Christmas Eve

The Post-Katrina Christmas, and all through the house...

The city decides on FEMA trailer sites and decides on the first houses to raze.

And I go for coffee at the Rue, as I have almost every day that I have been back. Last year, when they opened, I would bring a book or some homework. After Thanksgiving, before I had internet at home, I would drag my laptop to take advantage of free wireless and keep my eye out for a table with a plug but now it's just one of the only destinations available in my neighborhood.




Speaking of neighborhoods, I drove by my old house in Broadmoor, one of the lowest areas of the city. They had recently completed improving the drainage system and people felt more secure from big rains but it seems that a breach in the levee was the last thing that anybody had in mind.



My previous house is in the middle of the picture. The block was once lush with vegetation. Even though the house was raised over a service basement, the new owners had just installed a rental unit downstairs.
Around the corner, the dead leaves mark the level of the two weeks of floodwaters.