storms greatest fury, a city that was submerged under a 20 foot plus wall of water driven in from the lake, and a city that was now giving life support to the stricken New Orleans. Slidell was dealt a deathblow from Katrina, but miraculously it is surviving, crawling slowly back on top of the piles of broken buildings, warped roads and saturated belongings piled on the streetside, waiting for the traffic to die down enough for it to be hauled away.

And most people have never heard of Slidell, Louisiana.

More to come. . .

--Jason

Posted by JasonColeman at October 26, 2005 9:30 PM

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Posted by: Laur Rose at November 16, 2005 12:38 PM

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