In August 2005, New Orleans was hit by Hurricane Katrina. Over 1,500 people lost their lives and over 700 are still missing today.

Rough estimates suggest that damage to the states of Louisiana and Mississipi may exceed $150 billion dollars.

New Orleans currently has something like 60% of its pre-Katrina population. The people of this resilient city are rebuilding.

At 18:30 on Thursday August 25th 2005, the fifth hurricane of the season made landfall in southern Florida. It had been classified as a hurricane barely two hours earlier.

Katrina weakened while passing over Florida but defied common expectations by continuing westward across the Gulf of Mexico. Rapidly regaining intensity, the system expanded throughout the next two days.

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After Katrina

In 2005 a severe hurricane caused massive damage to the city of New Orleans and its citizens. Two years on, we saw some of the aftermath and the efforts to rebuild.

New Orleans gets ready

The National Hurricane Center in Miami issued a hurricane watch for Louisiana on the morning of August 26th after Katrina had not altered its westward course. The official response was a prolonged and very public period of confusion over responsibility for the ensuing emergency situation.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin warned the city’s residents on August 26th to monitor the storm and prepare themselves. The following day, his message was that residents should leave voluntarily.

Apparently the city had concerns about its liability in the event of ordering a mandatory evacuation, since businesses would be forced to close. With hindsight, it is easy to view these deliberations as rather trivial.

Nagin finally announced New Orleans’ first ever mandatory evacuation on the morning of Sunday August 28th at 09:30. Around 90,000 citizens never evacuated.

Just after 10:00, in a precedent setting bulletin the National Weather Service’s local office declared that devastating damage was expected, that most of the area would be uninhabitable for weeks and that water shortages would make human suffering incredible by modern standards.

In default of the availability of the city’s school buses to evacuate citizens (the bus drivers had evacuated), Nagin declared the Louisiana Superdome a refuge of last resort. Together with State Governor Kathleen Blanco, Nagin advised those heading for the Superdome to pack basic supplies to last three days. Blanco called in the National Guard, only about half of whom were on duty it was later claimed.

Prior to landfall, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) installed and readied its response teams and the Federal Government declared southeastern Louisiana a disaster area.

Landfall

When Katrina made landfall early on August 26th it had again weakened slightly. However, the system was now so large that circulating winds extended well over 100 miles from the eye of the hurricane, some at speeds of up to 135mph. In addition to the extreme winds of the eyewall, the area was battered by the accompanying storm surge.

Though the eventual point of landfall was 15 miles away from the city, the damage done by Katrina was both immediate and catastrophic. Within 24 hours, 80% of New Orleans was submerged by flooding from some 53 breaks in the city’s levee system.

Close to 2,000 people died as a direct result of Katrina throughout the United States. Most of those who survived the flooding in New Orleans were left stranded for days after the hurricane had passed. Bodies floated in the streets.

Response

An adequate response to the disaster was made very difficult by failures in the communications infrastructure and a chronic shortage of basic supplies.

In an immediate public response to the authorities’ ineffectiveness, boat owners, amateur radio enthusiasts and volunteers assisted with rescue and care efforts wherever they found themselves useful. Many were still doing the same six months later.

The Superdome’s roof was damaged and no power, food or water were available. Evacuation of the Superdome and its main overflow the Ernest Morial Convention Center were completed by September 4th. Several people had died in both venues.

As the authorities concentrated on rescue and relief, public order broke down in New Orleans. There was widespread looting and destruction of property throughout the city, though many perpetrators were undoubtedly searching for food. The events and the reporting of them started to take on the uncomfortable tones of racism.

The blame game

Whilst Nagin attempted to manage the few resources he possessed, he criticized the state and federal governments.

Louisiana Governor Blanco authorised the National Guard to shoot and kill looters and rioters, later receiving enormous criticism for a perceived slow and inadequate response.

The Department of Homeland Security could only reiterate that emergency operations were the primary responsibility of the local and state officials. It would be another fortnight before Bush took responsibility for the federal inertia.

The international response

The international response to Katrina was a predictable combination of aid and criticism. Unlikely donors Cuba and Venezuela were the first to offer assistance and were promptly spurned.

Oil nations Kuwait and Qatar were the largest donors, presumably worrying about the effect the hurricane might have on their business in New Orleans.

The federal government declined several offers from around the world only to find itself having to beg for them again later.

Katrina’s end

Having made its third landfall and having destroyed lives and property throughout the state of Mississippi, Katrina continued northward through the central United States and dissipated thereafter in southern Canada.

In April 2006, the name ‘Katrina’ was retired by the World Meteorological Organization at the request of the United States government. The name will no longer be used in the classification of Atlantic hurricanes and will be replaced by ‘Katia’, applicable to the hurricane season in 2011.

Two years on

J and I took a trip through some of those parts of New Orleans worst affected by Hurricane Katrina.

The photos above were originally shot in colour. I removed the colour to prevent comparisons between certain variables.

In providing captions for these photos, I am mindful that my recall may be inaccurate. Accordingly, I happily invite any corrections.

Everywhere we went, we saw the spray painted markings of rescuers on the walls of properties. Sometimes, even when a house had been reoccupied, these markings remain seemingly for posterity.

As the team entered a property, it marked a diagonal slash and its identification on the left. The date was also sprayed on at the top. When leaving, the team crossed the existing slash to indicate that it had successfully exited the property. On the bottom a body count finished the task.

This system was not the only one in use for rescue teams, but it was the one we saw commonly.

The last photo is a portrait of George, our guide. When Katrina approached in 2005, he evacuated to Texas. His home was heavily damaged in the hurricane.

For some time after Katrina, he was only able to inspect his property and salvage items. He’s been back at work for a good while now and the refurbishment of his house is almost complete.

See also:

• Brad Pitt’s Make It Right project
• New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity
• Oregon Humane Society’s Animal Rescue and Relief journals

After J and I left Florida behind, we headed over the Gulf of Mexico to Louisiana. We visited New Orleans for New Year, drawn by the nightlife, the restaurants and the art galleries.

We also wondered how things were two years after Hurricane Katrina.

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New Orleans

Being in the Big Easy is not so easy since Katrina but the indomitable spirit of New Orleans is at last starting to return.

J had visited New Orleans on business in 2004 and we wanted to include the city in this itinerary for New Year. J’s descriptions of nightlife and the galleries were colourful, but we’d wondered how things might be 18 months or so after Hurricane Katrina. As it transpired, you couldn’t talk to anyone – and there were plenty of folks keen to talk – without mentioning that”K” word.

A little bit of history

The French founded La Nouvelle-Orléans in 1718 and named it after their Regent’s duchy seat. Within fifty years Spain had control of the city, but it briefly reverted to its original owners in 1801.

After New Orleans was sold to the Americans in the Louisiana Purchase, they held it against the British and the population flourished, outgrowing the higher ground of the original city limits.

A pump system devised early in the 20th century enabled expansion into new suburbs, many of which found themselves below sea level.

New Orleans is architecturally eclectic. Within the older neighbourhoods, styles include Italianate, Victorian, Colonial and Classical Revival, reflecting the cultural diversity of the inhabitants.

In the 1980s an oil boom in the city also brought the modern skyscrapers in the Central Business District, which are harder to reconcile with their older neighbours.

Jazz and cocktails

There can’t be too many places in the world nowadays where strangers will talk to you without first being solicited.

In common with Dublin – a trip we did too long ago to be included in this blog – New Orleans is such a place. People will say hi to you in the street.

Down at the Bombay Club on Conti Street, musician Jay Griggs was another example. A resident of New Orleans, he’d just finished his second of three sets playing bass with NOLA legend Luther Kent. I was a bit drunk by this time, so I don’t know whether I managed to hold a decent conversation about Coldcut and post-Katrina gigging. Jay was a lovely guy, though, I do recall that much!

The Bombay Club can be found tucked away at the back of the Prince Conti, the hotel J stayed at when she was last in the city. It was the last stop on our tour of the French Quarter with Sandi, our guide who stayed on for a bit of intelligent conversation.

In the Bayou

J and I went over to Westwego to visit a few of the Louisiana bayous.

Westwego is so-called because at one time the tramline started there and conductors were in the habit of calling out “West we go” as the tram set off. The name stuck!

At Westwego we boarded a boat helmed by Captain Billiot, a sort of woolly Deep South Chazz Palminteri meets George Clooney. During Katrina, the Captain shared his property with – I believe – 17 other people. He was clearly a dependable and resilient man who remained unphased by extremes of nature.

The Captain was also devoted to the swamp life: fishing, shooting nutria and catching crabs.

His amazing enthusiasm made for a rather offbeat, and at times very funny, nature tour. Pointing out turtles basking in the pale winter sun, the Captain would excitedly relate their value on the market and how many you’d need to make soup. He knew exactly how to pinpoint and estimate the bounty on several nutria visible in the distant undergrowth. When discussing catfish, he would haul up one of his own lines and tell us “this right here is good eatin’”.

Great War ambulance driver, the Lost Generation’s leading light, hunter in the Serengeti, radicalist sympathiser in the Spanish Civil War, Q-Boat captain in Cuba, D-Day correspondent, Nobel Prize winner, friend-turned-enemy of Fidel Castro.

Ernest Hemingway was all of these things.

He was also a resident of Key West, having first visited at the town at the suggestion of John Dos Passos.

His home on Whitehead Street is now a museum for visitors and a home to around sixty plus cats, some descended from the writer’s own polydactyl.

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Florida Keys

Palm trees, blue seas and relaxed attitudes all the way in the southernmost enclave of the United States, where eccentricity is key and individuality is welcome.

Key West Butterfly Conservatory

Opposite the Avalon Bed & Breakfast towards the bottom end of Duval Street is the Key West Butterfly Conservatory, the brainchild of lifelong lepidopterist Sam Trophia.

Inside the Conservatory a sticky 85°/80% humidity atmosphere provides the ideal conditions for the breeding of butterflies.

On the road

J and I hired a yellow Chrysler PT Cruiser Convertible to drive up through the Keys and back to Miami. It was like driving a sponge, though it was nice to have the top down.

About 35 miles north east of Key West on US-1 is the Bahia Honda State Park. Most landscape photographs taken at Bahia Honda will show the old railroad bridge adapted for US-1 but now superseded by a concrete construction.

Looe Key

With its location about five nautical miles off Big Pine Key, divers and snorkellers usually agree that Looe Key is one of the best reefs to visit in the Florida Keys.

In 1744, the British ship HMS Looe ran aground and sank while attempting to cross the reef with a French ship in tow. There is little evidence of the remains of the Looe or its towload today.

We found Looe Key to be tremendously popular with barracuda – many of them were hanging about at various depths. A couple of larger sharks and a spotted eagle ray were also in residence. Looe Key was certainly the richest reef we saw on our three snorkelling trips.

Islamorada and Key Largo

We spent Christmas at Islamorada in the Upper Keys and daytripped to Key Largo, which likes to call itself – rather dubiously – the Diving Capital Of The World.

While snorkelling the reefs off Key Largo, the underwater housing for our camera flooded and the camera itself was destroyed.

In the end, we left Key Largo half seasick with the pitch and roll of the boat on very choppy seas and suffering from numerous jellyfish stings.

The more observant of my readers will no doubt have noticed that the number of parts in this series has now grown to five articles. We’ve been busy since we returned from the States, so apologies for the tardiness in publishing these images.

There are about 1700 coral reef islands in the Florida Keys archipelago, traversed by US Highway 1 which starts in the southernmost Key West and ends 2,377 miles later in Fort Kent, Maine. The first 127 miles of US-1 constitute the Overseas Highway, a road built to parallel Henry Flagler’s legendary feat of industry, the Overseas Railroad.

The Overseas Railroad

There were of course many doubters, but Flagler was a shrewd individual. His vision of a primarily industrial link between Key West’s regionally unique deep port and the mainland did demand a leap of faith, but the advantages of accessible trade with Cuba (and Latin America via the upcoming Panama Canal) were appreciable.

Already known as the “Father of Miami”, Flagler intended the new railroad to join up with the rest of his rail network. And after overcoming seemingly insurmountable engineering problems, the man himself rode down the line into Key West in 1912, convincingly silencing his critics. He died a year later.

The completed railroad embodied the aspiration of Man to conquer Nature, but as ever Nature would have the last word. In 1935, the Labor Day Hurricane was the strongest Atlantic hurricane in recorded history and it made landfall near what is today Islamorada, in the Upper Keys.

In the devastation, over 400 people were killed and the Overseas Railroad was partially destroyed. It was never rebuilt. The State of Florida bought up what remained of the route and reused many sections for the construction of the Overseas Highway.

All along the modern road today are the reminders of “Flagler’s Folly”, the rusting bridges of the old railroad.

Key West: the extreme south

Before the arrival Flagler’s iron future, Key West had already enjoyed a colourful past.

To the Spanish, it was Cayo Hueso, or Bone Key, named after the huge numbers of human remains found there. Once the United States took Florida, Cayo Hueso was sold to American private owners and developed by a succession of businessmen.

Settlers were attracted by Key West’s maritime growth industries. Salvage was among the biggest of these, given that shipwrecks were famously common in this part of the Atlantic.

The rise of the Conch Republic

European immigrants who washed up in Key West during the 19th century were dubbed ‘conchs’ by the local salty seadogs. Most residents of the Keys still answer to that nickname today.

In 1980, a bleak Cuban economy precipitated the so-called Mariel boatlift, in which over 125,000 Cuban exiles washed up in Florida. As part of the general reaction by authorities to this and surrounding events, the US Border Patrol situated a roadblock at Florida City two years later that effectively cut off the Keys from the rest of the United States.

Whilst vehicles were checked for drugs and illegal immigrants, the only two roads joining the Keys to the mainland were paralysed. Key West’s legal efforts to remove the roadblock failed.

In an audacious attempt to gain publicity and thereby raise awareness of the situation, Key West’s local government surmised that it might as well act as treated. “Independence” from the United States was declared in April 1982. A finer tongue-in-cheek response to the situation there could not have been, and so the ‘Conch Republic’ was born.

The roadblock was subsequently removed and the motto established: “we seceded where others failed”. Whilst the mock Republic continues to be celebrated by an annual parade and continues to live on for tourism’s sake, new protests arise from time to time that draw on the spirit of 1982.

In the shallows

The Key West National Wildlife Refuge consists of 26 small keys and the waters surrounding them. We took a trip with Danger Charters into the protected areas on their sailing boat Danger’s Prize.

Sailing around Key West can be a technical business. Though the port at Key West is deep enough to handle large cruise liners, out in the backcountry it’s easy to run aground in the shallows. Fortunately, the captain was very experienced and steered us through, even though we his passengers could lean over the side of boat and see the seabed at around waist height!

First stop was a nursery for fish and spotted eagle rays. We donned mask, snorkel and fins and plunged in. The water was cold enough to require a shorty wetsuit.

In kayaks we rowed around Man Key, occasionally running aground on sandbanks. Very early on, our guide Brian was dumbfounded by the sight of a very rare bird for the area, the Roseate Spoonbill (Platalea ajaja).

Soon after the Spoonbill had finally taken flight, we came across another rarity: a nurse shark almost static in the current. Brian managed carefully and safely to lift the chap clean out of the water for us all to see. It was a first for him, and obviously for the rest of us!

J and I returned last week from our winter holiday in the United States.

Here’s the first instalment of photos, all of which were taken during the first few days of our trip at Miami Beach in Florida.

I’ll be releasing the remaining four instalments in the next few days, so watch this space! As I’m sure you’re waiting with bated breath, I suggest you subscribe to my RSS feed.

In the meantime, heeeeeeeeere’s Miami!

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Miami South Beach

Art Deco, movie stars and fancy cars: just a few of the vices of Miami Beach!

The rise and fall and rise of SoBe

South Beach is as different from downtown Miami as Art Deco is from International Modern. And as the decadence of Deco segued into the sobriety of postwar America, the colours faded and the paint flaked off. Crime and neglect occupied the empty buildings and took over the hot streets.

So it’s deliciously ironic that Michael Mann’s Miami Vice, having first convinced us that criminal activity could be countered by the effective deployment of pastels and footwear with no socks, then helped to initiate SoBe’s corporate-sponsored rehabilitation.

From its humble origins as a coconut farm, SoBe is home today to illustrious fashion designers and the biggest concentration of media sluts this side of Los Angeles.

Streamline Moderne

Streamline Moderne is a primarily North American style deriving from late Art Deco. In terms of architectural locations, few exemplify it like South Beach. Like other prevalent strands of Deco, Streamline can be found employed in numerous applications of spatial design – products, vehicles, machines, buildings. Common themes include smooth lines, broad planes and nautical elements.

On Scarface

Brian De Palma’s 1983 epic of excess describes the life and times of Cuban refugee Tony Montana (Al Pacino) who methodically ascends to the dizzy heights of the SoBe drug trade.

So when the bloody dénouement arrives, Tony can’t enjoy the moral of the story because there’s a mountain of coke in the way. And anyway he ends up dead. Of course he does: this is De Palma at his nihilistic best.

Anyway, rewind to Tony’s formative years on the streets of South Beach, when he’s still saddled with cartoonish Hawaiian shirts and that sullen lip curl that passes for spoken English. He drives down a very grubby looking Ocean Drive with his crooked cabrones and stops opposite the Sunray Motel and Apartments. Cue the famous chainsaw scene.