Though I photographed this Audubon Park Zoo camel in New Orleans in the early to mid-nineties (on film), he or she might still be with us since camels live 30-40 years. Katrina, while disastrous to most of the city did not unleash her full fury on the zoo, so survival through that catastrophe shouldn’t have been a problem. It was if he or she was waiting on me. After a roll or so of film, I said thank you and bade farewell.
After Katrina failed in her best efforts to completely destroy New Orleans in August of 2005, my road-trip buds, Dick Warriner, the late Dick DeWoody, and I mused that the excuse for our annual trip to the Crescent City, the annual French Quarter Fest, might be in danger. We began to entertain suggestions for other road-trip destinations, but none had the panache of “Nawlins.”
Click on Mr. Sandwich Eater to see more festival and post-Katrina pix
Despite the Katrina’s failure to administer the coup de grâce to New Orleans, the damage, as most will recall, was more than substantial.
Even at that level, the scurrilous storm did not cashier the festival. Late in 2005, we received notification that the festival was on. At this point we suggest that you can see other festival and lower Ninth Ward pictures where this story started, on the Photo of the Week page at Corndancer dot-com. Take a good look and we will wait here while you peruse images and verbiage.
Pretty girls with dogs are as ubiquitous as bands at outdoor concerts, and the 2005 French Quarter Fest was no different. Something caught the dog’s attention which set up a good photo op. Blind hog finds acorn again.
The lower Ninth Ward
We attended the festival April 21 and 22, 2005. Other than damage to trees and a few closed shops in the French Quarter, we did not see much evidence of the evil sister’s visit. However, even as the party went on in the Quarter, life in the lower Ninth Ward, the area that caught the worst of Katrina’s flooding, fell way short of comfortable. Call it morbid curiosity or whatever you’d like, the first leg of our return trip was one of observation, through the lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans.
I shot the following pictures on that trip, nine months after Katrina made her fateful visit to south Louisiana. This is the first time these images have been made available for public viewing.
Look closely for a man entering the house.
The residents here made sure the Coast Guard helicopter crews knew what was needed.
These homes have been “inspected.” Note the cryptic spray paint code on next to the door.
There were a number of camper trailers set up in residential yards.
Just around the corner from the camper this abandoned suffers callous neglect.
While to some, considering the reveling of the festival and the misery of the lower Ninth Ward in the same article may seem calloused, the truth is, the city needed all of the merry-making it could handle to pump good Yankee dollars into the seriously injured Crescent City economy. The condition was and still is called reality.
Thanks for dropping by,
Joe Dempsey
Weekly Grist for the Eyes and Mind
http://www.joedempseyphoto.com/
http://www.joedempseycommunications.com/
http://www.corndancer.com/joephoto/photohome.html
Filed under: Behind the Scenes, but wait, there's more | Tagged: camel, French Quarter Fest, Hurricane, Katrina, katrina damaged house pictures, katrina damaged houses, katrina damaged houses in new orleans, Lower Ninth Ward, Lower ninth Ward pictures, New Orleans, ninth ward pictures, picture of camel, picture of camel in Audubon park zoo, picture of camel in new orleans zoo, picture of woman in straw had with dog, post katrina pictures, woman in straw hat with dog, woman with dog at french quarter fest |
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