From the Director's Desk: One Thousand

I was assigned two cases dealing with intestate succession. While I did well in and enjoyed Winwood's Wills and Trusts class, I only understand about half of the issues I encounter. I'm a criminal law junkie, and I know that I would have been more effective with the Public Defender or the juvenile court. But you can't always get what you want, and when I turned my files in to the supervising attorney this afternoon, she said I had done well and that one of the cases is ready to be filed.

Wednesday evening we all saddled up and drove through the Lower Ninth Ward. A picture is worth a thousand words, but a thousand pictures cannot accurately portray the conditions that still exist 18 months after the hurricanes.

This is just one of the houses we passed, on the block closest to the Industrial Canal. The Ninth Ward was one of the hardest hit areas because it is low land bordered by the Mississippi River and the Industrial Canal; when the levees broke, a wall of water flooded right into this neighborhood. The force was so great that entire city blocks of houses were washed off their foundations; roofs collapsed, windows broke, and walls crumbled under the pressure of so much water. It's a grassy lot now, but this block used to be full of houses, yards, driveways, and front porches. Those stairs were the front stoop where kids used to play, where neighbors would congregate, where the first day of school pictures were taken. For weeks after the hurricanes, the water reached as high as fifteen feet here.

We saw a lot of homes that had been up-ended like this one. The water was so high in some areas that the people who could not evacuate climbed to their attics. When the water rose higher, they punched through their roofs to escape.

Rescue workers spray-painted each house with this X-shaped code: the top portion is the date that rescue workers arrived at the house; here, September 6 (one week after the first hurricane, which hit New Orleans on August 29, 2005). The right-hand portion is the name of the rescue organization; here, it was a group whose initials were NE. The bottom portion is the number of bodies recovered from the house; the residents of this house were lucky.

Another foundation without a house. In the background you can see the bridge that spans the canal.

Even the residents who were able to evacuate could not take all of their personal possessions. As we walked around, we saw what was left behind of their everyday lives: a laundry basket, clothes in the closet, a couch, shattered dishes, the scrap of a photograph.


New Orleans is a tourist destination: the city offers beautiful architecture, incredible performing arts, tons of museums and points of historical interest, and it's a foodie's paradise. Tour operators offer walking tours of the posh Garden District, of the haunting and historic cemeteries, and of the vivacious French Quarter. Tour operators are also offering tours of the Ninth Ward and other areas that were severely damaged by the hurricanes. These bus tours run up to $75 and more.

While it is important to learn about Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, I see these operations as nothing more than a way to profit from our fellow man's pain. Over 1600 people died from the hurricanes or the after-effects. I understand that I'm not much better... I drove a 15-passenger van full of my classmates through the neighborhood; we got out, walked around and took pictures. We stared. We peered into windows and doors. We're not here to make money, though; we came to help. We came to listen. We came to document, to learn, to improve.


As I walked around, I wasn't sad. I became angry and then ashamed... I guess that's a good sign that after three years of law school, I'm not completely detached, not completely cynical and jaded. I guess I just can't believe that people could drive by this neighborhood in a cushy air-conditioned tour bus and not do something, anything, to help. I can't believe that our great nation, the wealthiest nation in the world, has effectively forgotten about the post-hurricane Gulf Coast. Eighteen months after the hurricane, families are scattered; some debris and wreckage has been cleared, but not all of it; rebuilding has only just begun; families of 4 or more are still living in the tiny FEMA-issued trailers; people have not been permitted to return to their habitable homes in other areas. Government benefits are as easy to obtain as A's on Professor Durham's exams... and while no one is entitled to ace Basic Real Estate, everyone who lived in New Orleans is entitled to their housing, the loan for repairs to their property, to electricity and running water.

The residents of the Lower Ninth Ward - and of the other affected neighborhoods - did not do anything wrong. The hurricanes were not their fault, and I guess that's what gets to me more than anything. The designation between "worthy" and "unworthy" poor has been drawn once again, and it seems that the people who did not own their own cars, did not have a tv to watch the news and learn of the weather, the elderly and the disabled who needed assistance in evacuating... somehow they have been regarded as not as "worthy" of help and attention. This country was intended as a haven for the tired, the poor, the huddled masses, the tempest-tossed; not just for the fortunate, the privileged and the educated.

This entry has carried a certain tone and I'd like to end it on a different note. Despite the destruction we witnessed, and the stories of struggle and loss, the City of New Orleans will not give in. There are Help Wanted signs in every restaurant and shop window, but the short-staff issue does not affect service or spirit. I feel like the city greeted me with open arms, without even knowing I was there to volunteer, and treated me with the kind of southern hospitality I usually only find with family. After a night spent shopping and chatting over cafe au laits, a friend and I watched a movie being filmed in Jackson Square amidst the street artists and buskers. The Aquarium of the Americas advertises with a sense of humor: "The only part of New Orleans still under water!" While some tempers are short, the vast majority of people I talked to were wonderfully open, upbeat, and warm; I felt right at home. We were only in New Orleans for a week, but for that week, New Orleans was my home. The Big Easy got under my skin and I became attached. The good times are rolling again.