MERMAIDS TO GRACELAND
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Stormy New Orleans
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The next step is a city tour with Javier Cuellar (our driver and GM of Dixie Tours) and Chris San Marco (our tour
guide). I can't say enough about these guys -- they are hands-down THE company to tour with in New Orleans. Just
lovely, lovely people. They really went out of their way to make sure we got a thorough tour and plenty of photo-ops.
Chris teased us, but answered every question we threw at him.
We run through the French Quarter, looking at the infamous balconies jutting out over the streets and galleries jutting
out over the banquette (that one's for you, Chris!) We see the balcony where Elvis sang in the movie King Creole
(see pic).
We head to the 9th Ward, the area devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Chris was living in St. Bernard Parish
when Katrina hit, in the home he and his wife raised their family in for forty years. On August 29th, a 23-foot wall of
water washed their lives away.
It took a month for the water to recede enough for Chris and his wife to return. When they did, all they could do was
sit in the car and cry. When they fled, they left behind everything. When they returned -- very little remained. Lost in
muck a foot high on the floors of their family home ... were their memories. Their childhood pictures. Their wedding
pictures. Photos of their kids growing up. The things that make life -- life -- gone.
And much of life in this place remains absent, save slabs of concrete where houses containing other people's pictures
used to be. Can you imagine your neighborhood, full of life and vibrancy one day. Vacant the next. A sense of
community, and then nothing. No friendly neighbors waving across the fence. No kids playing in the backyard. No
smells from summer barbecues. Just silence. Like a graveyard. I find this point driven home by the photos I've taken
today. Steps that lead to nowhere, looking sadly like a grave marker for a life that used to be.
Chris says he and Javier could do two tours a day seven days a week before Katrina, and still turn business away.
Post-Katrina, this is the first tour he's done in 15 days. Most people think the French Quarter and other touristy areas
of New Orleans were also ravaged by water, but it's a false assumption. These areas suffered storm damage, but
nothing as devastating as the effects of the loss of tourism.
Come to New Orleans. Eat beignet. Drink bloody mary's. Drive around with Chris and Javier. It's the best thing you
can do to help.
And a sneaky way to help yourself with a visit to this fabulous city.