I have posted all of the pictures from my New Orleans trip, and put a link to them on the right. There are approx. 400 pictures in all. If you are on dial up, it may take away, however I think it will be worth the look.
Before I went down to this town, I had my reservations about a lot of things. About the people, the accomadations, the food, and the devastation in general. As you will see from the pictures, the devastation is a fact of life down there, even after 6 months. About 70 % of the town is still without power. And there was hardly anyone in that town other than contractors, and some downtown business owners. I did see a Lowes that was open, and it looked like a Wal-mart on the day after thanksgiving. If you can get away from the tourist section of downtown, and venture to the out laying areas, you can find some really good cajun food. Also, there isnt a hotel room to stay in within 70 miles. Gas can be found at only one place, which is close to downtown. There is only one grocery store in the whole town. That gives you some idea of the situation. Along with the pictures, you should get a real good idea of what its like down there now. I still dont know where all of the people are. Spread out all over this country for sure. You can be sure they are constantly working on the levees. Another sad part about it, was all the pets/ animals that were destroyed also. Even worse--there will be more hurricane seasons in the near future. Don't know if I would ever come back to this town or not, if I lived thru this one.

This was my view for the last two days while I have been waiting on the tecs to get it all together. I think they got it together,, they just forget where they put it! !! ! ! This was a very tough day for me! ! I did everything from: reading the paper, doing every crossword, scramble words, find words, reading a book, listening to music, to calling friends and bugging them at work, bugging my friend/ coordinator Jeff, trying to take a nap, waving to everyone of the tugboat pilots,etc..... hard to keep busy for 8 hours for two days. Wish I had my fishing rod---- would have been fishing, hahaha. Cloud streets where everywhere, which made it even worse!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My last Sunset in New Orleans area for a while.

A butterfly in January??

A Young mans dream.

Delta Queen, in from cincinnati

Mother River statue, right on the riverfront.

We are winding this town up in the next day or so, and I will be leaving this place for a while.

I wonder how long it took someone to paint this???? beautiful !!!!!

I think I can, I think I can, lol. Today was mostly waiting on the tecs, so I got to watch the tugboats go up and down the mighty mississippi river.

The Riverfront Park

The famous Bourbon street. I took a lot of pictures of the downtown/ bourbon/ decatur/ coiti's area, so look for the link soon(as soon as I get home---if I EVER get home, haha just kidding). You will have a real good look at this entire town then!

A beautiful work of art at Riverfront Park, on the muddy Mississippi

The Royal Sonesta takes up about a city block. Very NICE hotel. This is a shot of it on Bourbon St.

The Superdome, today. You can see where half of it has been painted.
The inside is still uninhabitable without bunny suits, gloves, and repirators. Still knee deep in,,,,,stuff.

Mark Twain would be Proud of this one!!!!!

My funny Pic of the day. Ray Nagin, mayor of New Orleans, on a tshirt after his stupid comments the other day.

Some food relief for some local folks. They are handing out MREs. They are great!!!! especially when you dont have anything to eat!!!!!

What would a visit to New Orleans be, without some good Jazz music?????

There are alot of different styles of Jazz! ! ! ! !

funny tshirt here!!! I stayed in New orleans for Katrina, and all i got was this Lousy t-shirt, a new cadillac and a Plasma TV, lol

WE are working ! HONEST ! Can you hear me now???

We had to eat, gessshhhhh, haha

Joan of Arc statue.

A place for a free meal for folks, and a little Good news!

Open French Market, in the French Quarters area

French Quarters

The French Quarters, downtown New Orleans.

I have seen these trailers being transported by semi's and by trains as far away as Chattanooga, Tn. I was wondering what the story was with them. I know what the story is NOW. FEMA is spending $3,322.00 per month on each of these, and 1,000's more of them. What could you rent for the same money????? """ If FEMA could distribute the fortune spent on trailers directly to those in need of housing, the recipients might find a much nicer place to live, and even have money left over for home repairs. But, there's a catch::that would be illegal.""""" that comes off the front page of " the times-Picayune". The total cost to the Taxpayers( US)---$59,800.00, EACH. We are talking about a box with wheels, square footage, between 200-400 square feet. THIS is crazy folks!! this is just my opinion. NOT what these people need, or even want. Okay, guess it beats a tent, sorry will get off my soapbox.

More trailers just waiting for more people to return. I would have to take the cash, if offered!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me playing tourist.

Which ones of these do I test again????? haha

More water marks. The water stayed in this area longer than most other places in town, which is very apparent by the marks.

A man pulling garbage from his house. Him and his wife were having a hard time of trying to get back to a normal life yet. However, brighter days are coming, and they are hopeful and optimistic. And, just a touch sad.

This is a picture of the ONLY supermarket that we knew of within 15-20 miles. If there were more, we dont know where they could be. How much we take for granted, huh??!! Something as simple as going to the grocery store, paying out ragious prices, complaining about the price of meat, bread, milk, etc..... just imagine----NO supermarkets to even go to.

This sailboat was working hard pushing this small yacht.

The Levees now days

Some tired palm trees, they had to be propped up, hehe.

Today was a good & bad day. It was good that we had some time off where I could feed the seagulls, however, that means the the 911 operators were too busy to take our test calls.

This portrays the spirit of the people here, damaged but NOT broken. There are brighter days to come for sure.

My testing partner took this, while I was playing tourist. If he would have waited just a minute more--- he would have gotten the ducks trying to eat my shoes,leg, etc.... lol

I am only going to post a few pictures a day while I am here. When I get home, I will post a link, so you can see all of the pictures that I have taken. Even tho it looks really bad from these pictures, it is actually 1,000 times better than it was just a few months ago. They are really putting alot of effort into this town trying to clean it up, where it is safe for people to live here again. All of the agencies are very visible here. FEMA, EPA, etc.......
I have a couple of links that I will post here to see some pictures just after Hurricane Katrina was in town. Now those pictures will really WOW you. These are just to show you some of the progress that has taken place, and the real story from down here, without all the political views, or opinions. Except for mine, of course, haha!

here are a couple of links:

http://www.weatherstock.com/katrinacat8.html

http://www.weatherstock.com/katrinacat8b.html

You can also type---" pictures of Hurricane Katrina" in the search site of Google, and see Lots more!!!!!!!!!

More watermarks downtown.

There isnt a room to be had here in town, or even for 100 miles or so. Thanks go out to my travel agent for a room downtown, instead of getting me a place here.

More watermarks

I imagine there are many Thousands of port-a-pottys all over this town. Due to lack of the sewage system. This place is only 4 miles from Downtown New Orleans.

From my hotel room window, about a block off of Bourbon street.

A great piece of artwork here!!

This is just ONE of the many Tent Citys where people are living here, Still.

Part of Tent City on this block.

See the red and white build in the background? that was on TOP of this restaurant

A boat made it all the way inland to the park.