Returning Home to the Wreckage
Irma Sliegler examines a Meal Ready to Eat on the sunporch of her home on
Broadway Avenue, where she has lived since she was 2 years old. Stiegler lost
her entire basement in the flood and said her most painful loss was her
grandmother's piano, which had been in her family since 1867. In the days
following Hurricane Katrina, the military distributed thousands ofMREs,
three-course meals that contain their own heating element. pho™ „
KEY
1. Tubes attached to dehumidifers
snake out of Joseph Merrick Jones
Hall onTulane University campus. In
some areas, the university had three
feet of standing water.
2. Even though some didn't have wa
ter or mold, everyone's refrigerator
was destroyed by seven weeks of
heat and humidity.Throuighoutthe
city, fridges sit at curbs, their scent
stretching for blocks. In Uptown,
"fridge wars" have begun when
irate neighbors have purposefully
left fridges on curbs in retribution.
Many of the fridges have spray
painted messages such as "Smells
like FEMA" or 'To the White House,
care of President Bush."
3. Maria Esperanza Fingerman's liv
ing room and entire first floor were
destroyed during Hurricane Katrina
by two feet of standing water. Mold
covers all the walls, in some places
almost to the ceiling . Even three
inches of water was enough to de
stroy homes.
4. Mardi Gras beads intermingle
with a broken french door on Adams
Street.The Mardi Gras beads can be
seen in most if not all piles, a painful
reminder of happier times.
5. Spray-painted X's mark almost all
the houses in New Orleans, indicat
ing when the home was searched
for survivors or bodies.This garden
gate on Adams Street noted that the
house was uninhabited, neither by
corpses nor the living.
6. An Army Humvee rolls down Fr
eret Street in front ofTulane Univer
sity. Assigned to maintain security in
the city, the military has become a
constant presence in New Orleans
since the hurricane.
7. Piles of debris are all that remains
of most homes.This picture was sit
ting on the median of Claiborne Av
enue.
8. A grand house on Broadway
stands empty and gutted. In tne
days before Katrina, this house had
a beautiful garden, none of which re
mains.