The Lower Ninth
There is still a lot to see in the lower Ninth Ward, but a lot has been lost.  Most of the truly unsalvageable wrecks have been cleared away.  After all, many of these were literally in the middle of the street.  There were some legal hurdles to accomplish this.  After all, they couldn't demolish someone's house without their permission... but what if it was beyond any possible repair and blocking a public road?  Yeah, the courts said, tear 'em down.
This is what a lot of the Lower Ninth Ward has come to look like.  Where there once were piles of rubble and severely damaged houses, now there are empty lots.
The majority of the houses in the 9th Ward were pier and beam, so even before things were demolished, there were a lot of orphaned front steps like these in the foreground.  Sometimes the houses were somewhere down the street from their original locations.
A similar scene.  I have no idea why this house is still here...
...considering the demolition is halfway there already.
Even the highest steps had mud on them left from the flood.
The sign reads: "Save our neighborhood.  NO BULLDOZING!"
Now tell me what they expect to become of their next door neighbor's house?
The stop sign is leaning exactly the way it was probably pushed by the water (One of the two breaks along the Industrial Canal was less than half a mile behind me. so the water came from that direction).  It is also turned ninety degrees.
Alexplored 12/26/06, sixteen months after Hurricane Katrina.
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