Wednesday, January 11 , 2006
 Connor Sullivan, College of Arts & Sciences
We spent Wednesday morning finishing our work on the house of Xavier Prep’s guidance counselor. It was profoundly satisfying. What we had left to do was mostly finishing work around the edges and cleaning up the remnants of our demolition, so after less than an hour we could stand in the middle of the house and see its complete transformation. It was extraordinary to be able to take a house, which had been untouched since the water receded from New Orleans, and take it down to the studs, ready to be rebuilt.
After we were done we moved on to the Vice-Principal’s house. It was in even poorer shape; the flood and the attendant decomposition had dropped a lot of the ceilings, and the mold was incredibly pervasive. We were eager to get in, so after some initial debate over the house’s structural safety we decided to start pulling furniture out of the front room. After a few minutes, though, Carl decided to crawl under the house to check the foundations and discovered that the brick supports had practically collapsed, so we had to cut short our work there. We were very disappointed, but at least we managed to clear out some of the debris from the front of the house.
We had lunch in the French Quarter and spent a few minutes on the riverfront, watching the water and the people in Jackson Square, before we discovered that the city was formally unveiling its plan for reconstruction at 1:00 pm at the Canal Street Sheraton. We thought that this serendipity was too good a chance to pass up, so we walked down from the riverfront to the hotel and found ourselves in a far too small and swelteringly hot room. The plan was a wonderful example of long-range urban planning: internal light rail system connecting the city to the region, regional levees to supplement the unified city-wide levee system, neighborhoods rebuilt around parks. However, as was amply demonstrated by the comments of a number of citizens after the presentation, the plan failed to provide a short-term structure for dealing with the immediate needs of returned citizens, especially considering that the commission’s recommendation is that building permits for hard-hit areas be put under a four-month moratorium until each neighborhood can demonstrate a commitment to return from a sufficient portion of its residents to ensure its future viability. This really upset a lot of people who have come back to ruined houses cut off from water and electricity, only to discover that they can’t even begin to rebuild. Of course, the commission’s argument is also very understandable: if a neighborhood isn’t going to have enough returning residents, then rebuilding efforts there will probably end up being futile. Still, the tension between the members of the commission and the audience members, who seemed to be almost universally opposed to the plan, was fascinating and indicative of how furious the battle over the future of the city will be.
After our showers we broke up into smaller parties for dinner. Walking through the streets of the French Quarter that night with ten or so other members of the class, I could easily have completely forgotten that anything bad had ever happened in New Orleans. It was mildly surreal; the high balconies and the beautiful buildings blended with the soft night air into a deep, ancient placidity. Remembering the ruin of the lower 9th Ward and the desperate anger of the people at the commission’s unveiling, I could only think that New Orleans has a long road ahead.
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