Mike Leonard and his lovely wife Mardi were in New Orleans for Jazz Fest. On Monday, I took them on the mandatory misery tour. We drove through Lakeview, then stopped at the London Avenue Canal breach and examined the work under way.
Then we headed down to the Lower Ninth Ward.
I’m sorry to say it’s not looking any better down there.
We did the misery tour yesterday in a slighly different order: Lower Ninth, Lakeview and then Gentilly. The lack of progress was depressing.
Thanks for reminding out of town friends that We Are Not OK.
Hi –
Can we sign up for the mandatory disaster tour if we visit you this summer? We are moving to Tennessee in three weeks, and my wife has never been to New Orleans…We can give you a ol’ fashioned down east rural Maine care package (except we cannot offer the traditional country remedy of Oxycontin, which is the choice of poor Mainers everywhere for relief)…
Mike Leonard, like J and B, being someone I know only from afar, it’s odd to think of him having a wife, let alone being a tourist.
Very moving picture – at my comfortable distance, I somehow picture NO as more oragnized that it truly is. Will try to download the footage.
In reading Chris’ article, I’ll note that you dont’ really get tired of disaster tours, because you never get tired of seeing the reactions on the faces of the people to whom you are giving the tour. This comes from years of experience showing people the ruins of Detroit
[…] Probably the most important post Brainjams post is this quick introduction to the New Orleans bloggers. These are a few, but there’s Maitri V-R who’s been posting since the storm, she wins a trophy for maintaining a narrative which makes her easy to read, Mark Folse, the Wet Bank Guide who writes humor and history, Morwen Madigal the Gentilly Girl, who’s transitioning to a WordPress Gentilly Girl, Loki from Humid City who I’m getting to know myself, Charlotte the Traveling Mermaid, Editor B who is creating new weblogs for community groups and photographing Mid-City, Sophmom, and 10 year old Kalypso. BrainJams, Civic Blogging, New Orleans Bloggers, Think New Orleans […]