On Tuesday, 4 April, after lunch at the cafe, we took a drive up Canal Street and then over to the Ninth Ward. I was curious to see if I could see much change in the almost two months since I had been there before. We passed one of the Common Ground locations, the one where we had unloaded water back in January. We passed a lot of houses that looked, from the outside anyway, just as they did in January. I noticed in today's New York Times that they are still finding bodies that were missed on the first, or even second, search. That's just about as depressing as it gets. To imagine someone's mother, child, friend, neighbor... having been there for seven months, undiscovered. Even having been there before, it's just overwhelming to try to consider the scope of things. We made our way back to the hotel.
Although it seems horrendously incongruous, we then went for a walk in the French Quarter. Keeping in mind that 5YO was in tow, although the point of the trip was to deliver the donation and for partner to see what I had witnessed in January, we had to try to fit in some "fun." We tried to go to the Central Grocery - home of the muffuletta - but it had already closed for the day. After stopping in a few of the shops that are open for business, we went to Cafe du Monde for the requisite coffee - or milk, depending - and beignets. Now, watching 5YO eat - and pronounce quite well - beignets was a real delight.
On the morning of the 5th, needing a few gifts, we picked up some pralines at Aunt Sally's and started out of town. Now, I'm a pretty risk averse person and driving with the fuel light on is not my idea of a good time. But, there we were, headed East on I-10 on vapors. Did I mention that a lot of the gas stations in the area are not operational. With empty apartment complexes on either side of us and stores, including a Wal-Mart, boarded up, we cruised toward Slidell. Fortunately we made it over the bridge and into a functional station, filling up before continuing on our way toward Ocean Springs, MS.
We had lunch at the Mellow Mushroom and picked up some afternoon snacks at the Tato-Nut Donut Shop. Then, we drove over to the beach area so that 5YO could run around a bit. I noticed that a few of the homes that had been destroyed but, as of January, not cleared were now gone. As I said in January, you just can't believe what the wind and water can do.
We left Ocean Springs and went over to I-90 in Biloxi - up to I-10 and west because the I-90 bridge is gone - and drove along the coast to the US-49 access in Gulfport. I didn't think that things looked much more cleaned up than in January. I did notice a few places where some clearing was done, some reconstruction has started, but mostly it's just devastating. 5YO, as we explained to him about "the storm" said, "It's like a nightmare." I think this is a line from one of his DVDs, but found it interesting that he made the connection. Yes, it's a nightmare.
From Gulfport we headed north on US-49 toward Jackson where we picked up I-55 to Memphis.
No comments:
Post a Comment