Mixed Reviews

I've had a couple of friends that have made trips over the bridge into the city. Sounds like things are good and bad. Uptown looks like a wreck of structural damage and downed trees but nothing that a few months of heavy duty construction won't fix. Downtown and the French Quarter look amazingly intact. Danny just showed me photos of the quarter that look like they could have been taken the week before the storm but with empty streets. We are really lucky that our most historic parts of town are intact. I can't wait to take the trip over next week.

Comments

[Erin Levins]

I'm trying to get to New Orleans by next Saturday. After all, I am supposed to be catching a flight to Maui, right? If I can't get into my house, I will stay at Lou & Elly's in The Marigny.

Still no clues on how much H2O in our house. Do you have any?

I'm thinking at least 3ft, maybe 5ft, but not more than 8 ft. Found a water depth map on the web that showed depths for 100 sq foot areas. I think it picked up the pool depth and added it into the average. I won't really know until I see it. I know Mid City had the worst flooding. Watching from the Park @ Esplanade, the water barely crested the banks of the Bayou. I'm pretty sure Lakeview is going to be a total loss just like the Lower 9th Ward.

My FEMA and Red Cross experiences have be entirely sedate and relatively organized. I figured there were only around 500 (max) Gulf Coasters seeking refuge in "Hogtown" (Gvl). Definitely SLOW, but no circus atmosphere.

BEST QUOTE FROM A FEMA REP:

I followed the "Red Cross -->" signs to the gym. I didn't notice that the first empty chair in front of a table was the FEMA table. The camo-clad, brush-cut FEMA rep asked, "How can we help you?"
I replied, " I'm following up on my Red Cross paperwork."

And he says ....... are you ready..... " We can't help you, we're FEMA."

[Jonah]

Yeah Erin, I had some friends make the trek over yesterday to lock up some houses in the Treme and Marigny that had been broken into. They went to check on my house and couldn't get there because there's still water in the streets! They said Midcity was the worst negihborhood they saw and the water line made them think there could have been between 3 and 5 feet in our house. That sucks but at this point I'm looking to the future. May be looking to purchase something in the Riverbend or Uptown. We'll see.