New Orleans

As I am sure at least some of you are aware (from me handing out those little pieces of paper) I am planning on going down to volunteer in New Orleans for my spring break. I am going down with InterVarsity, and really looking forward to it.

Tonight I had the opportunity to go see a documentary at the Palace 9 about Hurricane Katrina. It was filmed by people who went through the experience. The documentary is called Trouble the Water.

As most do, I know at the least the basic facts about what happened. I know the levees broke, houses got flooded out and there was a mass movement of people leaving the area. Before I started to talk to people about going down for spring break in my mind it was all over and taken care of. The houses all built up neatly and everyone had, for the most part, moved on from what happened.

I now know that people are still dealing with the aftermath of what happened that day in 2005. People still have not been able to come back to New Orleans. It is either too hard emotionally or their houses are condemned.

This documentary brought a very personal touch to it all. There were moments I felt like crying, from the despair I felt just watching this documentary. Yet these amazing people were able to maintain faith in God, and survive. They were courteous to all they met. They were nice to the people who were sent down to help, even when they were ignored.

A few things really stuck out to me in this documentary:

     1. The people were turned away with force and threat of imminent death if they did not leave from an abandoned and closed naval base.

     2. The news focused on how the gas prices would affect everyone. (At the time that had seemed pertinent to me, now having seen this film, it seems rude, selfish and horrible to even think about focusing on that.)

     3. The prisoners were abandoned in a prison with no food or drink for days, while all the people in charge, the guards and everyone else left.

     5. The hospital which claimed they had evacuated, did not evacuate resulting in the deaths of a lot of people, mostly older.

     6. The tourism department in New Orleans made a point of making the tourist areas nice quickly, so that tourists would not have to face the fact that the disaster had happened. (Then ignored the rest of the city.)

If you get a chance, you should definitely go see this. It is only playing for this week at the Palace 9.