LOL! (or cry). MSNBC just showed pic of totally flattened 9th Ward

[Atman]

A totally desolate street scene. Nothing, literally nothing standing. Just a flattened expanse of mud with trees and tires and shit sticking out of it.

The caption across the bottom: Residents Of 9th Ward Allowed To Return Home Tomorrow.

I wonder if they'll get protection from Blackwell like the French Quarter residents did. Don't want anyone looting their mud piles!

[babylonsister]

1. I totally don't understand that. We saw pix post-hurricane

of people being rescued off roofs and a fire here and there, near a seminary, in the 9th Ward. What happened to all those buildings that were standing? Did someone knock them down intentionally?

[KamaAina]

2. A, the lakeside areas were hit worse than those near St. Claude.

B, unlike the rest of the city, Lower Nine had additional flooding after Rita. Perhaps that's what happened.

[Atman]

3. You know, that was my first thought, too.

Or second, obviously. There were LOTS of houses there before. I'm sure it must have been an editor's very poor choice of visuals to illustrate the story. But the effect was pretty chilling, combined with that caption.

[slaveplanet]

4. Guess you missed that part about the Bulldozers

in Bush's terra speech last week....

maybe they felt that the residents had no need for their valuable China and rare artwork...

[Lexingtonian]

5. bulldozing

The head guy of Plaquemine Parish was interviewed a week after Katrina hit and said the damage to so much housing was so great that he figured half of the housing in the southern half of the parish was either so ruined by the winds or the flooding that there was nothing to be done but bulldoze it.

A lot of the Ninth Ward was in/under 10-16 feet(!) of water for weeks. Never mind the wallpaper, it warps all the semi-dried out structural wood and splays all the plywood and pressboard and does a great number on gypsum walling. Then there's all the fungus and metal joints that rust out, the door and window frames that warp beyond hope, the rotting filling materials in the walls (if any), residual asbestos sheathings, rusted up heating and water pipings, the electrical wiring that has to be done over entirely to be safe.

I've lived in southern Californian wildfire country. There are three or four standard things that are really hard or impossible to replace. These are jewelry, financial and very personal written documents (letters, diaries, certificates, diplomas), and photo albums. Almost everything else turns out to be Just Stuff.