Bronx reporter remembers covering Katrina

Bronx reporter remembers covering Katrina

Ten Years After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans Continues to Rebuild

By David Greene

 

BRONX, NEW YORK (BRONX NEWS)- Never in modern times has an American city been lost, but that's exactly what happened to New Orleans in the wake of the "100 Year Storm," known forever as Hurricane Katrina.

 

My week long visit to survey and record the devastation is forever etched in my mind and the feelings of helplessness for the city and it's people has never completely gone away.

 

With the advancement of the relatively new technology of Google Maps, I took a handful of the 1,000 photographs and sought the same locations via Google for a then and now prospective.

 

The view of the New Orleans Superdome from atop US 90, looking across the flooded Poydras Street in Downtown New Orleans was simply heartbreaking.

 

The Bethany Lutheran Church that lost it's roof in the storm has been completely rebuilt, although noticeably smaller than what it once was.

 

Somehow The Delgado Community College Charity School of Nursing, under an estimated 6-feet of water was somehow salvaged, but a photo on Google Maps shows the back of the facility was still under construction as of last year-- 9-years after the storm.

 

The photos that bring home the power of that storm is a shot of a young animal rescuer sailing her boat across Industry Street at Spain Street in Roch, Louisiana. In the photo was home after flooded home, but pictures on Google Maps today show that there are just two homes on the street.

 

The Category 3 hurricane packing winds of up to 125 mph, made landfall on August 29,

 

Officials now say that 1.5 million people were evacuated from Louisiana and 1,836 died and 2,500 were missing from the affected states.

 

The damage was estimated at over $100 billion, by far the costliest disaster in American history.  

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