Reflections - Full Entries

Nicole Van Tassell

During the few days after we finished our work we explored and embraced the city of New Orleans. We visited the places that had been devastated by the hurricane, we toured the French Quarter again, and we went back to the Golf Driving Range. Each of these places made us realize why we were really here, and what and who we were doing this for. We were able to talk to people at each place and hear their heartfelt stories of life changing devastation, while at the same time we were thanked and praised for all the wonderful work we were doing.

When we went back to the French Quarter, we were able to embrace the spirit and culture of New Orleans. They had a St. Patrick’s Day parade and we joined in. The spirit of the people who had been so devastated just 6 months ago was amazing. These people are proud of New Orleans and really showed it. They wont let their city die just because of a hurricane. And the parade was a way for people to get away from all the devastation that they had faced. Just like the Golf Driving Range was. People went to the Driving Range to get away from the mark Katrina had left and by cleaning it up, we were really giving them a place that didn’t look like it was effected by Katrina. We gave them a place to get away from everything. We also realized this when we went back and saw how many people were using the Driving Range after we had finished our work. The entire bottom part of the range was filled with people, people who were having fun and getting away from all their worries. And that really made us feel like we made a difference in their lives, no matter how small it may have initially seemed. Plus, since the Driving Range is for the public, anyone could come, it wasn’t just for the New Orleans upper class, it was for everyone who enjoyed golf. And was also satisfying to know that we were giving the park a chance to get back on its feet to rejuvenate its source of income.

However, what hit many of us the most was going to the 9 th Ward. You cant even begin to imagine how utterly devastated the 9 th Ward was. Their houses were the first to be hit, since they were right by the canal. Plus, they were in the poorest neighborhoods as well, so it was hard for those people to get out. Just imagining the houses that we saw and how completely ruined they were and thinking that people may have actually been in these houses when the water came, it is something you don’t want to even begin to imagine. This was literally the worst thing we have ever seen. Words cannot even begin to explain how deep this affects you, not even pictures can help explain. It is something you have to experience by being there. But something that was so upsetting you almost wish you didn’t go there to see it. But from that experience we made realizations, realizations that will last a life time. This area was so devastated, it looked as though it was beyond repair, basically like the whole area should just be torn down. But it made you realize that this was something no person should ever have to go through. And, by coming to New Orleans we were able to make those peoples’ lives a little better. Whatever any of the groups worked on…if it was just a Golf Driving Range, a School clean-up project, or gutting houses, even for just a week…these projects were making New Orleans better. We all had a part, even in a small way, in rebuilding New Orleans. And we were able to help these people get their lives back, even if it was just one person or one little aspect of their lives at that time. It wasn’t about what you did, it was who you were there for, New Orleans, the city and its people.

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Annie Stadstad

Hurricane Katrina has been ruled one of the greatest natural catastrophes of our time. For many people this is the worst naturally occurring disaster of their lifetime thus far. What most people don’t know is the history of flood control in New Orleans and the surrounding areas of the Mississippi River Delta. Reading Rising Tide shed light on a lot of light on the poor planning and building of the levee systems in these areas. As it turns out, the problems with flooding date back to pretty much when civilization of the area began. In the early days people let the river run its course, and the built to accommodate the river. This can be seen in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Over all that area has the oldest buildings, and even had the three oldest buildings in all of New Orleans. This area has stood the test of time as far as floods go because it was built on the highest land in that area. As the city grew, people still knew the power of the river, and they would take other precautions to protect themselves against flooding. They would build their houses up off the ground and they would put anchors deep down in the ground to hold the houses in place. Over time, mankind has made many advances in technology and with that advancement, many have come to the frame of mind that they can control natur. People started building dykes and levees to hold back the flooding waters of the Mississippi, and then began settling on this reclaimed flood plain. As stated in the book, people started out building levees just a few feet high, but over time they kept building the levees up and before long there were new problems to deal with. The higher the levees got, the stronger they had to be to hold the water back. That in itself has presented problems. Inconsistencies in the designs and effectiveness of the levees have also been a problem. This is due to different groups building the levees and the fact that each group builds them to their own standards. This makes it so that on the same stretch of river, one side can have a much stronger and safer levee then the shore just across the river. Over time the problem has only worsened because no one will step up to sort out the mess and get things under control. That is what, in effect, caused the flooding in New Orleans; it was man, not nature. Had the levees systems in the city been as strong as they should have been, the flood wouldn’t have happened. It wasn’t the hurricane itself that destroyed New Orleans, it was the fact that Lake Pontchartrain flooded and broke the levees. Had that not happened, Katrina just would have been another hurricane and people would have done the normal amount of hurricane clean-up and gone on with their lives. Thanks to the improper levees system, the city is now left in shambles and people are wondering where to start picking up the pieces.

As with any disaster effecting people, when it comes Katrina there are definite questions of race, class and gender. Many of the people who stayed in New Orleans to ride out the hurricane were lower class people who had to stay because they had no way out. Because of their low social class, the majority of them also lived in areas most dangerous and susceptible to flooding. These two facts pretty much put them in the worst possible scenario for making it through the hurricane, and also left them out to dry when it came to getting their lives back together afterward. Class is the basis of the troubles in New Orleans, but that’s not to say that racism and gender aren’t huge issues there either. Like the rest of the south, New Orleans has had racism issues since its founding. Today there are still issues with racism there, although there are far less problems. The majority of people at or below the poverty line in new Orleans are black, and most of them live in and around the 9 th ward, which was one of the areas hardest hit by not only Karina, but also Hurricane Rita. Whether or not race is actually a reason that people in this area are having a harder time rebuilding is up for debate, but it is without a doubt an obvious conclusion to the problems going on there. Gender goes right along with race considering that the majority of single parent homes are headed by women and that on average they make a lower income then man. Because of the social status of these women they are also facing gender and class issues in the wake of Katrina.

One important issue raised by Katrina has to do with national unity. Katrina pretty much destroyed much of the golf coast. This was a very big deal for hundreds of thousands of people in the effected area, not to mention all the other parts of the country that were affected economically by these events. Government was slow to respond to this crisis and has done little to help since then. What they have done to help has been minimal and a lot of it is a run-around for victims if they want to get anything out of it. As for the reaction of the country, although there has been outpourings of support from many different places, a lot of the country remained fixed on other happenings around the world rather then what was going on in their own backyard. Still others were more concerned about how the hurricane was going to affect gas prices, rather then the fact that the gulf coast was ripped to shreds. Especially in the days immediately following the hurricane, there was much more that America as a whole could have done to help out.

Throughout my time in New Orleans I had nothing but positive experiences. The first day we got to New Orleans I completely fell in love with the city, the culture, and the people. It really is like no other place I have ever been, and I feel that everyone should experience New Orleans at some point in their life. Seeing the French quarter and meeting people on the weekends was really great, but the experiences we had during the week was equally as important and meaningful. When we are old and grey, there will be only a handful of people who will be able to say that they remember hurricane Katrina, even fewer who actually saw the destruction first hand, and even fewer who were able to help in the clean-up effort. I will be proud to be able to say that I was one of the people who did all three of those things. I learned so many things during the week that we worked at Ms. Gerry’s house that I could never learn in a class room. I learned all the tricks to gutting a house, how to work with a group of people who all initially had no idea what they were doing and I learned to problems solve. I also got the opportunity to meet many different people throughout the week, and was privileged enough to hear their individual Katrina stories. For many of the people that we met, the mere fact that we were helping with clean-up was enough for them to thank us a million times over. It didn’t matter that we weren’t helping them, or even anyone they knew, it was just that we were there and doing something to help in the overall clean up process. I also feel very lucky to have been able to see the destruction that the flooding left. Seeing the 9 th ward and St. Bernard’s Parish was unbelievable. The destruction here was so complete it left me wondering how there could be any hope of getting things back to normal. The funny thing was all that you had to do was drive a few more blocks and you would see a work crew gutting a house, and then another and you would see that slowly but surly, things were starting to come back. On one occasion we even saw a duplex that was completely remodeled. That showed the resilience of the people in New Orleans, and the willingness they have within themselves to fight for their city. As a whole there isn’t one part of the trip that I wouldn’t do over. Every second of what happened for the nine days we were in Louisiana was something special that I will remember always. Despite this the one thing that will always come to mind first when remembering this trip will simply be the people that I met their stories, and their hospitality. The people are what makes New Orleans the city that it is, and they will survive.

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Annie Leaf

During the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Mark D. Lerner, Ph.D, was quoted to have said, “Hurricane Katrina is one of our nation's worst natural disasters. The loss of life and destruction seems immeasurable.” Meanwhile, I was safe and sound in Minnesota, watching T.V. in my dorm room. But I wasn’t watching the Hurricane Katrina stories that were plastered all over the news, I was channel hopping, back and forth between The Disney Channel and MTV, completely unaware that New Orleans was in the midst of one of our nation’s worst national disasters.

For me, the morning of Monday, August 28 th, 2005, was just like any other Monday morning. I was in college now, and apparently hadn’t realized my oblivion to the rest of the world. Every Monday morning, my roommate and I would wake up at six thirty to get ready for our eight o’clock weight lifting class. I went to my weights class, then to my psychology and anatomy classes, and then I had the rest of the day off. My free time, whether in between classes or when I was finished, was consumed with unimportant activities, such as watching television. Like I said before, I usually jumped around between a few favorite channels, but none of them were news channels. The entire day of Monday, August 28 th, 2005, I had no idea. I had no idea that New Orleans had been preparing for a hurricane, that it had been hit by Hurricane Katrina, or the suffering that it had caused. It was not until Tuesday, the following day, when my speech teacher had mentioned the disaster in class. I looked to my roommate; we were both completely baffled as to what was going on. Even then, all that I knew was that there had been a hurricane, it wasn’t until much, much later, that I realized how truly dire the situation was.

I signed up for the class because I thought that it was the right thing to do. I had never been involved in a service learning class before and I thought that it would enhance my college experience. I love to travel and experience different cultures, and New Orleans sure had that. I was overwhelmed by all of the articles and reading assignments in the beginning, and it was really hard for me to put it all together. It took a lot more than just reading to make me understand why I was really going and what I was really doing.

My group’s work and contributions to the relief efforts at City Park really helped me understand a part of why I was there. We worked at City Park for four days. We did a little bit of general clean up, but our main project was scraping, priming, and painting the gates at the driving range. At first, I didn’t think that this project would really contribute much to the overall relief efforts, and I was a little disappointed. It wasn’t until the second day of work, that I understood the meaning of cleaning up the driving range. As we were working, I noticed that several people stopped by to inquire about the opening of the driving range. Several times I spoke to the people myself, and experienced firsthand their reaction when I said that it would be open at three o’clock, later that same day. Just about every time that I had had this conversation with someone, it was like their spirit had been lifted. Their worries and fears had been temporarily whisked away, and replaced with the excitement of returning to the only driving range open in the area. They were taking a small, but nonetheless significant, step towards normalcy. We gave them a chance to take a break from their chaotic lives, and get back to doing something that they know and love. I wasn’t able to help gut or rebuild anybody’s house, but what I did get to do was help the people of New Orleans begin to return to their old lives, their pre-Katrina lives.

I think that everybody who went on this trip had their own moment. What I mean by moment, is a sudden realization of why you were truly there. For me, that moment was during the St. Michael’s Special School “Thank You” program, dedicated to our class. I can’t describe exactly when I had my moment, but I can say that it was genuinely amazing. As I was sitting there, surrounded by my classmates and the students of St. Michael’s, I was overcome with emotion. I didn’t get the chance to work with the students or get to know them very well, so I was quite surprised with how the program affected me. Perhaps it was the students’ determination to give us a good show, and how hard they must have worked to perfect their cheerleading stunt routine and musical bells concert. Or maybe it was all of the speeches, and all of the thank you’s that were directed toward us. It had to be a combination of the two, but not alone. There also seemed to be a special feeling in the air that day, a feeling of happiness and gratitude. It was unlike anything that I have ever felt before, unlike anything I have ever seen. It was at this point when I finally realized why I was there. I wasn’t there just to do the physical work of rebuilding, however much it may have helped. I was there to support the rebuilding process, and to give the people of New Orleans hope for the future in their time of need.

My experience, both in this class, as well as in New Orleans, has changed me. It has affected me so deeply, that I can hardly put it into words. All of my experiences; at City Park, in the French Quarter, at St. Michael’s, in the devastated neighborhoods, my experience as a whole, has been truly life-changing. At first, I didn’t see the point to all of our learning logs reflecting on our experiences, and reflecting on our reflections. But now, after extensive reflection, I see that it is an important step in helping to understand the importance of our experience.

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Ronnie Langel

After Hurricane Katrina passed and the news coverage started pouring in, I became interested in the situation with the people that stayed in the city and found their homes and lives destroyed by flood waters. As a journalist I also have a natural curiosity and wanted questions about the cause and aftermath of the devastation answered. This class gave me and other students the opportunity to explore articles, news casts and past floods that helped us get a better understanding of the situation.

The class consisted of seven weeks of discussion, papers and analysis of news articles and Rising Tide by John M. Barry. A major portion of the class was also dedicated to preparing for our worksites once we reached New Orleans. For nine days we stayed in the city and learned of its culture and history while exploring the sites and driving through devastated areas. Four days were spent working on sites that benefited the city in one way or another. One group worked on restoring the lawn and gardens at St. Michaels Special School where we stayed during our trip. Another group worked on repainting golf stalls at the driving range, the only income at the City Park. Our group went to Miss Gerry’s, a teacher at St. Michaels who lost her home and belongings from flood waters.

During classes we discussed many things that would be more apparent to us in New Orleans. One discussion I was interested in was the situation at the Superdome and Convention Center. My initial thoughts were confusion as to why so many people would not leave the city. We learned in class that leaving was virtually impossible for these people. Studies from the Brookings Institute and other articles gave readers factual statements that cars and other transportation outside of the city plus the cost of hotels were unattainable. The Brookings Institution cited that more than 200,000 in the metropolitan area did not have access to a car (14).

Once the city began to flood, there were very few places where people could leave the city and many of these were blocked off by police officers as we learned from the PodCast and “The Criminalization of New Orleanians in Katrina’s Wake.” A couple who was removed from their hotel was interviewed in the article. The couple walked from the French Quarter to the Superdome where they were denied access to the building because there was no more room. In a last effort to leave the city, the couple walked to the Pontchartrain Expressway, hoping to cross the New Orleans Bridge to the south side of the Mississippi. To the couples’ dismay, the bridge was blocked off by police officers and sheriffs who shot warning shots into the air before the group could explain themselves. One sheriff told them that “the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their city (Kaufman).”

As a class we drove around near the area by the Superdome and Convention center and understood how hard it would have been for the people to escape. The best route out of the city was through overpasses and expressways. Otherwise people had to travel through the debris ravaged waters. However, they were left in 90 degree heat with no food or water for five days.

In other places it was difficult for people to even reach the safety of the Superdome. We talked with Reggie Galley who had to walk through chest high waters for nearly seven hours after narrowly escaping his home. As we were learning about the people who walked through the city, we hadn’t realized the confusion these people must have felt. There was even less then the minimal communication that the people in the Superdome had. Galley walked around his suddenly unfamiliar neighborhood along raised concrete near roads and nearly drowning when he tripped, the whole time wondering where he should go, especially when he had a feeling that the Superdome would not be the best place to go. Fortunately, he was able to find a hospital above water that would take him in.

After the storm the media spent days covering the impoverished conditions in the city. One report that I remember was of a lady who had a bag of toilet paper in one hand that she used to cover her face from the camera. People were afraid and embarrassed by their situation and were being criticized for looting. Looting was discussed in the class as an ethical decision for the citizens to make. “The Criminalization of New Orleanians in Katrina’s Wake” told the story of two photographs. One was of a black person with a caption that said he had just been “looting a grocery store” and another of a white couple who were “finding bread and soda at a local grocery store (Kaufman).”

The media coverage was one that was highly debated on in the months following the hurricane. “Finding and Framing Katrina: The Social Construction of Disaster” took into consideration that Hurricane Katrina was the first natural disaster in the United States that was able to be covered 24/7 and that the constant coverage distorted the destruction of the city. The article also noted the fact that the mayor and police officials were always ready for interviews and press conferences while the citizens have been dealing with starvation, dehydration, anger, and chaos for five days and was willing to tell the camera anything that would bring their situation closer to national attention (Dynes).

We talked to some people in New Orleans that thankfully did not have to deal with looters in the midst of the chaos, however, Reggie Galley said he witnessed a murder and narrowly missed confronting this person and being endangered himself. We also saw signs that said “Looters will be shot. Survivors will be reshot by me.” We read through a lot of articles on this topic but it wasn’t until we saw these signs that they seemed serious. I remember a couple of girls from our group actually turning around and quickly went back to the group because they were worried that the owner of the house was serious.

In New Orleans, we asked many people how they felt about the media coverage and very few had anything positive to say. Dr. Glen Casey of Memorial hospital was disappointed in the media’s need to cover only the bad. There has been extensive investigation covered by the news on the people that did not survive the hurricane at his hospital. The government is looking into whether euthanasia was used on elderly patients who were most likely not going to live through the disaster. Dr. Casey feels that since the nurses are being harassed by the media that many will not be willing to stay during the hurricane.

We heard many people speak negatively against Governor Kathleen Blanco and Mayor Nagin. I felt that the leading officials during this disaster connected very strongly to some of the prominent characters in Rising Tide. William Percy correlated with director of FEMA, Michael Brown, both trying hard to help the refugees but being very unsuccessful and find it easier to hide from the public. Presidents Coolidge and Bush are also similar in that very little relief was given to flood victims of either centuries.

FEMA was criticized in a number of articles for doing minimal work to help the people of New Orleans. The article, “Using Organizations: The Case of FEMA,” discussed how many officials reverted back to unnecessary rules and regulations in order to help secure their jobs. Officials felt that if they deviated and improvised during the situation, that later on it can be said that they did the “right thing.” One problem that this caused was that air lifted evacuations were slowed because canned meal rations had to be searched for and taken away because procedure asked to look for anything that could contain a bomb (Dynes).

FEMA was also criticized by many people in New Orleans. One shirt at a souvenir shop read “FEMA: Federal Employees Missing Again.” Many people have been having problems receiving their trailers. Miss Gerry’s neighbors, Judy and John Anderson had been commuting from Lafayette, Louisiana, about a two and a half hour drive. Their FEMA trailer was installed the week that we were working at Miss Gerry’s. When the couple arrived at the home to continue gutting it, they were glad that they would no longer have to commute, however they learned that the keys were locked inside until a representative can walk through the trailer and make sure everything is working.

The issue of blacks being degraded and left behind was a topic that also frequently came up, especially in the articles that we read. Blacks are unfortunately a part of the lowest class in New Orleans, many of them single mothers who have little income. One issue that was discussed in class was the education of students. Before the hurricane it was expected that only half of high school students would graduate (Katrina’s Lesson). As of last fall, nearly 400,000 students were displaced from schools in Louisiana and Mississippi to enroll in other schools across twenty-eight states (Katrina’s Lesson). Miss Pam, a teacher at St. Michaels School, said that out of the 225 students who evacuated the city, 175 were able to come back. This number is supposed to rise in August once more families are able to return to the city. However, a few families are reluctant to uproot their families again, especially when a child suffers from a mental disorder, and choose to not return to the city.

When you see disasters happen, you assume, as all Americans do, that it will be cleaned up and taken care of within days. In high school, we traveled to New York City a year after 9/11. I was expecting to see crews still working on Ground Zero and dump trucks throughout the city. Instead I saw a huge gapping hole in the ground. No debris, it almost looked like a construction site. I was amazed. When seeing Katrina, I thought that if the destruction in New York was cleaned up so fast, than a few blown roofs and flooded houses should be nothing. Instead I was disappointed in our government. It is the government that America stands on and they were not there to help those Americans with the most desperate need.

When we traveled to New Orleans I had a desperate hope that there will be little destruction, that all that needed to be cleaned up was a few flooded houses and that the wreckage in St. Bernard and the Lower Ninth Ward were already cleaned up. However, this was not the case. The clean-up effort in the city felt like the hurricane had happened six days ago instead of six months. Hopefully our work has helped make it a little easier for a few people in the city. Dr. Glen talked to us about his experience evacuating people during the hurricane. Listening to him, I felt that he was very courageous and brave even though it was a situation where people needed to stand up and take charge. What surprised me, however, was that he called us heroes. I don’t feel that we are any better than any others who helped. Our job here was the same as anyone else with the same opportunity would do. I have a hard time thinking that there are people in this world who would refuse to help those in need. There is so much to do in the city and the other areas hit by Hurricanes Rita and Katrina and for the people that we were able to help I hope that they will remember us just as we will remember them.

During our trip, it became easier to understand the situations that many had to through, especially when we are able to hear people tell their stories from the heart and in the same room instead of over a Pod Cast or newspaper interview. The concepts of FEMA’s response, why the blacks were the ones to suffer, and the suffering education were explored more fully. The main goal of this class was to learn how Hurricane Katrina affected the people of New Orleans and also to tell others of their misfortune and how this situation is best prevented in the future. With the knowledge we have gained from this class, the stories of the people we have met will not be ignored nor forgotten.

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Andrea Schultz

To tell you the truth, I really knew nothing about what was going on in New Orleans or the other cities that were affected by Katrina. I didn’t even hear about Katrina hitting until speech class last semester. Then I saw some footage on the news over the next couple of days. I just figured the local, city, and federal governments were taking care of everything and didn’t really think anything about it.

After reading countless articles for this class, I realized how little I knew about the issue and that I was wrong about someone taking care of the problems faced by New Orleans before, during and after Katrina. In fact, there was little to no action taken to relieve these people in need. As it turns out, very few people that I talked to knew much about the topic either and everyone’s perception on the topic was different and distorted by the media. Most of these people thought there was absolutely nothing left of the city. This of course was true for some areas such as St. Bernard Parish and the Lower 9 th Ward, who were hit by Rita also, but there was still much of the city left.

Because of the poverty rate of the city, many victims did not have the means to get out of the storm area, they were misinformed about the approaching weather, and had little federal help from FEMA—which is supposed to be a relief aid. Seriously, how can you be so ill planned as not to have food, water and housing areas for these refugees of the storm. Yes, you would expect this in 3rd world countries, but not in the U.S.

There were no measures taken to get the poorer people out of the hurricane range, partly due to the fact that many people didn’t think the hurricane was going to hit them, and where would they all go? Dr. Casey even said that the hospital had a hurricane plan, but Katrina was the worst case scenario they had ever seen. And plus, everyone thinks, “Oh, that will never happen to us/me.” So the people who did have means of getting out did so after that Saturday when there were warnings that they were indeed going to get hit by the hurricane. Otherwise, up until then, they were preparing for any-old other storm, leaving them unprepared for what was about to come.

The storm itself was horrendous and then on top of that the levees broke. How the Industrial Canal levee broke is still a very questionable area that isn’t discussed much. After reading Rising Tide, it really makes a person wonder if the levee was deliberately broken again. Especially when the causes for it breaking, such as a barge breaking through it, was pretty much impossible—explained by Mr. Reggie. It still remains a disclosed topic of discussion. I don’t know what I would do if I found out that the government was in on the levee break.

Katrina brought up many issues that have been going on for along time in the city and in the south in general. I couldn’t believe some to the statistics about school children—50% don’t even graduate high school and have been expelled. The education system is a major issue to look at when talking about rebuilding after Katrina. If they don’t get proper funding to better educate their children now, the future is going to be in the same predicaments. I think the basis is education, because you can’t get all these people out of the circle of poverty without proper education.

The article What Katrina Teaches About Racism, talked about how some people think that racism isn’t a problem in America today and that they are not racist if they just avoid black people and don’t interact with them. It’s like what our teachers taught us in grade school that even if you are not making fun of someone, but also not stopping the bullies, you are just as guilty. The U.S. has a long ways to go before it has race, racism, socioeconomic class, and poverty solved. I am taking a history class now with the time periods after the Civil War until now, and it ties into many of the New Orleans issues. African Americans have had problems being accepted into our society ever since the emancipation proclamation. The hating and discrimination of blacks is deeply bedded into the South’s history. Every time America would start making progress, we would recede due to a war, new leadership, etc.

The saying something good always comes out of evil hopefully holds true for this case. The issues brought up after Katrina might not have been brought up with out something drastic like this happening. It’s sad, but maybe something will be done about all the race, class, and poverty in this city. The sad thing is that these problems are not only in New Orleans but also in many other parts of the nation. What if Katrina never would have happened? Would these issues still be ignored? Are they still going to be ignored now? Are there going to be any precautions taken to prevent something like this from happening again?

Participating in relief work for the people of New Orleans really makes you feel like you are a part of their community. Volunteering just completed the puzzle. We had educated ourselves before going down, and now we received the experience to further enhance what we learned. Although we will never be able to fully understand what these people when through in late August, early September, I really felt like I was right at home and wouldn’t have left if it weren’t for school on Monday. I will definitely never forget the sights, the people, the food, the music, the art, or the history of the city. Many of us were already planning to come back to visit before we even left New Orleans!

Most everyone at our work site really took charge and did what they had to do. We were pretty much left with the ruined driving range by Julie and said to do what ever we wanted. Each group accomplished many things and only have roughly 7 people to do the work with. I can’t imagine what we could have all done if we were given more tasks, longer working days and a full week of work. If everyone helps out and does there part, there can be a lot completed. I realize that certain projects have more to them than just scraping and painting, but there are also people specialized to work under those conditions, they just need to get organized, and I think seven months is enough time. Some people made the comment about the fact that relief couldn’t get down to certain areas because of the weather, well how did the camera crews get there and is there bad weather there now that they can’t come and help? I personally didn’t see any when I was there.

I thought it was neat to hear how those paramedics on the icast responded to the situation when they set up their own camps and dispersed the tasks. Every individual that we talked to also was looking out for others besides themselves: Reggie and his neighbors; Glen Casey and the patients; the one man in St. Bernard Parish who helped the paralyzed woman and her husband. It’s amazing the acts these people performed under these unimaginable conditions. We all know what FEMA did, or didn’t do I guess, but there were individuals that took charge of the situation they were in. Like Dr. Casey said, “If we don’t acknowledge these hospital workers and the volunteers now, why would they want to stick around and help the next time something like this happens?

Dr. Casey said that we won’t really understand the importance of what we were doing until much later. The Monday we got back I was moved pretty deeply. When we were all exchanging our pictures and looking through them, the effects of the disaster hit me. What we did probably won’t sink in or show until maybe 10 years later. Gal, it’s been seven months and they don’t have electricity in some parts yet, why would much else be changed later on? NOLA will always have a special place in my heart. I feel like I left part of my family down there. There better be some action soon or I know about twenty-eight people who will take matters into their own hands.

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