Day One

From the lad’s journal:

Today I arrived at MSY airport on the northern outskirts of New Orleans. As we passed through downtown New Orleans, the Superdome came into view and it loomed there against the backdrop of the city scape. Black in patches where maintenance had taken place, it seemed so out of place. It rose far above us as we passed it on the main highway. I remember the clips of survivors stranded outside the dome as the water just missed the surrounding landing. That landing was far above us. The highway we were on at one time was completely beneath the flood waters.

We passed into the French Quarter to pick up another volunteer staying at a local hostel. We found him on the sidewalk leaning against his bag, enjoying the morning. He was an Ivy Leaguer, a former Harvard man and now at Dartmouth. And there he was with his backpack and bandana. A future ruler of Corporate America, here in abject squalor because it needed to be done. He wasn’t here because he thought it would be fun, he was here because he had two useful hands, a strong back, and time. The same as the rest of us, it turned out.

After our stop in the French Quarter, we started our trip down to the volunteer site. We had to pass through the 9th ward to get there. Nothing has changed much since the hurricane. No traffic lights are standing, debris is spilling into the streets. Cars are twisted and unrecognizable in the streets. Buildings are collapsed, crushed, or swept to an entirely new address. The pictures we saw on television during the crisis haven’t changed. The only difference is that People are no longer in the picture, only the stark landscape of ravaged homes.

You don’t truly understand the devastation until you are in the middle of a landscape that lacks any human element. Just the carnage and just the evidence of destroyed lives. The stillness of it all is a sharp contrast to the violent destruction. It didn’t look like suburbia; it didn’t look like my country. It looked like that of a war-torn nation where the refugees fled in the middle of the night.

As we cruised around the 9th ward, I recall thinking that should a pickup truck with armed militia pass us, I would not be surprised; it would fit the setting seamlessly.

The movie industry has succeeded in showing us the nature of foreign war zones and their look, feel, and impact. It’s surreal to know that the Hollywood image of war-torn destruction is, quite literally, in our own back yard.