New Orleans and East

The City of New Orleans

We drove across Texas as quickly as possible. We spent one night in Beaumont along the way. We chose a simple seafood restaurant for supper and were seated across from a large family of refugees from New Orleans. They were in town for a cheerleading competition. The grandfather was about our age. We started talking to them and found out that their house was destroyed along with their daughter's house and several rental houses. I asked him if he was retired and he responded, "I am now". His job was also destroyed. They are living with relatives while they try to rebuild one of the houses.

Many people had warned us not to try to get into the city with a RV. They said that there were no spaces. I took the campground directory and started calling. Several were full or were closed but I did find one that had one space. It was on Chef Highway, about 5 miles from the French Quarter.

The closer we got to New Orleans the worse the city looked. There were wrecked houses everywhere along with wrecked cars and mountains of trash.

The RV park we found was in a formerly middle-class area. It had been under 27 feet of water. The owner's house was flooded and then looted. Across from the park was a pile of trash crowned with a toilet.

Almost every house had a spray painted symbol indicating the date it was inspected and the number of dead people and animals. Almost every street light was not working. They were replaced by temporary stop signs. If all the people from the city returned traffic would be impossible. However, there were few people so the stop signs worked.

Electric still has not been restored to much of the city. Almost all the street lights are down.
The only area that is mostly normal is the French Quarter. There, most of the business are up and running.

The local government is now suggesting that about 5500 houses will need to be destroyed. I believe that the number is too low. I think at least half the houses must either be destroyed or at least gutted.

And the 2006 hurricane season is just four months away. There is no way that the city can be ready in time and they can only hope that the storms will miss them.

Moving East

Traveling East from New Orleans we came to Gulfport, MS where 95 percent of the buildings were destroyed. In Beloxie, MS about half were destroyed.

Destin, FL

We stopped in Pensacola, FL to pick up our mail from the forwarding service and continued to Destin, FL. A lovely town. We stayed at a wonderful campground on the beach for three nights and then drove to Ocala, Fl and stayed overnight at a Walmart parking lot.
The next day we drove to Tampa and had another treatment for ants and then spent a half day at the Lazydays RV dealership looking at larger RVs.

Sarasota, FL

Finally we got to Sarasota, FL where we had a reservation at the Sun N Fun RV park and met our friends who have a trailer and got there ahead of us.
We got to Sarasota on Feb 18 and will stay there until March 4.
-- Howard