Author's Note: Dispatches From Disaster are Sean West's contributions from his volunteer work in New Orleans. All comments will be forwarded to Mr. West.
Today we cleaned out Keith's house along the same avenue as Eddie's. Keith is a mid-thirties white security guard with both ears pierced, who grew up in the house we were tasked to clean out. Unlike Eddie's house, Keith's had not been touched since the hurricane seven months ago--making for more work but also telling a story with each room entered.
Keith's father purchased the house before Keith was born, and Keith's mother gave birth to him, his sister, and his brother in the house. Both his parents had passed recently. Early on we found two photos of children in the house. One was found by a fellow volunteer and it was an unframed school picture which turned out to be of Keith's niece--who lived next door with his sister until his sister's passing early this year. The other I found in a pile of garbage that was about to be swept up. It was in a silver frame, so I brought it outside to give to Keith, and began to chat with him. It turns out the photo wasn't of his child but rather of his brother who became mentally challenged after an accident when he was 2 years old. His brother lived in the back of the house for thirty years after the accident before passing away just a few years ago. Keith almost cried when I handed him the picture--he said it was the only one he had left because all the others had been on white paper and had been destroyed.
Keith told me that after his family passed, he wasn't sure what to do with the house--whether to sell it or rent it out--but after the hurricane hit, he decided it was his task to rebuild and continue to live in his family's base. The house sat under 10 feet 9 inches of water, but the upstairs was largely undamaged--minus a tree blown onto the roof by the winds of the storm. Keith told me that once the doors were opened up by emergency workers, he began to suffer looting similar to Eddie. Valuables weren't taken, but rather someone stole his dolly and his shovel. He said the looters keep him from wanting to live upstairs in the house initially, even if he could--who knows what would happen if they found him upstairs during a nighttime raid.
This comment raised an interesting question: Who was protecting his neighborhood? Keith told me that the city was telling citizens that if not enough of them return, they will cut police, fire, and EMT service to neighborhoods outside of downtown. In a sense, this is a chicken and egg problem: Until people have those services, they can't think of returning. But rebuilding and returning is a hard or impossible choice for many in Keith's neighborhood. An old lady down the street sold her house and land, once appraised at $97,000 to the government for $6,000 cash. Another was found in the washing machine room of his house by cousins last week despite two investigative searches over the last 6 months. For a third, the neighborhood drug dealer who used to drive around telling the neighbors they needed to behave with more "decorum", the home was one of ten residences--no need to rush back any time soon.
But there were signs of life in the neighborhood. One resident was living in his trailer rebuilding. And Keith told us the drug dealer down the street had a trailer, though he was nowhere to be seen. Unfortunately for Keith, FEMA refused to provide him with a trailer because there was no electricity in the neighborhood. The resident who did have a trailer was an electrician who climbed up the pole and turned on his connection. One can only wonder how the drug dealer procured it. But Keith was living in Alexandria, LA, 240 miles away in a hotel. When Keith pointed out this was a waste of taxpayer dollars and they should just give him a trailer on his own land, one FEMA representative told Keith to "deal with it and move on--there are other emergencies." She was met with an expletive that probably guaranteed a sour notation in Keith's file.
Not much of the house was salvageable. When a refrigerator door was brought out, Keith half seriously said that he doubted his Sears warranty would cover it. I said to Keith that hopefully his insurance would pick up a lot of the damage. He said he had none. For the city's poorest residents, living in the riskiest areas, insurance was too high. He had been living in a large house earning $10 an hour, but even moving to a 2 bedroom rental would have cost him $600 a month. That salary is better than the situation now, where anecdote informs that people are hired at McDonald's for the same salary, only to have their pay revert to federal minimum wage after 90 days (the price of failing to read contractual small print). He lived there with his 6 dogs--one of whom he took with him; four of whom were found lifeless next door after the storm, and one of whom was unaccounted for. What we did find were a collection of coins thrown out at each Mardi Gras that Keith had collected since he was a boy. Our original instructions were to save nothing, but when he saw these coins his face lit up.
I asked Keith how he felt about the 2006 Mardi Gras. After Eddie's comment that "people were suffering and this joker [Mayor Nagin] wants to have Mardi Gras!" I expected some harsh language. But he said though originally against it, he enjoyed Mardi Gras and felt like it was a much needed reminder of how life used to be in the city. For residents, he felt it was a well deserved diversion from the horror of the last 6 months.
Yet, he had no kind words for Mayor Nagin. He pointed out that Nagin hired a Mayflower moving truck after he heard about the storm and moved his family to Texas. Why wasn't Nagin at the Superdome with his city? How was he supposed to be taken seriously when he visited Keith's shelter after the storm and invited residents back saying there were jobs to be done? To this claim, Nagin was met with the vocal criticism of residents asking how they could come back if they couldn't afford to live downtown. His lack of sufficient answer leaves that question unresolved.
Stories of ineptitude abound. How about the 2 Carnival Cruise Ships chartered for nearly $300 million to put up residents when the country of Greece offered such ships for free. How about the city chopping down a public tree and having it fall on Keith's house? Or how about the fact that his neighbor's body had been missed during two inspections?
For Keith, there is determination that he must work to rebuild what his family once had. There was no sign of buckling under the pressure of managing it--indeed, he stood proudly in a Louisiana Cougars t-shirt and noted that he was going back to school to be able to get a better job. The striking thing is that few of the volunteers stop to talk to the homeowners. But for those that do, it appears to be rewarding for them and cathartic for the homeowners.
