It was all Broken.

Hurricane Katrina had two major affects on the Lower Ninth; changing the experiential landscape, and the surviving demographic. In some ways, many things have stayed and will return the same. But it would be deceitful to tell you that all things can return and seem unchanged. In truth, after homes are rebuilt and lives are restored, things will be similar, but not exactly as they were.

Walking and driving through the Lower Ninth is an eye opening experience; even two years after. It is very apparent that something happened here that shouldn’t have. But there is a lot missing, there is little evidence to suggest exactly what it was that had occurred. And even less evidence of how long ago it was. It appears to have been cleaned, the debris whisked away as though it floated out with the water though some things were left behind. Immediately after the water receded personal accounts described the Lower Ninth, “Everything was covered in brown crud,” and “There was nothing living. No birds. No dogs. There was no sound.” Now, nature is healthy again, but the families are not. The depiction was that all was lost, that along an entire block, “It was just a ruin, all death and destruction.” Today, thankfully, it is different; it is sunny, it is green, the air is clean and the breeze is soft. But there is something unsettling about seeing the grass and trees, green and growing again, and the only remembrance of houses are the concrete foundations and front steps. There is a stark quiet, as one editorialist puts it, “Empty during the day and dark at night, this area is a long way from being a neighborhood again.”

The city council established the New Orleans Neighborhoods Rebuilding Plan where some fifty-four designated neighborhoods were divided into eleven planning districts. Each with its own community associations and consulting design firms driving the rehabilitation. The eighth planning district was strictly the Lower Ninth, including a small portion of the Ninth Ward often labeled Holy Cross that sustained minimal damage. Stull and Lee Architects were responsible for the eighth planning district. With extensive research of the neighborhood and citizen input they proposed a redevelopment plan to the city. They have distinguished three classifications of areas in the Ninth Ward depending on damages. These areas are characterized as high, substantial, and least incidents of damages.

Because of the considerable destruction of the Lower Ninth a drastic landscape exists. Most of the houses closest to the levee wall were turned over, and completely taken off of the piers of foundation. Where houses do remain there is, “block after block of ruined shells with doors swinging open and windows gaping wide.” Many of these houses will be torn down, if they have not been already. A community with over six thousand homes before the storm, the Lower Ninth has lost 2500 of those homes. This combination of tear downs and structural failures creates a new condition for the redevelopment of the neighborhood. The proposal suggests that there are three types of homes left in the Lower Ninth, homes in good, fair, and poor conditions. Homes of Good report are able to be renovated because the exterior and structure has not been compromised. The Fair label is given to homes with level roofs and plum walls that can be, at least mostly, salvaged and then reconstructed. Any homes marked Poor would have considerable damage to the structure and lack integrity. This drastic labeling dictates that there will be streets that remain historically accurate and streets that are wholly reconstructed. There will be juxtaposition of newly built homes with homes have survived and are true to New Orleans. The question is: How will this dialogue be considered by developers and contractors? There is much opportunity in this condition between the old and the new. Will the aim of the neighborhood seek to cherish the opportunity of the considerable differences between now and then, or will it attempt to emulate the old? Either way, the condition will be present. The hope is that conservation and preservation will be present, but that the potential for new progress will be realized.

There has been stagnancy in the Ninth Ward’s continual growth after Katrina. There is relatively low growth compared to many parts of New Orleans and there are a few indicator as to why. Contributing: “That the Lower Ninth is overwhelmingly black is not irrelevant. African-Americans were the predominant and poorest members of this city before the storm, they bore the worst of it and have the farthest journey back to stability.” But that is applicable to the entire city, however it is particularly significant in a few of the neighborhoods devastated by Katrina, including the Lower Ninth. These people were a combination of low income renters and home owners. Most of the home owners were such because the house has held generations of the same family. But in recent history the rising costs of homes increased faster than family income levels. Thus many people of the Lower Ninth were forced into renting. Disrupting the transition between disaster relief and reconstruction even further is the fact that these families had little savings and were often uninsured. Although, insurance companies have contributed very little to most of the rebuilding efforts regardless of policy or income level. The possibility of zone changes and the impact of the redevelopment will greatly affect the chances that these families have of coming back to their neighborhood.

It is difficult to say how and when a recovery will appear in the Lower Ninth. But Most people feel that it will. There has been response, and many have “found signs of hope” and still more “said they were optimistic about New Orleans’s future.” With this hope, still, “A huge silence still hangs over the Lower Ninth Ward, a place every American should see, to witness firsthand how truckloads of promises have filled New Orleans’s vast devastation with nothing.”