New Orleans Labor Day Plans

My friend Russell watering his flowers in
front of his home on Oak Street, New Orleans


My planner reminds me that this Saturday morning (Labor Day Weekend) we were to be New Orleans to spend some time with friends who live a block off of Carrollton Avenue. This visit would the first visit in a few years. By this time in the morning we would have left our hotel, the Courtyard in Meterie, and snaked our way through the neighborhoods of century old houses to our friend's house on Oak Street and a short walk to the Camilla Grill for a perfect breakfast. Of course all that has changed, for this Saturday morning, probably for many Saturday mornings, and well, perhaps for always.

My friends, were in that eighty percent who heeded the call for evacuation and had the where-for-all, as well as, the money and an automobile to get out of the soup bowl. They watched the cataclysm, as we did, from a distance, out of harms way. They were in Dallas staying with relatives when I spoke with them on Monday. Their house was not flooded given its location on "high-ground" in N.O.

Phone communication has been nearly impossible into the N.O. 504 phone exchange, but I managed to reach them this morning while I typed this post. They are doing just fine, glued to the TV dealing with the "not knowing". An email from their neighborhood association has brought some snippets of information: Oak street is not flooded. The Rite-Aid drugstore a block away on Carrollton was looted by looters who drove a fork-lift through the front door. The fork-lift is still stuck in the building.
The photo below was taken by Jeremy of N.O.

For more pictures from the flooded New Orleans neighborhoods click: SearingBlue at Flickr

My friend's concern was not for a lifetime possessions, perhaps stolen or looted, but a new Stetson hat he had recently bought in San Antonio (my friend likes his hats) and his beloved French horn (he is an devotee of classical music). When he lived here in DeFuniak Springs his first French horn was burglarized by a neighbor's wayward daughter and he worries about his horns fate in the hands of looters.

We will spend our weekend at home in the Florida Panhandle watching the saga of hope and despair coming from where we had planned to visit good friends, eat some good meals, and marvel at this 300 year-old gem that today, sits a derelict waiting for a rebirth from beneath the dark waters that have, albeit temporarily, brought this grand colossus of a city to a standstill.
God Bless the people touched by the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina.