Driving the Lower 9th Ward

What fascinates me about New Orleans tourists and convention-goers is that those who travel here and only spend their time in their hotels, the convention center, and in the French Quarter will think that everything is back to normal after the devastation a couple years ago. After all, it's pretty simple to do just that - cab from the airport, a few days in the city, cab back to the airport, fly home.

While the downtown areas of the city had significant damage, one would not be able to detect the past problems without knowing that major hurricanes hit New Orleans in '05, .

Driving out to the Lower 9th Ward like we did today, however, reveals an entirely different story. Once you start leaving the French Quarter, you begin to see the spray-painted X's on the structures - some once again occupied - along with a date the property was searched for bodies, and a couple numbers or messages indicating if any bodies or animals were present.

Then, the X's become more prevalent. The buildings look even more ragged. Trailers begin appearing more and more outside of properties. One part of the Lower 9th ward was about half-inhabited and half-deserted. The people we did see were always black, and most likely poor. Exactly like the news depicted.

Even though it was daytime, I couldn't help but think that these unfortunate residents who remained saw Brian and I as the tourists that we were, driving their neighborhood, looking for a story to tell, glad that we were not them. I would be lying to deny any of that.

We drove to another part of the Lower 9th Ward that was absolutely deserted. Foundations where homes once were, abandoned structurally unsound buildings, edifices with roofs barely attached, overgrown weeds, broken glass, boarded windows. No people. It was eerie.

To imagine that people lived here, and that this entire area was submerged, is remarkable. I wanted to stop and take pictures, but it didn't feel right. They weren't memories I wanted to capture, and photo ops were clearly inappropriate.