Disaster Zone

Today, I drove and walked through the lower and upper Ninth Ward and St. Bernard Parish. I saw where the Industrial Canal breached. I saw with my own two eyes devastation that, until today, I thought could not exist in America. I was guided by a couple from St. Bernard whose home was still standing but was in ruins. They are living in a tent until they can fix their home up enough to make it habitable.

The neighborhoods that I saw looked more like bombed out Sarajevo or Beirut than New Orleans. Television and the internet cannot convey the extent or the feeling of the destruction. Houses were on top of cars, cars were in trees, and blocks of homes were reduced to rubble. The levee breaches left the people in those areas defenseless from the onslaught of the floods.

Seeing the devastation firsthand evoked my deepest sorrow but strengthened my resolve. This can never be allowed to happen again. New Orleans needs a new levee and flood protection system that can resist even stronger storms than Katrina. Otherwise, extinct neighborhoods will be a part of our future, rather than our past.