Rebuilding New Orleans
1/10/2007
Samuel Zief - The Montclair Times
It was just before Christmas this year when my father and I decided to volunteer with the New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity, long after the pictures of people huddled together on rooftops, their houses disappearing from under their very feet, donned the front pages of every major news outlet in the country.
Returning home from a semester abroad in Dublin, Ireland, only days before departing for New Orleans (studying the Northern Irish conflict, no less), I thought I had a pretty good idea of what significant urban destruction could look like. Northern Ireland has been plagued by decades of constant bombings and violence, most of the destruction even occurring in comparably struggling metropolitan areas. Nevertheless, I was skeptical as to how bad the Gulf Coast could really still be after more than a year of rebuilding efforts.
Well the answer, I found, is simple. It’s bad. Still bad. Entire sections of New Orleans are left completely uninhabited; even busier areas, such as the French Quarter — the places that are supposed to be “up and running” — remain shorthanded and scarcely populated. In some places, residents’ houses, having been washed completely off of their foundations, now lay several lots away from where they once stood.
But where there is destruction, there is also hope.
Though Mother Nature may leave what had once been a family’s home in ruins, there are always those who will help, working alongside victims to rebuild what they have lost. The truth is that no media report, nor conflict study, could have ever given me the experience I received with Habitat for Humanity. My encounter with the determination of the human spirit is one that I will never forget.
HOW IT HAPPENED
It all started when my father called me a few weeks ago while I was still in Dublin. It was midday back in New York, and he had decided that as a part of my “official political science education” we were to volunteer in disaster relief down in New Orleans. I didn’t give much thought to the idea at first, as I was still in the midst of writing my final essays on Northern Ireland. But the more I considered it, the thought of actively helping people in need, rather than merely studying their misfortunes, started sounding more and more important.
So when Dad e-mailed me a few days before the end of the semester to let me know that he had signed us up to build houses with Habitat for Humanity, I was ready to embark on another adventure. He forgot to mention, however, that Habitat was so booked that the only volunteer times left available in New Orleans were for the two days immediately following my return home from Ireland!
No matter. Hours after stepping off a plane from Dublin, I was scrounging about my closet looking for old jeans, T-shirts, and work boots, trying to imagine what attire would be appropriate for a long, hard day on the construction site.
After landing in New Orleans on a late Tuesday evening, my father and I quickly rented a car and descended into the French Quarter, searching for our hotel so we could be rested for the arduous day ahead of us (we had to report to our Habitat site by 7 a.m.!). Driving toward the heart of the city, I was content to see that other than a few downed street signs and minor flood damage, New Orleans didn’t look any worse than parts of Belfast, New York or some other struggling urban area. Restaurants were open. Lights were on.
But as we neared the French Quarter, the thing that struck me the most was how empty the city felt. Even in this central tourist district, there were hardly any cars on the road or people on the streets.
Indeed, while checking into our hotel, the receptionist told my Dad that she could not offer us room service or other amenities, as the hotel was still severely understaffed. She explained that because people are so slow to return to the city, most businesses in the New Orleans area are still struggling to get back on their feet.
But what is there left to lure those who have moved on back to their homes or vacant lots? This is the dilemma of New Orleans. Without people, there can be no business; but conversely, without business, there can be no peo-ple.
THE EXPERIENCE
The sun was still down when my father and I awoke at 6 a.m. Wednesday morning. We hurriedly headed to the lobby after gathering our boots, work gloves, and raingear. And after a quick bite from the hotel’s breakfast buffet, Dad and I set out in search of our Habitat for Humanity work-site — 4849 America Ave., East New Orleans.
We arrived at the construction site just as the sun was rising over the tops of the surrounding houses. To my surprise, the neighborhood in which we were working was not as decimated as I expected it to be. Sure, houses were abandoned, gutted; a small fishing boat sat perched on the fence of the untamed yard across the street from our Habitat site. But houses were standing nonetheless.
People were living on their property, some in their homes, others in trailers. Residents — few though they may be — were driving their cars, their children going to school. Throughout the morning, school buses filled with local chil-dren passed by the construction site, reminding all of us working that this was not merely manual labor; we were helping to rebuild the infrastructure of a community.
But I would soon find out that not every area of the city affected by Katrina could be considered so fortunate.
By 7:30, Habitat supervisors had us 50 volunteers divided into specific construction groups — siding, interiors, framing, etc. In light of Dad’s fear of heights, and considering that he specifically told me he’d refuse to do any roof-ing whatsoever, it seemed fitting that the two of us should be assigned to shingle the house we were going to be working on. I, however, unlike my father, was ready to go as soon as I fastened the tool belt around my waist.
I wasn’t a scholar or an observing student anymore. I was a contributor — physically making the world a better place, one nail at a time.
Yet no matter how empowered I may have felt in my tool belt, up on the roof, Tara, our Habitat onsite supervisor, was in charge. Standing five feet tall, and wearing a red-and-green Santa’s-little-helper hat (complete with imitation elf ears), Tara barked orders at our team like a true foreman. Though she was no more than a few years older than I, Tara gave the impression of a seasoned veteran — always taking time to chat or demonstrate a simple task, while at the same time stalking her way across the eaves, making sure our work conformed to her exacting standards.
As we broke for lunch, my father and I met up with Jack Bowers, a Montclair resident and friend who, with his mortgage finance experience, works for Habitat for Humanity, helping to turn funding from the federal government into new sites for housing. Sitting against the bright yellow Dumpster on site, Dad and I listened while Jack gave us a brief tutorial on Habitat’s local mission and efforts. His fascinating, detailed explanation of the levee failures in 2005 actually attracted several other volunteers nearby.
After a long rest before the afternoon’s work session, Dad and I bade farewell to Jack as Tara called us back onto the roof. He left Dad and I with the suggestion that we take some time to drive through the city’s 9th Ward and Lakeview districts to get a “better feel” for the sheer magnitude of the destruction, and to see other local Habitat projects trying to make a difference.
THE DESTRUCTION
After our workday ended at 3, the sun began to set as Dad and I drove through the Lower 9th Ward. We drifted in silence, mouths gaping, through the ghost town where 5,000 families used to live.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of homes are vacant and gutted. Many more structures have been little touched since the waters were drained, leaving ruined possessions still trapped inside severely damaged buildings. On one par-ticular lot, all that is left of the home that once stood there is its front porch, the surge of the floodwaters having smashed the entire house from its foundation.
The great devastation and difficulties in restoring basic utilities and city services have kept the Lower 9th Ward as the last portion of the city of New Orleans not yet officially reopened to residents who wish to permanently return. Residents are allowed in only during daylight hours — to look, salvage possessions, and leave.
Fifteen months after the levees breached, as the bulk of New Orleans slowly learns to stand on its own once again, the Lower 9th Ward remains deserted and forsaken.
Trying to beat the sun (the Lower 9th is also the last area of the city still under a curfew), Dad and I began mean-dering back in the direction of the French Quarter.
Suddenly, the apparently never-ending stream of soggy streets and hollowed-out homes gave way to a bright 10-acre tract of leveled land. Driving into the Lakeview District of the Upper 9th Ward, we had inadvertently come across “Musicians’ Village” — the largest-scale, highest-profile, and biggest-budget rebuilding project to be under-taken during the post-Katrina period. The brilliantly painted clusters of the site’s newly erected pastel houses pro-vided for a much-needed bit of color against the day’s fading gray sky and decimated landscape.
Conceived by local artists Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis, the Musician’s Village project seeks to build more than 300 homes for displaced New Orleans musicians and other Habitat-partner families in the city’s Upper 9th Ward and surrounding areas. Construction began last March, allowing the first 10 families to move into their new homes.
HOPE AND HELP
As my father and I boarded our plane the next day (our second day of work was unfortunately rained out), we tried to speak of the experience we had just shared. We decided there was nothing we could say — we’d just have to make another trip to New Orleans soon.
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, celebrities, corporations and ordinary people have consistently shown their support for rebuilding New Orleans, and not just with multi-sized checks. Indeed, in addition to Musicians’ Village, Habitat for Humanity is currently working with numerous sponsors on a variety of different projects in the greater New Orleans area.
The house that my father and I shingled is one of 15 to 20 homes being built in partnership with the NBA’s New Orleans Hornets as a part of their Hoops for Homes campaign. Just last week, with dirt on their hands, several Hornets and other NBA legends helped raise the walls of a new house on Dale Street in East New Orleans — a single block from where my father and I tried to do our part in the rebuilding of this city.
All in all, I saw in New Orleans the perfect example of the perseverance of the human spirit: Ordinary people working together to help others help themselves. With volunteers ranging from ages 16 to 60, the Habitat site was positive and inspiring, but so was the city itself, as well as the people within it.
There was a feeling that all was not lost, and though difficult times may lie ahead, these people will rebuild, and they will succeed. They will never give up on their city, on their homes. They simply refuse to.
But no matter how hard their resolve, the city and people of New Orleans can use our help.
To contact Habitat for Humanity, you can either call 504-861-2077, or visit its Web site at www.habitat-NOLA.org.
We can all lend a hand.
A Montclair resident, Sam Zief attends George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
As one of the many musicians who was nurtured by the vibrant cultural environment in New Orleans, I cannot overstate the importance of the Musicians’ Village. Please lend your support for those artists eager to call New Orleans home again, and for those in future generations who will be the beneficiaries of their knowledge.- Branford Marsalis
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