In Katrina’s wake, public safety officers and medical personnel were faced with unimaginable choices. Some walked away from their posts and evacuated with their families, but most stayed behind to witness the chaos and confront very real, life and death issues.

To mark the fourth anniversary of Katrina, this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine will feature an extensive investigative report of the choices that confronted doctors and staff at New Orleans’ Memorial Medical Center in the hours that followed the hurricane’s landfall. It is hard to take, but it represents a microcosm of ethical issues that enter into our current healthcare debate.

Critics of healthcare reform, may raise such strawmen as “healthcare rationing” and “death panels,” but in August/September 2005 the inept response of government at all levels forced doctors to confront those choices in real life.

This weekend will mark the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall east of New Orleans; it was the catalyst for immediate and long-term suffering on the part of Gulf Coast residents. To add insult to injury, Hurricane Rita struck southwestern Louisiana a few weeks later.

The Hurricane Digital Memory Bank (HDMB) is the largest online archive of Katrina and Rita materials. Over time its collections have grown to include over 25,000 items, ranging from documents and reminiscences to artwork, photographs, and video. The HDMB is the product of a partneership between the Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University, the University of New Orleans,  and other national and Gulf Coast area partners.

In 2007, HDMB received the Award of Merit for Leadership in History Award at the American Association of State and Local History’s annual conference in Atlanta.

It’s been five months since I walked the streets of New Orleans, yet New Orleans is still a part of me. However, we are coming up on the fourth anniversary of the natural/political/engineering disaster that was Katrina. Four years later, it remains the low point in terms of the esteem with which I held our then “public servants.”

But, things move on. New Orleans is coming back, although it is looking a little different. There was a very enlightening article in the Times-Picayune from Sunday:  http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/08/the_katrinaimposed_exile_of_ne.html

More as the Katrina anniversary approaches.

I awoke on Sunday, March 22nd further from New Orleans than I had been in a week. I tried to take advantage of the breakfast bar at the Day Inn off of U.S. 90 in New Iberia, but the pickins were rather slim.  I got a large cup of coffee at McDonald’s and started out for St. Martinville and Breaux Bridge and I-10 East towards the Crescent City.

It was a beautiful Sunday morning and the town square and Main Street of St. Martinville were resplendent. It is the town of Evangeline and St. Martin de Tours Church the home church to all Louisiana Acadians. I spent some time walking around town, but like New Iberia, it is a place I’ll certainly come back to. 

While en route to Breaux Bridge, I called home to check on things. In the process, I had to drive onto the shoulder to avoid a procession of mallards that were crossing the road. After my heart returned to its normal rate, it hit me that the lead drake could have provided me with a lifetime supply of duck feathers for fly tying. Not that I don’t have enough stashed away as it is.

I hit I-10 outside of Breaux Bridge and covered the 120 miles to New Orleans in a little over an hour and a half. It was too early to head uptown for the Indian parade, so I went to the htoel to try to check in. About 150 rooms emptied that morning, so they laughed at my request. I turned north on Canal and took a right on Basin Street. For the first time in seven trips to New Orleans, I was going to visit the St. Louis No. 1 cemetery.

I parked on St. Louis St., next to the Iberville Projects and entered through the Basin Street entrance. I was struck by how small and claustrophic it was. The narrow paths marked by the detritus of decaying tombs. I know that a number of organizations are raising money to fix-up the cemteries, but clearly there is a lot of work to be done. I made the requisite stop and photographed the tomb of Marie Laveaux, the voodoo queen. I was good and did not mark it with three x’s for good luck. However, the tomb that affected me the most was that of Homer Plessy. It seemd both ironic and wonderful that the man who challenged racial discrimination in his native city, and whose Supreme Court case reafiirmed an additional half century of  Jim Crowism, was buried in the middle of the city’s most celebrated cemetery. You figure he’s got to be up there laughing his ass off.

I grabbed a bite to eat and headed over to LaSalle and Washington for the Indian parade. As I was walking towards where it begins, I saw a stir in the crowd and saw the stooped and muttering form of Dr. John emerge from the crowd. Although he is one of my musical heroes, his demeanor did not invite face-to-face interaction. Instead, I stepped back to snap a quick photo.

The parade started shortly after 1:00pm, which by New Orleans standards is ahead of schedule. Vince, one of the Operation Helping Hands crew chiefs, called to ask where he should go to meet me. I guessed the corner of Jackson and Simon Bolivar. And, as luck would have it, we connected about five minutes before the procession reached that point.

This was my third parade in three years and I was overwhelmed. The number of participants, the number of brass bands (four), and crowds far surpassed the previous two parades. We spent about an hour and a half moving back and forth along the procession, taking pictures and marveling at the spectacle.

Unfortunately, we did not make it the rear of the parade until it was halfway between Simon Bolivar and Claiborne. At that point, we belatedly discoverd that the Rebirth Brass Band was bringing up the rear. The crowd was as magnificent as their playing, but it was too enormous and too hurried to be much of a second line. Vince and I followed the throng up to Claiborne, where the procession closed the eastbound lanes for several blocks. It was amusing to see cars backed up on Claiborne, as well as onto the exits and I-10 itself. At that point, we backtracked down Martin Luther King and parted ways.

By that time, it was nearly four, so I quickly checked into my hotel and hurried over to the Spotted Cat to catch the Rites of Swing and to me my friends Ani and Bruno. They arrived during the break, so we had a chance to catch up a bit before the second set. We stayed around until six and headed down Frenchmen to the Praline Connection. I need one more infusion of fried chicken and okra before heading back to New England. I walked them back to the ferry that would take them back to Algiers and uncharacteristically went back to my hotel room. I would end a spectacular day with the first full night of sleep I had in over a week.

Saturday morning arrived and all three groups began the process of heading back to New Hampshire. Brad and Brittany’s group left from the French Quarter overnight, but the other two groups ate their last breakfast at Madonna Manor, helped pick-up around the dorm area, and began packing the vans. It’s always sad to leave after an enjoyable and action-packed week, but it’s even sadder to see them pack a week’s worth of souvenirs and dirty clothes in to what had seemed like a large van. 

By 8:30am, they were on the road east. I went the opposite direction on U.S. 90 towards the Acadian region. It was nice getting away from the city for a few hours. Crossing bayous, miles of cypress swamps, and cane fields. You just don’t see bear crossing signs in New Orleans or anywhere else for that matter. I toured the Tabasco factory, did some shopping in their factory store and drove and walked the gardens/marshes of Avery island. I saw a few small alligators and scores of Snowy and Common egrets. I nearly stepped on a gray rat snake who crossed the path in front of me, but he was faster than I was.

I stayed in nearby New Iberia, home of James Lee Burke, one of my favoriate authors. He claims has America’s most beautiful main street and after walking it, it’s kind of hard to dispute. The town, founded by Governor Bernardo deGalvez in 1779, straddles the Bayou Teche and wears its age well. Food choices included seafood gumbo, Cajun catfish and fried okra. I’ll be back when I have more time…and more meals.

On Sunday, I’m heading back to New Orleans with a brief stop in St. Martinville. The gathering of the Uptown Indians is Sunday afternoon.

It was another warm and clear day in New Orleans. It started out cool, but gradually climbed into the 70s. More importantly, traffic on the Mississippi River Bridge was back to normal and we got to St. Raymond’s and our respective worksites earlier than the day before.

Everyone went back to painting. Unfortunately, our crew seemed to have a case of the dropsies. I began the day with two spills and we had a couple of dropped paint buckets, as well. Happily, we got back on track and got quite a bit done on our last day. In between spills, visits from the neighbors (mostly the canine and juvenile kind), and breaks, we came close to putting two coats of paint on the sides of the house, one coat on the rear, and one coat (including all the trim) on the front. We took pictures and said goodbye to the homeowner, Mr. Brown, and called it a day.

The girls from Stu’s groups went into town for some shopping, but Jake, Mandi, Laurie and I went with Caitlyn to get a New Orleans delicacy, a snow ball. I had read about them, but never made the leap…until Friday. The ice is shaved, so that it is softer and more absorbent than a snow cone. And many of the stands create their own flavored syrups. It was a nice way to complete a day in the sun, although I did suffer through a wicked case of “brain freeze.”

Other groups had similar days, with the exception of Trevor and Conor’s group. Maurice, their homeowner, who by all appearances thought the crew was there every day to keep him company, had them stop working after a couple of hours. He took them out for muffalettas and then took them to the shrine of Father Francis Xavier Seelos, the “cheerful ascetic,” who was beatified in 2000, but has yet to be canonized. He also gave each of them a relic of Father Seelos. It was certainly a side of New Orleans culture that none of the other groups had.

The groups went in several different directions with the return trip to New Hampshire coming into focus. I took Jake, Mandi, Sam and Erica for a brief visit to the Barataria Preserve near Madonna Manor. While we didn’t see any alligators, it gave them an idea of what pre-Colonial Louisiana looked like.

Afterwards, I went into the city and hooked up with Stu’s group. We went over to the Blue Nile to see Kermit Ruffins. The show was good, but the crowd was large and over-served. Some of us were weary from work and mounting sleep deficits, left after the first set. The crowd thinned out after we left and the music became the focus. However, we were long in bed by the time the rest of the group returned.

Another beautiful day in New Orleans, although it started out quite foggy along the Mississippi. With reduced visibility along the Mississippi River Bridge, cars ran into each other, and traffic was backed up quite a bit. My morning trip to Gentilly, which had been ruinning about 25 minutes turned into an hour. The students were also caught in the backup. Although once we all got together, it was back to work.

We continued painting and priming and the work is really taking shape. By Friday, we should have a very good idea of what the finished product will look like. In addition to painting, Emily C. and I added primer to the back of the house.

In between work we had a steady stream of visitors: dogs and neighborhood children. Of the for former, Cookie, a terrior and chihuahua mix, rules this block of Mazant Street, although he seems to have ongoing run ins with the neighbor. By mid afternoon, we entertained a steady stream of kids curious about what we we were doing, but also about what a group of white, college students from New England are doing in their neighborhood. The neighbor seemed to take issue with them, as well, and shooed them away at every opportunity.

Once again, we had to rush back to Marrero. This time to get ready for an Afro-Creole dinner at the Praline Connection on Frenchmen Street. I had set this up with help of Jeremiah Brooks from the restaurant. And the results were a great hit. I was most impressed that their regular menu is very friendly to vegetarians and those with dietary restrictions. In fact it was the most complete meal that some of our students enjoyed for the week. Jeremiah spoke for a few minutes about Creole culture and food. And then, students dug into red beans and rice, greens, jambalaya, fried chicken, fried catfish, french fries and cornbread. Most accompanied their meal with sweet tea and topped it off with peach cobbler. It was more thanadequate compensation for a week of cold cereal and sandwiches on the work site.

It was St. Joseph’s Day, which in New Orleans means altars to Sicily’s patron saint and mysteriously, is the night Mardi Gras Indians venture out to engage in mock combat with neighboring tribes. Most neighborhoods are too dangerous to go into at night and the Indians do not advertise the place and time of their processions, so we didn’t actively plan to try to catch it. While two vans stayed downtown, I accompanied Trevor and Conors group out to the Rock and Bowl off of Carrollton Avenue. I intentionally went through uptown — along Claiborne and planned to cut over to St. Charles to see if we could find any Indians Almost immediately we heard and then saw two tribes locked up off Claiborne near Washington Avenue. We got out of our vehicles and viewed the chanting and drumming before they moved further back into the neighborhood. We were dazzled, but several of the students were understandably uncomfortable with the surroundings. As a result, we remained in our vehicles as we came upon several additional encounters before reaching St. Charles Avenue.

We eventually made it to Rock and Bowl. It was zydeco night and between the real and imagined Cajuns and the spring break crowd. So, the students, infused with the adrenaline from their Indian encounters, danced on to midnight.

Another beautiful day from beginning to end. We met at St. Raymond’s and went to our respective houses. All four groups worked on various stages of the painting process. Once again, our group worked primarily on exterior painting on Mazant Street. Caitlyn had a platform delivered, which made painting the upper reaches of the house easier. We continued painting the sides of the house and brick porch, and I primed the front trim, which had been painted a dark shade of red.

At lunch, we strayed from the standard fare of sandwiches and chips, and with Caitlyn’s advice, ordered po-boys from Stewart’s on Claiborne Avenue. Although they did reach the level of Domilise’s, they were quite good and a whole lot less expensive. Our selections ranged from chicken finger and hamburger to catfish and shrimp. Remarkably, we made it though the afternoon without taking naps and wrapped up work about 3:30pm.

Everyone rushed back to Madonna Manor to shower and dress for a traditional jazz concert at Xavier by Dr. Michael White. We were joined there by Joon Cho and his wife. A recent UNH grad, Joon had seen the story about our class in the Campus Journal online. He is currently working at LSU and we were happy to have him join our intimate group.

White (clarinet), was joined by Mitchell Player on bass, Detroit Brooks on banjo, and Greg Stafford on trumpet. Stafford also brought his affecting vocal to a couple of numbers. I suspect that most students were not sure what to expect, but he gave a brief overview of New Orleans culture, followed by musical examples of marches, rags, spirituals, and blues; that is, those ingredients when stirred together created jazz. He added examples of traditional jazz tunes, improvisation (a wonderful recreation of Sidney Bechet’s version of “Summertime”), one of his own compositions, “Gypsy Second Line”), and an improvised version of “Happy Birthday” for the girls in our group with birthdays, namely: Erica, Meaghan, Alicia, Kayla, and Erin. I add Erin now, because I forgot to before the concert. Sorry Erin. If discussion and questions afterwards are any measure, the level of engagement was quite high.

Afterwards, most students, exhausted from the day’s events, returned to Marrero. A few hearty souls went back into the Quarter, while some of the over 21 crowd went to catch the Dirty Dozen Brass Band at the Maple Leaf Uptown. They were the firswt New Orleans brass band that I got to know and they remain one of my favorite ensembles of any type. It was unfortunate, but not surprising, that the first set started late – an hour and a half late! However, it did not disappoint and Stu, who along with Meaghan, Zack, and Jed stayed for the second set, had to admit that they are pretty damned good. I cut out after the first set, which ended with a rousing and extended cover of the Meters’ “Cissy Strut.” Exhausted, I returned back to Madonna Manor, falling asleep with the amplified brass sounds still ringing in my ears.

If someone needed proof that God is indeed Irish, then this day would have confirmed all of that. What a remarkable combination of gorgeous weather, meaningful work, and a parade!

After three days of rain, the sun game out, the humidity went down, and the temperature nudged 80 degrees. And with the improved weather, out came Operation Helping Hands’ backlog of painting jobs. I suspect that as long as this weather holds, all four groups will be involved in some combination of minor repairs and prep work, priming, and painting. And we went in four different directions to do just that. Two groups remained in Gentilly and the other two to sites in the Upper Ninth Ward, not far from Habitat for Humanity’s Musician’s Village.

I adopted the one group without a UNH-ABC leader and will probably remain with them from the rest of the week. Our local coordinator is Caitlyn, a native of Rhode Island and recent graduate of St. Anselm College in Manchester, NH. Jake, Mandi, Erin, Taylor, Emily C., and Laurie make up the rest of the group. We are working on a house on Mazant Street, which rests on the block between Claiborne and Robertson Avenues. It was a lucky draw, most of the prep work, with the exception of some priming has already been done. If the weather holds, I suspect we’ll spend the rest of the week at this house. It is a modified, two unit shotgun house. The owner is busy at work rehabbing the interior, but like many residents he could not get support to help him with painting — that is considered cosmetic. And that is one of the deficits that Operation Helping Hands has been trying to close. In addition, we found that both  neighbors and their dogs are quick to wave (or wag), stop by, and/or exchange pleasantries. In fact, a contractor working across the street from Stu’s group was so impressed with the work they were doing that he had a complete fried chicken dinner delivered to the house. 

And lunch, I walked them over to Musicians’ Village, where Birttany, Stu, Meaghan, Brittany and I worked two years ago. Happily, the entire neighborhood is nearly complete. And remarkably, we met a group of UNH Intervarsity Students framing one of the new houses there.

We finished up around four, our work already very evident, particularly in the front of the house. We went back to St Raymond’s, a closed Catholic school that serves as Operation Helping Hands’  staging center, and had an early dinner. We returned to the otherside of the Mississippi River to Madonna Manor and got rid of the dirt, sweat, and paint.

I accompanied Brad and Brittany’s group to Faubourg Marigny to catch the Downtown Irish Club St. Patrick’s Day before it crossed into the French Quarter. It was a much more intimate setting in which to observe highly inebriated adults throw beads and lavish kisses on often dubious parade goers. And it drew every kook and character within a ten block radius. In other words it was a riot. It was as much fun to observe the parade goers as it was to follow the parade itself. In my mind, it was a far better experience than watching it one Bourbon Street.

Students spread throughout the Quarter to follow the parade, among other things. Some of us retired to Cafe du Monde for a nightcap of coffee and beignets before returning for a few hours of sleep before another day of painting.

At 8:00am, Operation Helping Hands provided us with a short introduction and we immediately began dividing up into groups. It was probably the most organized volunteer operation since I worked with Habitat/FEMA in 2006, when the sole object was to gut houses. Each group was assigned specific tasks and staff coordinator. They assigned our group four different assignments, meaning that class groups did not necessarily hang together. Our assignments included gutting a house, laying sub-flooring in a house being renovated, installing a ceiling, and interior painting. I worked with a majority of Trevor and Conor’s group installing flooring.

We were sent to a newly-acquired house right around the corner from Catholic Charities’ St. Raymond Center (or St. Ray’s to the long-time volunteers). The original studs and exterior boards were a rich, red cedar, but much of it has been lost to the elements and what to what looks like misguided renovations. The house was old and no longer square, if indeed it ever was. As a result, we have measure and cut to get the plywood to lie straight. In addition, students learned to use power saws, nail guns, caulking guns, and chalk lines. I think we were concerned with our deliberate speed, but Joe, who was directing our work pointed out that it was better to do it right than to have someone to have to come behind us to correct our mistakes.

After lunch Michaela took a bad fall and busted up her leg just below the knee. I took her and Trevor to Tulane Hospital, where after two hours, the emergency room staff advised her to go elsewhere to get the stitches her leg required. I picked them up and drove them over to the Ochsner Hospital branch in Jefferson Parish, where we are staying. After an hour, she was taken back where she was patched up. Happily, the folks at Operation Helping Hands sent us three plates of a ham, beans and rice, and spinach dinner. It was great, especially after such a trying day.

Well after dinner, about of the third of the group returned to New Orleans to listen to music or just walk around. I did a little of both, but ended up with the Jazz Vipers at the Spotted Cat. They were at their spirited best. A number of the students were able to get in and get a real picture of live music, Frenchmen Street style. We reluctantly left before the end of the first set, but 6:00am comes early and a little rest could come in handy.