Operation Eden

Four Years On

2009-08-29T19:59:00.004-04:00

Sandbar, Gulf Coast near Waveland MS

I have nothing new, or good, to report. Happy 4-year anniversary.

McKain Street Erased

2009-05-13T15:14:00.002-04:00

McKain Street, after Katrina

My mom reports that McKain Street in New Orleans has been bulldozed. I feel like a psychic umbilical chord has been cut. Our history being erased.

This is why I make photographs. To preserve what life must destroy. It’s a melancholy art. Embalming loved memories.

She writes:

"beautiful day - bridget and her husband came and got me and lorraine and we drove the back way down hwy 90 down chef menteur hwy and we went to visit mckain street and were totally shocked to find that it has been torn down and is no longer in existense...just a vacant lot...the only thing left of mommas house was the top part of the front porch bulldozed over to the front side of the lot and her two concrete flower pots...which we took as our mothers day gifts...one for me and one for lorraine. after the shock of mckain street gone, it did make me joyful to know that no crackhead would live in her house again...another door of the past closed and it makes your pictures of it even more precious to us!"

Miss New Orleans (8 songs in the key of nola)

2008-09-05T18:36:00.002-04:00

Miss New Orleans (8 songs in the key of nola)

Led Zeppelin - When The Levee Breaks
Kid Koala - Basin Street Blues
Professor Longhair - Go To The Mardi Gras
Johnny Cash - Big River
Janis Joplin - Me and Bobby McGee
Bob Dylan - House of the Rising Sun
Scarlett Johansson - I Wish I Was In New Orleans
Louis Armstrong - Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?

Twitter Tumblr Updates

2008-09-01T19:45:00.001-04:00

I'm replacing the Twitter feed with my Tumblr, everything tagged "Gustav" here.

Three Years On

2008-08-29T19:21:00.005-04:00

Happy Katrina Day, if you're reading this. I don't know why you would be, I've neglected it for so long, but it's still here, like a tree just waiting to be watered, and so here I am again today.

So much has happened since Katrina changed everything three years ago. And still so much is the same. I feel like a fraudulent reporter even touching on what's happened. It's ridiculous to come back here once every few months for updates, when the recovery is daily, and I'm so distant.

Every few weeks I resolve to recommit myself to this, and then disappoint myself by not. Sorry to the universe.

Facts: my mom is back on her property in a beautiful little home she's overjoyed to live in, built by successive waves of wonderful volunteers since the storm. She's just received some rebuilding money from the state of Mississippi which she's using to shore up the rough spots left over, and to elevate the house to new FEMA standards (which change frequently since the storm).

She recently received a creepy pre-recorded phone warning from Governor Haley Barbour telling her to evacuate in the path of Gustav, as if she wasn't planning on it already.

That's her on the left in the above picture. Next to her is her childhood friend Russell. Next to him is her sister, my aunt Lorraine, who's self conscious about her down-turned smile since the stroke, but who I think is just as beautiful and beaming as she's always been. The three of them grew up together first on Piety Street, then on McKain Street, in New Orleans.

Their dads worked together in the junkyard, chopping up cars for scrap using big hand axes. Russell had nineteen brothers and sisters, in a family poorer even than mine. Now he lives in a FEMA trailer on an abandoned lot with two dogs, a bunch of Katrina junk, a statue of the Virgin Mary he hand painted, and an old school bus backed up to a canal cruised by alligators, which he fishes out of for meals.

His sister was murdered in New Orleans last week. The New York Times wrote a piece about the crime in New Orleans, the crime that took Russell's sister.

It mentioned Piety Street. I don't know how any of this fits together on this day. But I know that it does.

I'll be back soon.

One House At A Time Update

2008-03-03T15:02:00.004-05:00

"The recovery from Hurricane Katrina is far from the front pages these days. There were still 30,000 families (over 110,000 American individuals) still living in FEMA trailers earlier this month (feb 2008), when the "news" of deadly levels of formaldehyde in the trailers was finally reported.

I began filming this story one month after Katrina came ashore, and I recently returned to the devastated and impoverished town of Pearlington Mississippi. Even though its several miles from the actual coast, the storm surge and the wind brought this place to the brink of its very existence. The waves that came through this town and destroyed everything in their path first had to pass through a few Chemical Plants and Oil refineries out in the Gulf of Mexico. This was not merely sea water that carried these homes away, it was a deadly stew of unknown and unreported toxins.

This story follows the recovery efforts of one group that has been based in Pearlington as soon as the roads were clear enough to get in. One House At A Time is building homes for people of Pearlington who want to stay in the place where they call home. This video tells a little of their story, but anyone who has been there will tell you, there is no video that can be shot that can express the sort of devastation that has occurred on our own soil, to our own people. So go see it for yourself, and bring a hammer." -Kevin Leeser, March 2008

Link: One House At A Time project site
Link: This video on Current TV
Link: High-resolution Quicktime video

Previously on Operation Eden:
Hope, One House At A Time
Merry Christmas From Pearlington
Rebuilding Hope and Habitat

Two Years On And Counting

2007-08-29T16:52:00.000-04:00

Ma Mère (Old Ma. Grandma. MawMaw) Holding Baby Siege In Prediluvian New Orleans East

Two years today. No new words of wisdom. I'm much shallower than I was then, but swimming in the deep end. I've rededicated myself to making as much money as I can while still trying to retain some residual soul. I want to make as much money as I can because in modern America each dollar you have makes you worth more as a human, and I want my whole family to have worth as humans. I want to try to retain some residual soul while I pursue dollars, because I don't want to resemble most modern Americans. I don't know if this is possible, but I'm trying, and some days it hurts to hold both goals at once, so I have to occasionally drop one.

Eyemazing, the international journal of contemporary photography, has an interview with me in the current issue about my Katrina body of work. The piece on me shows up somewhat after the piece on David Lachapelle and the piece on Andres Serrano. By it for them and get me as lagniappe. It was written by another Clayton, Clayton Maxwell, who's the only female Clayton I've ever met. It goes like this:

"Clayton James Cubitt can't be pinned down. A charming amalgam of art porn photographer and political activist, he's in Brooklyn documenting his sex life one day, then in New Orleans photographing mayor Ray Nagin and Bounce Musicians the next. His photo-blog on Nerve.com, The Daily Siege, is one of the best sources of intelligent, open sexuality on the web, while his other blog, Operation Eden, is devoted to the aid of Hurricane Katrina victims. We caught up with Cubitt at an East Village bar in New York, where he filled us in on his series of Katrina portraits, the role of photography amidst tragedy, and America's canary in the coalmine.

Clayton Maxwell: On your website, http://www.claytoncubitt.com, the only description of this series of Katrina photos is: "Portraits of the survivors and volunteers of Hurricane Katrina, taken in the days immediately after the storm hit." I know you had to fly down to New Orleans from Brooklyn to find your mom, who was living there at the time, and help out. When, amidst all of that, were these portraits taken?

Clayton James Cubitt: Most of the portraits presented here were taken in the week immediately following the disaster. There was no electricity, running water, phone lines, and the national guard was only just beginning to clear roads and distribute ice and MREs to survivors.

CM: Could you tell me about your ties with New Orleans - when did you live there? Who in your family was there when Katrina hit?

CJC: My family's from New Orleans going back a few generations, and I spent most of my formative years there and on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana. All of my family lore comes out of New Orleans, and I credit it with forming who I am as an artist, besides making me who I am as a man.

My mother and little brother were missing for a week after the storm, and lost nearly everything, including the home I had just bought for them earlier that year. My aunt and uncle were left homeless, as were several cousins, some of who were forced to relocate in Texas.

CM: Why did you want to do these portraits? Was there a specific message you wanted to convey?

CJC: The people I most photographed were the poor and dispossessed. Those who had very little before the storm, and lost even that when the storm hit. This is the socio-economic class I grew up in - poor whites mingling with poor blacks, all being shut out of the American Dream. I intended to show their inherent pride, their dignity, and the hard work of their lives etched on their faces.

CM: Where were they taken? All of them except for three seem to be taken in a studio-like setting. Why did you choose that rather than shooting the subjects in the context of their surroundings at the time?

CJC: The studio portraits were taken in a former school gymnasium that had been cleared out and cleaned, and was serving as a distribution point for aid in the small Gulf Coast town of Pearlington, Mississippi, which was ground zero for Hurricane Katrina. The whole town was under 30 feet of storm surge, and had to fend for itself with no outside help for almost ten
days.

I wanted to shoot many portraits in a studio context in order to separate these images from the flood of photojournalistic images that came out of New Orleans. I think people have become so jaded as visual consumers that when they see a photograph that's obviously reportage, they immediately shove it into a safe little compartment called "other." This happens in Haiti, or Africa, or Pakistan, not America, and all the images look the same, with the victims of the tragedy filling the same role, that of making Americans feel relieved that they live in America. Well, this is America.

I wanted to short-circuit that automatic filing. I wanted to present these people with the same care and respect I would use when on assignment shooting a portrait of a celebrity or a politician. I think it allows for a lingering appreciation of what they've been through, in small doses, rather than in an overwhelming image of total disaster, which is very hard to really absorb in the two seconds most viewers allot a photograph.

But mostly, I wanted to treat them with the respect they deserve, but never get.

CM: How or why does photography matter in times like the aftermath days of Katrina? Do you think that recording elements of the catastrophe on film can make a difference?

CJC: No amount of writing could ever convey the scale of the disaster. Even single photographs were insufficient to the task; it was so massive. The storm impacted an area the size of Great Britain. I found I had to combine my writing and images in order to give people even a small glimpse into the scale of this tragedy, and I feel like I've failed miserably to even do that.

You really have to visit to know how huge it is.

CM: Looking at this series, I try to guess who are the volunteers and who are the victims, obviously making somewhat unreliable assumptions - that the most weathered and dazed faces must be the victims, for example. Did you have an intention in leaving that distinction ambiguous?

CJC: Yes, and my intent was to blur the line between "them" and "us". The past few years have been very polarized ones in America, with partisan camps readily separating themselves from each other, always quick to demonize and attack the other side. The culture hasn't been this divided since the Civil War. Even in the days immediately after the storm hit, partisans were using it for fodder to gain an upper hand in the culture wars, while innocent victims still struggled for life.

I found this disgusting. Repugnant. I wanted to show all these people simply as Americans. Americans who needed help from other Americans, and from their government.

CM: Did these subjects tell you their stories? How did you know them?

CJC: I talked with everybody I photographed, and they all had stories of tragedy and loss and survival, and resignation. At the end of each day I was exhausted from just seeing and listening. Many of their stories I published on my blog, Operation Eden (http://www.operationeden.com), which for a time became a central clearing house for volunteers and people seeking
to send relief, and citizens who were curious about what the mainstream media wasn't presenting.

CM: Could you tell me about the guy in the Avon hat? What did he experience?

CJC: His name is Brother Pierre, and he was a tragic case even before the storm hit. He's been homeless for many years in the small town of Slidell, Louisiana, one of the local towns I grew up in, just a few minutes from New Orleans. Like many homeless in America, he picks up cans and trash from the sides of roads to sell for recycling. I found him on the destroyed grounds of a local high school, picking up cans from the wreckage, as if it were just another day. I suppose to him it was.

And that was one of the saddest realizations for me about this whole experience. That in a country as powerful and wealthy as America, there are people so abandoned, so poor, so hopeless, that the wreckage of the largest natural disaster in our history doesn't do much to worsen their prospects. There is nothing beneath the bottom. It's really just insult to injury.

CM: Is your family still there? How are they recovering?

CJC: Most are still there, struggling along as best they can, and I'm helping them as best I can. Some have given up on New Orleans and started in other parts of the country. My mother and little brother benefited much from the publicity I drummed up with my blog Operation Eden, and I'm happy to report that a wonderful volunteer group called One House At A Time (http://www.onehouseatatime.com) came into my mom's little community of Pearlington and rebuilt her home, as well as the homes of many of her neighbors.

The big struggle now, after all this time, is to find volunteers who are willing to travel down and donate labor to help rebuild. Even two years later, this is still largely a volunteer effort, as the national and local governments have either abandoned their duties or been totally ineffective, or both.

CM: What do you remember most about those days when you were down there shooting?

CJC: The heat, the humidity, the utter devastation. It was all I could do to focus on making the images. I could remain sane if I could take it in through my viewfinder, one photo at a time. But I also remember the human compassion, the care, and regular people helping each other. Ordinary citizens from across the country coming down on their own to help in whatever way they could, while their politicians and "leaders" could only argue, and stage photo-ops.

CM: Do you know what happened with any of the people in your photos? If the victims pulled through OK?

CJC: Most still struggle. Most are still in temporary housing, or are trying to rebuild lives far from home and family. Some have gotten worse, turned to drugs, despair. This is far from over, and the people there still need so much help, as much as I'd love to be able to tell you that all has been fixed.

CM: How do you feel about New Orleans now?

CJC: I think New Orleans is the canary in the coalmine for a huge range of issues facing modern America, and the world at large. The Katrina disaster frames so many debates: global warming and climate change, wealth disparity, the proper role of government versus private corporations, the failure of media to keep its citizenry well informed.

When people look at New Orleans, as it struggles to live, or as it withers and dies, I want them to think of their own city in its place. I want them to know that this could be them. These faces could be theirs. It might be a natural disaster, it might be war, it might be terrorism, and it doesn't matter how safe they think they are, they're not. I want them to put themselves in the place of these Americans.

And I want them to remember this feeling the next time they're in the voting booth. Because who you have running your government makes the difference between your hometown living or dying. Don't forget that. Your vote matters."

New Orleans Is An American City

2007-06-11T03:00:00.001-04:00

New Orleans is an American city. Her porches fly American flags, just like porches in Peoria. Each morning her children say the Pledge of Allegiance, just like children in Boise. She was once attacked simply for being an American city, just like New York was.

So why has she been abandoned by her country? Why has she been abandoned by her President? Why do we spend more money each month in a foreign war of opportunity than we do in restoring one of our greatest cities from the worst calamity in its long history?

Why, in this second hurricane season after The Flood, is she all alone? Why is she still dark at night? Why are her citizens still scattered, forgotten, neglected? Why are her levees still weak? What happened to the promises?

"Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives. And all who question the future of the Crescent City need to know there is no way to imagine America without New Orleans, and this great city will rise again."

In the America I was raised to believe in, promises meant something. Can we work to restore that America, along with New Orleans? Or is it too late?

And if it's too late for New Orleans, what does that mean for the future of your home town? Will yours be the next to fall off the American map, despite the fervor with which you fly your flags, and say your pledges?

A Time to Break Silence

2007-01-15T16:38:00.000-05:00

James Peters, Pearlington hero, still living in a FEMA trailer.

"A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such." -Martin Luther King, Jr. 1967

Katrina Mental Health PSA #2

2006-11-12T01:34:00.000-05:00

Ad agency Grey Worldwide worked with the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the Ad Council to create a series of PSAs highlighting the need for Katrina surivors to reach out for help. Depression and post-traumatic stress disorder are rampant throughout the survivor population in the Gulf Coast.

They sent me down to photograph survivors for the ads. I spent a week in New Orleans and Mississippi. This is the second ad to come out.

CNN Commentary: Katrina victims 'stuck on stuck'

"It is morally intolerable that a year after Hurricane Katrina, many thousands of children and families are still suffering and going without critical supports like health care, mental health care and housing and schooling in the richest nation on earth.

Experts testified at a July congressional hearing in New Orleans that mental health needs are a critical concern for survivors. There are only 10 mental health pediatric and youth beds available in New Orleans, although the number of children with unresolved mental health problems has increased. There were 3200 physicians in Orleans and surrounding parishes before the storm; only 1400 are practicing now -- requiring many families to see unfamiliar doctors and to drive many miles for health care. Homelessness is on the rise, and thousands of people continue to live in shelters, trailer parks, and with relatives and strangers with no relief in sight -- just "stuck on stuck," as a homeless state employee said."

Hope, One House At A Time

2006-10-17T01:57:00.000-04:00

Pearlington Mississippi was never much to look at, as far as towns go. Even before Katrina it had barely 1,600 citizens. It doesn't have a main street, or a town square. It doesn't have a mayor or a city council. Since Katrina, it doesn't have a post office, a library, or an elementary school. It's a collection of winding country roads, of mossy trees and swamps, dotted with a patchwork constellation of homes, most quite humble even before the storm sank them under twenty feet of muddy water.

It's primordial America. It's America before mega-malls and exurbs and freeways stitched it up and plasticized it. But this isn't the autumnal village America featured in political ads or Rockwell paintings, either. This is the dirty deep American South, scruffy and proud. Red mud and fried shrimp. Hard work and love of God. Blacks and whites on different sides of town, mingling in the middle. It sits on old Highway 90 midway between the decadent nights of New Orleans and the white beaches of Biloxi. It's a tiny microcosm of Louisiana and Mississippi lost in the bayous on the border between them. It's the old American dream, covered in drifting Spanish moss.

And Eugene Keys has lived there all his 77 years. He lived there back when it was a logging town called, appropriately enough, Logtown. That's how he made his living, hauling logs, one at a time, over his broad shoulders. Until diabetes took his legs and sat him in a wheelchair. The morning Katrina roared up the Pearl River he was having a cup of coffee with his older brother William, and they watched that wall of water wash away all they ever had. They barely survived, clinging to the rafters. Eugene's electric wheelchair shorted out. His prosthetic legs drifted off. But Eugene and William survived, together.

They lay stranded in the house for two days without food or water before family members could reach them. Pearlington itself lay stranded for ten days before the first rescue workers showed up. Like I said, Pearlington has no government, and having no government means having no clout. When aid dollars flow and resources get allocated, having no government means having no voice to call for it. And Pearlington has been clinging to the rafters since the storm hit, with only the aid of big-hearted volunteers from around the country keeping it afloat.

And for months after the storm hit the volunteers flowed, and help came in, and hope started to creep in. Maybe it doesn't matter that all the news covers New Orleans, people started to think. Maybe we won't be forgotten again, small as we are, quiet as we are. And bunkhouses were built on the grounds of the old elementary school to house the volunteers. Tents served meals, trailers housed showers, and for a time it was that old American dream again. An old-fashioned barn raising, writ large.

But it started fading after the first anniversary of Katrina. News coverage that had been dimming for months suddenly flared up and then blinked out. A year is a nice neat package. Let's wrap that mess up and come back next year to see how those poor people are doing. And soon after the volunteers started dwindling. Now they're almost all gone. The bunkhouses remain. Meals are available. Hot showers too. Just add people.

One of those groups volunteering to rebuild Pearlington is called One House At A Time, and I've been donating my photographs to help them since day one. They've been building beautiful little Gulf Coast shacks for poor people left homeless by the Storm. Poor people who lived in tents for months while FEMA had trailers sitting in vast open fields near Hattiesburg. Poor people like Eugene Keys. They'd hoped to help him, and hundreds of his neighbors, but time is running out, and hope is fading again. There are dozens of these little houses under construction in Pearlington. Dozens of lives almost restored. Dozens of futures almost reclaimed. Eugene Keys is just one of them.

One House At A Time Cottage

So here's what I'm saying, what I'm asking. The point of this little story, and I hope I'm not too late saying it. If you never got around to doing anything during the Katrina tragedy, if you were too paralyzed by shock, or disgust, or sadness, and now you feel like you missed it, you missed your chance to help, I want to tell you that you haven't. You can still do something. You can donate something to One House At A Time. You can donate time, or money, or materials. You can spread the word to people who still care. You can help rekindle the hope. You can still save lives.

As I write this winter is almost upon us in the Gulf. Did you know that the FEMA trailers people waited so long to get are being taken away in February? Will the citizens of Pearlington be back to living in tents then? Not if One House At A Time can help it, and you can help them. Like I said, Pearlington was never much to look at. It's no New Orleans. It's no Biloxi. But it's a part of America that's fading fast and deserves to survive. Because if you go far enough back, all our families come from some place like Pearlington.

Donate/Paypal - One House At A Time

Light Is Calling

2006-09-20T19:24:00.001-04:00

This is cinematic poetry. Light Is Calling, 2003, by Bill Morrison. It has nothing to do with Katrina, but it sings what is in my heart when I lift my camera up to the sepia disaster in the Gulf.
Interview with Bill Morrison.
Music by Michael Gordon.
Original source footage from The Bells, James Young, 1926.
See also: Decasia, by Bill Morrison.

The Grim Meathook Future Of New Orleans

2006-09-05T16:03:00.000-04:00

Charity Hospital, built when people used to dream about the future.

GMF Explained

Times-Picayune: When needed most, psych services gone

"In a scene that is becoming disturbingly common, New Orleans police were summoned during the July 4th weekend to Mid-City to deal with a paranoid schizophrenic man who had turned violent.

The man had lost his home in eastern New Orleans to Hurricane Katrina and had stopped taking his medications, he told friends, because the free clinic where he used to get the drugs also was obliterated by the storm.

Filthy and confused, he spit and cursed at officers as a half-dozen wrestled him to the ground and strapped leather restraints on him. They found three pairs of scissors in his clothes and two ice picks, one hidden in his cap.

Before Katrina, he would have been taken to Charity Hospital, where a special psychiatric team could have evaluated him and maybe kept him overnight. But in post-Katrina New Orleans, there are no such teams and no beds available for overnight stays.

He was taken instead to one of the private hospitals outside the city that have grudgingly accepted psychiatric patients since the storm. Fifteen minutes later, the man was released. Out of their jurisdiction, New Orleans police said they could only watch as he began to make his way back to the city."

Tear Drop

2006-08-30T21:40:00.000-04:00

The first in a series of Public Service Announcements I shot for Katrina survivors

My heart hurts for my hometown, for the Gulf. I can't sleep at night, my chest is tight. These amazing people, the huge hugs they give, the smiles they flash, the parties they throw. If you've ever experienced their spirit you never forget it. That's what makes this so hard for me.

"Summing up what has happened since the hurricanes destroyed large parts of four Gulf Coast states last August, doctors from the departments of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina, Duke University Medical Center and Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center paint a fairly grim picture of the instability that has followed:

• One survey found that 68 percent of female caregivers had a mental health disability because of symptoms of depression, anxiety or other psychiatric disorders.

• Another survey found that 19 percent of police officers and 22 percent of firefighters reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), while 26 percent of police and 27 percent of firefighters reported major depressive symptoms.

• A crisis-call center in Mississippi handling inquiries mostly from people dealing with depression and anxiety reported a 61 percent increase in volume between March 1 and May 31, 2006, compared with the period just after the hurricanes, Oct 31 and Dec. 31, 2005.

• The deputy coroner of New Orleans recorded almost a threefold increase in suicide rates, from nine per 100,000 to 26 per 100,000 in the four months after Katrina hit. And the murder rate in New Orleans, which fell in 2005, has risen by 37.1 percent above pre-hurricane levels for the first half of 2006.

• In Louisiana, mental health counselors supported by federal government agencies made 158,260 referrals. This doesn't include people who sought support independently.

• Recent estimates suggest that only 140 of 617 primary-care physicians have returned to practice in New Orleans. Only 100 doctors along the Gulf Coast area are participating in the Medicaid program, compared to 400 before Katrina hit.

• And estimates also suggest that only 22 of 196 psychiatrists continue to practice in New Orleans, while the number of psychiatric hospital beds has been sharply reduced: as of June 14, the authors said, there were only two psychiatric beds within a 25-mile radius of New Orleans.

One Year Holding On

2006-08-29T18:11:00.001-04:00

Today is silence for me. Breathe in, breathe out. Respect for all that we've endured, thankfulness for all the help we received. Jaw set tight. It's still too enormous for me to get my head around, so I won't try. Words are often useless for me, and today, more so.

So instead, a simple photograph of my mom's Eden, one year on. She's sitting on the front porch of what will be her new home soon. It's risen on the foundation of the home Katrina destroyed, only steps away from her FEMA trailer, and every day she looks out the trailer window a thousand times at it, and her gold smile lights up, and she whispers "Thank you, Jesus."

It's been built by the sweat and love of volunteers from all over the country. From all walks of life they've come into the Gulf to help their brothers and sisters. Normal, average Americans, disgusted by their government's inaction, they've picked up hammers and done it themselves.

One day there's a moldering heap of rubble, the next day hippie volunteers from Burning Man bulldoze it and take it away. One day it's a flat slab of concrete, the next day a pre-fab home kit is delivered by One House At A Time and New Hope Construction. One day there's a jumble of materials, the next day a church group from Oregon shows up and builds the frame and shell. A little later a group from Pennsylvania shows up and paints it my mom's favorite shade of green, and puts a tin roof on so she can hear the rain fall at night. And not to be outdone, a group from Alabama comes over and sheet rocks the interior, then comes back and builds her a deck for good measure.

Like I said, too enormous for me to get my head around. So today I want to just sit and rest, and enjoy the look of pride and place in my mom's eyes.

We may have far to go, but we've come a long way.

Katrina Every Day

2006-08-13T18:50:00.000-04:00

Imagine that more than half of all the homes in your city were destroyed. Moldering, decaying. Imagine that all the friends and neighbors that lived in those homes were scattered across thousands of miles. Imagine all the history of your life, your family's life, the culture that you breathed in, muddied and torn.

You'd be depressed right? Sad? Stressed? Maybe even suicidal? I would be. I'm thousands of miles away, and I am.

What would my life have been like if I'd never left New Orleans? What if instead of becoming a photographer in New York, I became one down there? Would I be like John McCusker now? Here is a man who couldn't take any more.

There are many more like him. The suicide rate in the K-hole is three times higher than it was before Katrina. Depression is the norm.

I'll be there over the next week making portraits of survivors for use in public service announcements highlighting the need to reach out for help when it all gets to be too much.

It's just a tiny drop of help in a vast ocean of need.

Restart

2006-08-11T23:43:00.000-04:00

Eden, Nine Months On

Where are we now?

Too much to write all at once, so just the basics. My mom and little brother wintered in the love and care of the Bennett family, of Elizabeth and Kenny and Mr. Jack, and daughters Toni Marie and Kailie, and all the huge-hearted people in Swansboro, North Carolina. About four months ago my mom had to return to Pearlington in order to keep her job, which had been held for her through the Herculean efforts of her boss and friend Mr. Simpson.

That's not the only reason she had to return, though. As the rest of the country inevitably turned its eyes from the Gulf and its suffering, she felt more and more isolated each day. A lone little bottle of Katrina mud floating in a sea of tranquility. Misery truly does love company, and she felt the need to go back and blend into the misery and grinding survival of the Gulf, with people who truly knew what she was feeling, thankful for the salvation that was the Bennett family, and strengthened by the time she had had to recuperate and clear her mind.

Strengthened for the fight, she could join with her neighbors and family in rebuilding her homeland. Refusing to give in, refusing to surrender. So for the past four months she and my little brother have been living in a FEMA trailer on her property. It's not nearly as nice as the place the Bennett's donated, but it's good enough for more than 100,000 other survivors. Successive streams of volunteers have trickled through Pearlington, helping her and her neighbors in amazing ways, which I'll go into later.

And where have I been? Why I have neglected this story, even as so much happens, and so much need remains? I ask myself these things every day, and have only a jumble of half answers and excuses.

There hasn't been a single day since the storm hit that it hasn't been on my mind. Not a day goes by that I don't worry about my family, and my hometown, and its despairing future, and what I can do to insulate them from it.

I needed to focus on my career, to keep it on track, to make sure I have enough money to be counted in modern America. I knew I'd have a few months to do this while my family was safe in North Carolina, and hurricane season had yet to start. You saw those images one year ago just as I did. You saw poor people drowning in my poor city. You saw working class people having everything taken away in a single day, all along the Gulf. Each dollar I sweat for is one more chance at survival for my family. Each dollar I sweat for makes my family count a little more. How much is enough in this new America? I don't know. How much was enough in Gilded Age America? Because that's where we're headed, and I don't want us left behind again. So I've been hustling.

But it was more than that. I was overloaded. I felt like I couldn't do enough, there wasn't enough time in the day to show all of the pictures, and tell all of the stories. I'm a perfectionist, and if I can't do something justice I don't want to do it at all. I don't want to let it down, I don't want to sully its power. I feel like I couldn't do it all at once, and since I switched the comments into a moderated format to prevent increasing abuse from partisans, I felt like I didn't want to do it at all.

But I didn't quit. I continue to donate my photographs to aid organizations working in the Gulf. I continue to raise donations for relief. I applied for (and unfortunately did not get) a Soros Foundation grant to continue the documentation in the Gulf.

And I'm still not quitting. I'll be back down next week to photograph more, to help in the rebuilding, to donate my work to relief, and just to visit with my family. My heart is there, it's always been.

And always will be.

Missing, Mardi Gras

2006-02-28T02:52:00.000-05:00

Mardi Gras beads rest on a flooded crypt. It had floated out of its cemetery. Pearlington, Ms.

I've been missing, but I've been here. I've not abandoned this, or you, or lost hope, I've just been working hard in other ways. Ways that I'll talk about later this week. I'm just one person, and can only do so much at once, so I had to shut down parts of myself in order to invest in the future survival of my family, and my hometown. Most of you will understand. Some of you will never understand. I'm fine with that, but I'm sorry I've been gone.

I'm stuck in cold NYC right now. My mom and little brother are still in North Carolina. I just wish we were all in New Orleans today, wearing blue tarp costumes, screaming throw me something mister, scrambling for doubloons and beads, hoping for that Zulu coconut we'll never get.

But the fact that we're not there won't stop me from feeling it. I ordered a king cake, it should arrive today, just in time for my birthday on Thursday. I'm going to throw a big king cake party for all my Yankee friends, and we're going to eat and drink and be merry, knowing that tomorrow we could die.

And that feeling is Mardi Gras. And it's New Orleans, no matter where you happen to be. So, to all my fellow missing and exiled, laissez les bons temps rouler!

Merry Christmas From Pearlington

2005-12-24T16:38:00.001-05:00

Miss Suzie and Mr Josh

Something amazing is happening in my mom's little town of Pearlington, Mississippi, something inspiring and hopeful, something full of love and renewal. A grass roots movement is growing from the mud and despair of Katrina, and it's making my heart grow by three sizes just to know it exists. I want to nurture it, protect it, share it with you. Its spirit was embodied in one amazing day this week, a day that represents to me all that is right with the world, all that is good and caring in the human spirit.

Like so many stories I've shared with you here, it's one of survival, of perseverance, love, inspiration, and the will to carry on. But basically, it's a love story. A wedding day, Katrina-style...

"Everyone knows I'm always late for everything," confesses Suzie Burton. "All my friends and family laugh that I'll be late for my own funeral. But if the good Lord is willing, I'll be on time for my wedding."

Willing or not, Suzie was late for her nuptials to Josh Ward on December 21. In the aftermath of Katrina, an hour or so delay barely fazed the more than 60 friends and family who gathered in Pearlington for the wedding. The delay was maybe divine intervention. As the bride dressed for her big day, dozens of volunteers from Walton County put finishing touches on the couple's new house.

"The Panhandle didn't experience devastation of Mississippi Gulf Coast during Katrina," says Buster Woodruff, a leading force behind the volunteer effort. "We were lucky and we wanted to help others who were less fortunate."

Within days after Katrina, Buster had packed his truck with supplies and headed west to New Orleans. Officials stopped him at the Louisiana border, where he accidentally happened upon Pearlington and found a community in dire need of help.

Often the best way to solve an insurmountable problem is to start with an attainable goal. With that philosophy, a grassroots coalition of volunteers from Walton County, Florida, started the "One House at a Time" project. Working with their local Habitat for Humanity affiliate, the group adopted the town of Pearlington and recently completed the first of many temporary houses. The coalition's goal is to raise money and build 200 houses in Hancock County.

A Wedding and A New Home for a Deserving Couple

Like many South Mississippi residents, Suzie and Josh had no idea what was ahead when the heard a hurricane called Katrina was brewing in the Gulf of Mexico. Both are in their 70s and they did not evacuate, thinking they were out of harm's way. Suzie was born and reared in South Mississippi, and her wood-framed house had witnessed many storms. She had raised a family on that land. It was, and still is, home.

As the couple settled in for the night it was raining and windy, but they were not seriously alarmed. By 6:30 in the morning, however, a few inches of water was visible on the floor. Within 30 minutes, the water was rising fast.

There was no where to go. There was no one to turn to for help. Together they wrapped their arms around a porch column as the storm's 12-foot tidal surge lifted the house off its foundation.

"Mr. Josh had told me many times that he loved me, but I was never sure how much I really loved him until that night," recalls Suzie. "When the water got over our heads and we hung onto the porch post for dear life, I prayed 'Please God, if you must take one of us, take me. Don't let it be my Mr. Josh'‚ I didn't want him to drown in that deep dark water."

The house floated more than 12 feet before it lodged in place. Everything was lost, including their beloved pot belly pig, Sweet Pea. As the house rested in a most precarious position with no steps to get to down to solid ground, Suzie and Josh waited for help in the ramshackle house on a wet sofa with no emergency supplies. It was nearly three days before family members found them.

Each had suffered injuries. Suzie was taken to Louisiana. A military transport carried Josh to a shelter in Northern Mississippi, where he slept in an aluminum lawn chair for two weeks. Amid the confusion, they had no way to communicate with each other. There was no news if the other one was even alive. They had lost their home, their belongings, Sweet Pea, and now they had lost each other.

A few weeks before Thanksgiving, Suzie and Josh made it back to Pearlington where they reconnected and decided to get married. Soon after their reunion,they met Buster at the local relief center. "I offered to carry a load of laundry to her truck, and then Miss Suzie offered to tell me their story," recalled Buster. "I knew we had to do something for them."

A new house was soon under construction on her property. Next, Buster focused his attention on planning the wedding and finding the perfect dress for Suzie. After visits to four bridal shops in Mobile, Buster found a traditional gown of satin, silk, lace, pearls and a 10-foot train.

With Buster on one arm and her cousin Joel Wallace on the other, Miss Suzie glowed as she walked through the yard greeting guest and singing praises. Ronnie McBrayer, the executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Walton County and an ordained minister, performed the ceremony as shouts of Halleluiahs, amen and praise the Lord filled the air.

The blushing bride

After the wedding cake had been cut and toasts were raised to the happy couple, Suzie thought all her dreams had come true. Then Buster presented them with a baby pot belly pig named Angel. Suzie let out a little cry and broke into song, "I am blessed with everything I could ever need. God has even blessed me with a new Sweat Pea."

Volunteers and guests said their goodbyes, and Suzie and Josh retired inside their new home for their honeymoon. They are starting a marriage in house that rests on the foundation of the original structure that floated away during the storm. The post they clung to is now the center column of their new front porch. Weathered and worn, the column promises to be a solid support for their new life together and a symbol of faith, hope and rebirth for the New Year." -Lynn Nesmith

This is a story the major media hasn't picked up on yet, but it's one you need to know about. If you've been feeling helpless in the face of all the destruction, as I must confess I have, this shows you one way you can help save lives, one way you can help rebuild lives. This movement is happening right now, in your own backyard, and it's people like you that are behind it. They need your help.

If you'd like to join this movement, one house at a time, if you'd like to offer your support in any way, please contact Habitat For Humanity of Walton County at 850-835-0067, or visit www.waltoncountyhabitat.org

The volunteers. Your New Year's Resolution should be to join them.

Note: These pictures weren't shot by me, they were forwarded to me by the volunteers that helped to make this day happen.

Looting Homeland Security

2005-12-22T18:29:00.001-05:00

Sunset Over St. Louis Cemetery #1, New Orleans

This article is long. And it's not politically correct. By not politically correct, I mean it's biased against the current administration (as is the truth), and so it will piss off any of you true believers still drinking the Bush Kool-Aid. If this is you, you do not need to tell me that the article pisses you off, or that it's biased, because I know this already, and because, frankly, I no longer care what you think about anything.

Rolling Stone - Looting Homeland Security

"Natural disasters have a way of exposing the cracks in the foundation of our civilization -- the scary things that we all suspect to be just under the surface, but that, in ordinary times, we would prefer not to think about. The sudden visibility of poverty in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina laid waste to the city is the most vivid example of this effect. So, too, is the fact -- now plain for all to see -- that the Department of Homeland Security, the arm of the federal government responsible for ensuring our safety in times of national emergency, has become little more than an arm of big business, a radical experiment in President Bush's brand of market-based government.

The most glaring example of the for-profit marketization of DHS came on September 26th, barely a month after Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, when some 300 corporate lobbyists and lawyers assembled for the Katrina Reconstruction Summit to learn how they could cash in on the federal effort to rebuild New Orleans. Such how-to sessions are nothing new in Washington, of course, and private firms certainly have a major role to play in relocating the 1.5 million people uprooted by the worst natural disaster in American history. What was extraordinary about this particular summit, however, was that it was held not in some conference room at a Beltway hotel, but in an office building of the U.S. Senate. It was a seminar on profiteering, held on the grounds of the very institution to be plundered."

Dog Dead

2005-12-21T04:19:00.000-05:00

Dog Dead Under House, Ninth Ward, New Orleans

CNN - American Red Cross president resigns

"The president of the American Red Cross, Marsha J. Evans, who oversaw the charity's vast and sometimes criticized response to Hurricane Katrina, is resigning effective at the end of this month, the organization said Tuesday."

CNN - Katrina victims: 'Living in barns'

"More than three months after thousands of people lost their homes in Hurricane Katrina, local and federal officials are trading blame over the slow delivery of trailer housing"

Lagniappe Linkage

2005-12-17T01:48:00.000-05:00

Flooded school portrait of me at my little brother's age

NY Times - Loans to Homeowners Along Gulf Coast Lag

"Hundreds of thousands of Gulf Coast families, hoping to rebuild their homes after the hurricanes using low-interest government loans, are facing high rejection rates and widespread delays at the federal agency that administers the disaster loan program.

The Small Business Administration, which runs the federal government's main disaster recovery program for both businesses and homeowners, has processed only a third of the 276,000 home loan applications it has received.

And it has rejected 82 percent of those it has reviewed, a higher percentage than in most previous disasters, saying that many would-be borrowers did not have incomes high enough, or credit ratings good enough, to qualify. The rejections came even though the Federal Emergency Management Agency has referred more than two million people, many of them with low incomes, to the S.B.A. to get the loans."

Chicago Sun-Times - Cyril Neville says no to N'awlins

"He was always the social conscience, the message man. He's worked with kids and set up educational groups. He's already approached Austin High School. Austin is a different kind of town than New Orleans, which has been a dead-end street for a lot of people for a long time. You can be the best graduate in a New Orleans public high school and there's nothing for you."

CNN - New Orleans company to offer Katrina disaster tour

"Gray Line New Orleans normally organizes trips through the city's historic districts as well as its swamps and spooky cemeteries, but its business has been severely curtailed by the hurricane. The company said the Katrina tour was born of frustration over the government's slow response to rebuilding."

Filtered Laughs

2005-12-15T06:02:00.000-05:00

Cans of filtered drinking water given out by the National Guard, Slidell, La

I've been trapped here in NYC now for too long. I've been torn, trying to raise money by working nonstop, to make up for the almost two months of work I lost after Katrina hit and I started this project, the save-my-family project. But I really just want to be back in the Gulf, documenting what's happening right now, in the alternate universe, in the K-Hole. Every dollar I make here flows back there. Every laugh here makes me feel slightly guilty. I'm not torturing myself. I just have trouble enjoying myself when there's so much unfinished business. I know, it's not very New Orleans of me. I need to get in touch with that part of me again, the harder things get, the harder I should laugh.

Some very good news that might help: the FEMAman my mom met with over Thanksgiving really came through on his promise to help her out, and she received some aid, after all. Not the rebuilding grant, but a disbursement for the ruined contents of her home. I'm very pleased and greatly relieved to announce that we were finally able to locate a FEMAman who could actually deliver some relief, and, thankfully, pigs did not fly out of my ass as I had predicted.

Dead Alligator

2005-12-12T03:25:00.000-05:00

Dead baby alligator, Apple Pie Ridge Road, Slidell, La.

Katrina Fish Fry

2005-12-08T14:12:00.000-05:00

Fish and Mud on Rooftop, Slidell, La.

Eight Years, Two Americas

2005-12-07T16:11:00.001-05:00

Molding fashion magazine, Ninth Ward, New Orleans

You are going to have a government. Recognize that there's no way around it. No matter your political preference. No matter your religious affiliation. No matter how libertarian or anarchist you think you'd like to be, you aren't getting away from a government. It's a fact of life made necessary by a multitude of competing human interests, local, national, and international. Governments will be constituted to deal with these competing interests. Deal with that.

The question of how our American government would be constituted was roughly settled a little over 200 years ago. The only question we're left to manage today is how effective we want our government to be. How competent. How reasonable. How efficient. How responsive, and to who. Some people can't seem to understand this. When I complain about the current sorry quality of our government, even if only filtered through the lens of the Katrina disaster, and how it's affected my people, I get the occasional comment like this:

"The only thing I haven't seen here, is Hey! America doesn't owe you a damn thing! Yep, it all sucks! There's no doubt about that... We have a bunch of disasters in Minnesota and N.Dakota..snow and ice storms that take out our power for weeks at a time, floods that take out whole cities and blah blah blah and the ones who help for real are ourselves! our friends, families and neighbors. Not the government!"

Now, the particulars in these comments change from time to time, but the overall gist is always the same. Every man for himself. The best you can hope for is help from neighbors. Your government isn't responsible for helping you. What these people think government is responsible for, they never say. But I'm glad this person half-assedly referred to the Red River Flood of 1997 in particular, because it can remind us all just how low our government's been brought, in such a short time. We can compare what an effective, competent 1997 FEMA looked like before it was gutted, neutered, a foppish good-old boy installed asleep at its 2005 controls...

I happened to live in Minnesota when the Red River spilled its banks, totally flooding Grand Forks, North Dakota, and East Grand Forks, Minnesota, which were protected by dikes that were built too low to hold back the unprecedented level of water. Please note that at no time during this catastrophe did it ever occur to me to think "Fuck them, they shouldn't live in a flood plain. Fuck them, only 20% of them carried flood insurance. Fuck them, it's going to cost billions of taxpayer dollars to rebuild them."

I remember how quick the federal response was, how FEMA had already been on the ground preparing for the possibility of a flood, and how the President was there on the ground, the very next day, meeting with local officials and citizens.

I'm not the only one that remembers how different the federal response was to the Red River Flood in 1997, compared with hurricane Katrina in 2005. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune ran a piece by Ashley Shelby, author of Red River Rising: The Anatomy of a Flood and the Survival of an American City, back in mid September. It seems the original article has disappeared down the memory hole, so I'll quote it in full here, it's very enlightening.

Another flood, another FEMA

In 1997, in what many consider to be the biggest mistake in the modern history of the National Weather Service, the city of Grand Forks, N.D., was nearly wiped off the map in a catastrophic flood.

The Red River of the North breached dikes that had been built, and reinforced, to hold back a 52 foot flood (the National Weather Service had predicted a 49 food flood, but the city and Corps of Engineers had added an extra 3 feet of freeboard in case of unexpected hydrological events). Instead, the waters of the Red River came roaring down the channel at Grand Forks at a whopping 54 feet.

The river poured into the city, deluging the historic downtown, annihilating entire neighborhoods and sparking a fire in the downtown core. Historic buildings burned while drowning in fetid river water.

Due to a complex mistake in the National Weather Service's hydrological model, amplified by freakish behavior of the river itself, the city of Grand Forks was nearly destroyed. It was, at the time, classified as the eighth-worst natural disaster in U.S. history. By failing to correctly predict the flood crest, the federal government, many outraged and heartbroken Grand Forks citizens said then, had failed them -- and had ruined their lives.

But before this resentment could fester, Bill Clinton, FEMA Director James Lee Witt, and Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala rolled into town. Witt's team had, in fact, had been in Grand Forks in the weeks leading up to the flood, urging homeowners to enroll in the federal government's National Flood Insurance Program. FEMA officials were familiar figures in town.

Before arriving in Grand Forks, Clinton had authorized FEMA to provide 100 percent of the direct federal assistance for all of the emergency work undertaken by federal agencies in the disaster zones (the normal reimbursement rate is 75 percent).

The National Guard had been mobilized months earlier -- its ranks full and available to the people it served -- and was responsible for a huge percentage of preparedness activities before the flood. It was responsible for executing the remarkable evacuation of Grand Forks (until New Orleans, the largest evacuation of an American city since Atlanta in the Civil War) and provided immediate search and rescue support as the floodwaters deluged the city.

James Lee Witt's FEMA performed like a well-oiled machine in Grand Forks and the entire Red River Valley after the flood, though many citizens grumbled about red tape and the endless lines they had to stand in to sign up for aid. Maybe it was "big government," but FEMA did not hesitate to move in as soon as the National Weather Service warned the people of the Red River Valley that they'd see more water than they'd ever seen in their lives (much like the National Hurricane Center's extraordinary warnings that Katrina could cause "human suffering incredible by modern standards").

Witt's FEMA began canvassing Grand Forks almost immediately after the city was evacuated. Trailers were brought in for displaced residents. The famous FEMA trailer christened "Red October" arrived soon after -- one of FEMA's mobile emergency-response support units, outfitted with more than a dozen computers wired with Internet access, a satellite communications system, a radio system and 48 phone lines, including dedicated lines to the White House and the Pentagon. The U.S. Department of Energy immediately announced an action plan to restore power systems in North Dakota, and deployed personnel to help cities get their systems back online.

Grand Forks, like any other American city, deserved nothing less than this immediate response; but thinking back to the overwhelming and rapid government response to the '97 Red River floods leads one to wonder how it is possible that New Orleans, a major U.S. population center, received absolutely nothing in the first days -- forget hours -- after the worst disaster in American history?

Why were President Bush's FEMA officials paralyzed when Bill Clinton's FEMA was in Grand Forks months before the '97 flood? Why were people left to suffer and die in the New Orleans convention center -- a situation FEMA Director Michael Brown didn't even know about until days later -- when Grand Forks evacuees had cots and, very soon after, trailers to live in?

Certainly it's true that Grand Forks is a much smaller city than New Orleans; but going by that logic, New Orleans' status as a major metropolitan area would guarantee it a governmental response at least twice that given to a North Dakota city. In fact, New Orleans received barely a fraction of the attention and rescue support that Grand Forks received for a disaster that, although tremendous, now pales in comparison to that suffered by the people of New Orleans.

Beyond the basics of food and shelter, and a competent governmental response, the people of New Orleans also were in want of perhaps the most important capital in the currency of recovery: hope.

"You bring us hope," Grand Forks Mayor Pat Owens tearfully told President Clinton at a press conference soon after the dikes were overtopped.

"It may be hard to believe," Clinton replied then, "But you can rebuild stronger and better than ever."

Compare these words to Bush's comments upon landing in New Orleans, where a disaster of unimaginable proportions had just occurred, where bodies lay rotting outside the convention center because aid had not reached them in time: He joked about his visits to New Orleans during his alcoholic days when he had "sometimes too much" fun in the French Quarter. Dennis Hastert chose to comment publicly on his belief that much of New Orleans would be "bulldozed." Rep. Richard Baker, of Baton Rouge, was reported by the Wall Street Journal to have said to lobbyists, "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."

The contrast between the indifferent response from the Bush administration in the hours and days after Katrina and the rapid and seemingly heartfelt response of the Clinton administration in Grand Forks could not be clearer.

Why did Grand Forks deserve a better response to a catastrophic natural event than New Orleans? Some may argue that Grand Forks' largely white population may have something to do with it, and perhaps it does. But I think the more likely answer is that the administration in charge of the federal government in 1997, for all its faults, was not only better equipped to deal with a natural disaster; it was also a team that felt, at core, a fundamental empathy for American citizens who had lost everything through no fault of their own. The dearth of such empathy in the current administration -- one in which the president refuses to attend military funerals resulting from a war he started -- is chilling and, ultimately, telling.

I've said it before, I'm not a Democrat, I'm not a Republican. I'm an American, and I've got enough common sense to know when my government's been hijacked by incompetents, and when that state of incompetence makes me, and my family, less safe. And what my common sense has been telling me was confirmed in spades when Katrina roared ashore, drowning my hometown, while the incompetents vacationed, or shopped, or debated whether or not to roll up their shirt sleeves at photo ops.

My common sense tells me that I'd be far better off in the America that helped Grand Forks in 1997, not the America that says "We don't owe you a damn thing" to New Orleans in 2005. What a difference eight years makes. Which America do you want to live in?

Further reading:
Wikipedia: Red River Flood, 1997
CNN: Clinton Tours Flood-Ravaged North Dakota
FEMA Website: Five Years After The Flood: Grand Forks Rebuilds As A Safer, Better Place To Live
Wikipedia: James Lee Witt
Slate: Bush longs for James Lee Witt, the Clinton man he should have kept.
Amazon: Red River Rising: The Anatomy of a Flood and the Survival of an American City

New Orleans Cop

2005-12-05T17:47:00.000-05:00

Cpl. BE Blache, Charity Hospital Police, New Orleans

I must admit to being a little nervous when I took this picture, having an intense genetic fear of both Charity Hospital and the police. Alone with a few officers, our voices echoing off the dead caverns of the ghost hospital, I thought, what a fucking surreal life this is. I'm not supposed to be giving this New Orleans cop orders, putting him where I want him for my photograph. I'm supposed to be drunk, down and out, on parole, in my underwear, fighting and cursing and biting, beaten by responding officers, bleeding, restrained to a gurney in that hospital, waiting for some rough stitches before I get sent back to Angola.

But instead, Officer Blache is as nice as can be, courteous despite the hell he's been living through, and I've got a big expensive camera and a sweet Yankee wife and a plane ticket back to a dry apartment in New York.

Sometimes I feel déjà vu for the life I escaped from. Do you ever feel that?

We Are Living In A World Of Shit

2005-12-02T02:59:00.001-05:00

Fuck keeping hope alive. Who are we kidding? Our lives are that fragile lampshade, and our fate is that black mold, and that's it. I want to sleep, not take pictures or talk to FEMA or put on a happy strong face.

Beating me down yesterday: since I bought my mom her little trailer it's in my name, but I don't live in it, so on paper FEMA considers me some rich absentee landlord and my mom a mere tenant, so we're both ineligible for the rebuilding grants, which were as much as $21,000. The FEMA inspector chastised my mom for being honest on the application. It seems that honesty is a big handicap in modern America.

More: We knew this was a risk when my mom evacuated, being left out of the loop, but when my mom went back for Thanksgiving she discovered that we missed, by only one day, the Army Corps of Engineers program that provided rubble removal for free. We'll now have to take some of the money I'm saving for rebuilding to pay a contractor for the massive debris removal. The drone who informed my mom of this almost seemed to enjoy himself, as if he was punishing her for having evacuated.

More: It seems the small school that's been Pearlington's only lifeline is going to be bulldozed, leaving them with nothing. Merry fucking Christmas, Pearlington.

More: That big ad job I stayed in NYC to bid on, the reason I couldn't be with my family on Thanksgiving, was awarded to some guy in Paris. That job would have gone a long way towards rebuilding my family. Fuck easy come easy go.

Enough. Sleep. Ignore. Delay. Distract. I'm done being the lampshade, I want to be the black mold.

Linda Novak, Katrina Survivor

2005-11-30T17:18:00.001-05:00

Linda Novak, Ninth Ward of New Orleans, 2005

This is Linda, she's my friend. I made this photograph of her standing in the doorway of her flooded Ninth Ward home, on the first day we met, about a month after the levees broke. It was also the first day she had been able to get into her neighborhood to see what had happened to her life. I had been introduced to her by a mutual friend who was forced into exile by Katrina. I was stranded in the French Quarter, and Linda was staying a few blocks away, her only surviving belonging an old blue junker Ford that died at every stop sign, and the clothes on her back.

She, my girl and I snuck past the checkpoints in Linda's rumbling old car, and cruised through the dusty war zone streets of the Ninth Ward, to her house. You can see the water line on the curtains in the front door next to where she's standing. Her neighbor's car had floated to rest against her front security gate, and we had to break the transmission to push it out of the way for entrance. I helped her kick her door in, as much of her living room had floated up against it on the inside. She was shocked and elated to find out that her goldfish had survived the whole ordeal in his bowl in the corner, and was there to greet her when she came in.

I call her friend now because we bonded in the destruction. She let me in to her turmoil, her loss, her quiet dignity and strength. I saw her face what was left of her life with calm and determination, and we helped her move out what little she could salvage. And after a few hours we loaded up her junker, and I sat in the front seat cradling my camera, my girl in the backseat cradling the tough little goldfish, and we slowly rattled through the Ninth Ward, silent in the face of all the destruction, stopping when her car died, making photographs of the lonely landscape. We found our way to McKain Street that day, and it seemed so appropriate, that junker, a shiny rental car would have been from a different world. And Linda was there when I broke down, making this photograph of my grandma's shack, while my girl wrapped her arm around me and the whole world was silent.

And Linda was silent, too. She understood. Words were useless.

Katrina Survivor, and Carpetbagging

2005-11-29T04:45:00.000-05:00

Louise Jackson, 51, Pearlington, Mississippi

Washington Post: In Miss., Time Now Stands Still (link thanks to Kenny!)
Recovery Is Stagnant In Post-Katrina Towns

"Katrina left behind a great swell of land speculation. Signs reading "Cash for Homes" and "We Pay Top $ for Waterfront Property" are ubiquitous, as are developers hanging around city planning offices. It's urban renewal by hurricane, clearing land for a new Mississippi of upscale condominium towers and parks and many casinos. The many working-class residents who live within view of the coast could be outward bound."

I've already received three letters from these fucking carpetbaggers, asking if I'd consider selling my mom's land. They got my name and address from assessor's records. I'd maybe trade the land for their souls, if they still had some.

Rebuilding Hope and Habitat

2005-11-28T02:57:00.000-05:00

I've donated my photographs to Habitat For Humanity to use in money-raising efforts to aid Hancock County, Mississippi, where my mom's little town of Pearlington is. There was no established Habitat chapter in Hancock before Katrina, so the efforts are actually being led by the chapter in Walton County, Florida. They hope to build 100 homes for displaced people in Pearlington, and are trying to get them up as fast as possible as we get deeper into winter.

This is good, important work, vital work. It's being done right now, in America, by Americans. You can help them, you can help us. Fuck the news stories about how much money Wal-Mart made on Black Friday. This is the news story, and it's not on CNN anymore. Please share this with friends, families, blogs, Myspace, anything. Let people know there's something they can still do. They need money, they need volunteers, they need attention, media coverage, all of the above. Please don't let this fade away...

OUR NEIGHBORS IN MISSISSIPPI ARE IN NEED
Habitat for Humanity of Walton County needs your help to build homes in Hancock County for families affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Hancock County is the most western county in Mississippi along the Gulf of Mexico. Hurricane Katrina brought widespread devastation to the county with 40 confirmed deaths and millions of dollars of property damage. Nearly 70% of the county’s homes were left uninhabitable. The coastal communities were among the hardest hit areas. Pearlington, a small community of 2,200 people, was particularly devastated, as nearly every home was either completely destroyed or severely damaged. There is no Habitat for Humanity affiliate along this area of the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Hundreds of residents are living in tents in the aftermath of Katrina. Many have only what they were able to salvage, and in many cases they have nothing at all. Basic necessities are still hard to come by, most of all shelter.

HOW CAN YOU HELP?
Habitat for Humanity of Walton County Florida in partnership with The Hurricane Relief Coalition, New Hope Construction, Walton County community volunteer organizations, local churches and individuals are working together to raise money to quickly build temporary housing for the families of Pearlington, Waveland and other rural coastal communities of Hancock County.

We are seeking donations of $2 million to be used for immediate construction of more than a hundred homes in Hancock County. The needs are enormous, and while this effort barely begins to scratch the surface, it will at least be a start, making a real difference to individual families that have lost so much. Your contribution could help a family have a home by this winter.

WORKING TOGETHER TO REBUILD THE MISSISSIPPI GULF COAST ONE HOUSE AT A TIME
Habitat for Humanity of Walton County will administer the program, managing funds, coordinating volunteers, qualifying tenants/buyers. Habitat for Humanity has a proven system in place to provide housing to the most affected people with a minimum of red tape. They ensure contributed funds will not be used in the place of any existing government relief effort, and that these funds will be used immediately for our efforts in Hancock County.

New Hope Construction has partnered with Habitat to design and construct efficient, comfortable and affordable transitional housing. New Hope Construction is a non-profit, 501c3 corporation that designs and manufactures complete, high quality, pre-framed house packages that are ready for on-site assembly.

Since 1996, New Hope has partnered with churches, Habitat for Humanity affiliates, and other non-profit organizations to provide housing for low-income families. Its commitment to partner with Habitat for Humanity of Walton County and the Walton County Hurricane Relief Coalition confirms their strong vision and mission, and makes possible our efforts to provide housing relief in Hancock County.

A PLACE TO CALL HOME
During the Mississippi Renewal Forum held in Biloxi six weeks after Hurricane Katrina, leading architects and town planners addressed the problems and possibilities of rebuilding the Gulf Coast. Innovative schemes for temporary, modular and prefabricated housings by architects were proposed and discussed. During the six-day forum, architects involved with the towns of Seaside, WaterColor, and Alys Beach created designs for a variety of housing options. Several of these designs are currently in production by New Hope Construction for this project.

Two homes with different floor plans and elevations have been selected as part of this rebuilding program – the Coastal Cottage and the Beach Bungalow. Comprised of approximately 300 – 400 square feet, these efficient houses are fully furnished to accommodate a family. The interiors include a living and kitchen area, bedroom, bathroom, and designated sleeping space for children. The houses are portable and are adaptable to almost any location. Although designed to be temporary shelter for up to 18 months, these structures can be expanded and converted to permanent housing. With engaging details and inviting front porches, these cottages promise to be a major improvement over other temporary housing units. These designs are livable and likable – a lot more like a real home.

We are seeking sponsors to fund one of more of these homes. Sponsors can choose between two possible designs, the Coastal Cottage or the Beach Bungalow. A plaque will be placed in each home commemorating the individuals who made this dream a reality.

HOW A DREAM BECOMES REALITY
New Hope Construction will assemble the materials, pre-framed walls and trusses, and ship the units directly to Hancock County. Volunteers from Walton County will assemble the structures and add finishing touches to the homes on site. Working with established Habitat for Humanity policies, housing will be made available to qualifying families for a period of 6 months with two automatic renewals if necessary. Assistance will not exceed 18 months from the date of initial tenant agreement unless extraordinary circumstances through no fault of the applicant dictate a 6 month extension. All renewals are subject to review and approval. Homes will be provided under a tenant/lease agreement at no or reduced cost to qualifying applicants. Financial ability of the household will be considered as part of the needs assessment. As a family reaches sustainability, receives insurance settlements and moves to a permanent home, the unit will be passed on to another family. These cottages can be reused as long as necessary, even for future disasters. They may be sold to qualified applicants or residents who choose to make the home permanent. Using Habitat for Humanity’s Family Selection criteria, qualifying families may choose to convert and expand the temporary unit to permanent housing and pay a no-profit, no-interest mortgage for a term of 20 years.

“A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” — Margaret Mead

LEARN MORE AND GET INVOLVED
For information about Habitat for Humanity of Walton County, as well as updates and photographs of Hancock County and the first houses, visit http://www.waltoncountyhabitat.org/, New Hope Construction at http://www.newhopeconstruction.org, or Mississippi Renewal Forum at http://www.mississippirenewal.com/

To volunteer to work on a home in Hancock County, please contact Shannon Erwin at shannon@waltoncountyhabitat.org or call (850) 835-0067.

Media interested in information, please contact Kim Turner at kimturnerscf@aol.com or Lynn Nesmith at lynnnesmith@seagrovefl.net or call (850) 231-3770.

If you would like to discuss a contribution, please contact Ronnie McBrayer at ronnie@waltoncountyhabitat.org or call (850) 825-0067.

PLEASE DONATE
Habitat for Humanity believes this is very cost-effective program for providing housing so desperately needed in Hancock County. We are seeking donations to further fund this program, with a goal of raising $2 million that will be used for immediate construction of houses.

Your contribution could help a Hancock County family displaced by Hurricane Katrina have a home by winter.

All donations are tax deductible. The federal government has made an allowance for additional 2005 tax deduction incentives for donations made to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts before December 31, 2005. Please consult your tax professional for details.

A Thanksgiving Day Prayer For The Exiles

2005-11-24T04:16:00.000-05:00

Pardon me for a moment, my mind's split in several directions, and not feeling well. It's not new, this split, it started on the day Katrina washed ashore blowing past present and future into a heap of shit. That's when my mind split in two, one half maintaining my useless body here in New York, the other half trying to pull it to the Gulf to find and help my family. It then split into thirds, when my mom and little brother evacuated, and I was left with New York, the Gulf, and the new North Carolina.

Thanks for the wild turkey and the Passenger Pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts, thanks for a Continent to despoil and poison...

And I should be in the Gulf right now, with my mom and little brother, using the Thanksgiving break to dig through the months-dried mud, sifitng for scraps to salvage and be thankful for. My mom's really hoping she'll be able to save her old vinyl collection, now that it's not so swampy in her trailer, and maybe the mold's not quite so aggressive. And she thinks she could get a FEMA travel trailer now, and the government will bulldoze her Eden and haul it away, for free even. But then she feels sad, she knows she's better off staying settled for now in North Carolina with the wonderful people who've helped so much there. And even more she knows that my little brother is better off up there, and feels doubly guilty again. Guilty for one that she's not surviving, barnacle steadfast, Cajun stubborn, alongside the others in the muck and speculation and slow grinding dread in the Gulf. And then again she feels guilty for feeling that guilt, the guilt of the exile, that she should be thankful for the oasis she's found herself in, and she is thankful, so thankful, but also guilty for it.

Thanks for the American Dream to vulgarize and falsify until the bare lies shine through...

And I'm thankful for all that I've been able to accomplish with a few photographs and some words, but guilty that I'm so far away, on hold. So far away in New York, bidding for an advertising job so my photographs can lure teens into buying more jeans, so I can make a big paycheck, so I can pay off the debt I have on my mom's destroyed Eden, so we can get back to zero again. But my gut nags at me and tells me to get the fuck back down to where I started from, to make pictures, not money, because somehow that might help more. Or will it just help me to stop feeling guilty?

Thanks for all the memories... all right, let's see your arms... you always were a headache and you always were a bore. Thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams.

-Excerpts from William S. Burroughs, Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 1986. Watch Gus Van Sant's short film here.

Dead Air

2005-11-23T12:28:00.000-05:00

Dropped News Mic, Pirate's Alley, New Orleans

Little Boy In FEMA Line

2005-11-22T04:19:00.000-05:00

I was making portraits of people who had been waiting in a FEMA line for hours in the blazing sun in Waveland, Ms, when I felt this little tug on my shirt.

"Hey mister, will you take my picture?"

A Call To Arms

2005-11-21T03:55:00.000-05:00

New Orleans: Proud To Swim Home

A Times-Picayune Editorial:
"The federal government wrapped levees around greater New Orleans so that the rest of the country could share in our bounty.

Americans wanted the oil and gas that flow freely off our shores. They longed for the oysters and shrimp and flaky Gulf fish that live in abundance in our waters. They wanted to ship corn and soybeans and beets down the Mississippi and through our ports. They wanted coffee and steel to flow north through the mouth of the river and into the heartland.

They wanted more than that, though. They wanted to share in our spirit. They wanted to sample the joyous beauty of our jazz and our food. And we were happy to oblige them...

So the federal government built levees and convinced us that we were safe.

We weren't.

The levees, we were told, could stand up to a Category 3 hurricane.

They couldn't.

By the time Katrina surged into New Orleans, it had weakened to Category 3. Yet our levee system wasn't as strong as the Army Corps of Engineers said it was. Barely anchored in mushy soil, the floodwalls gave way.

Our homes and businesses were swamped. Hundreds of our neighbors died.

Now, this metro area is drying off and digging out. Life is going forward. Our heart is beating.

But we need the federal government -- we need our Congress -- to fulfill the promises made to us in the past. We need to be safe. We need to be able to go about our business feeding and fueling the rest of the nation. We need better protection next hurricane season than we had this year. Going forward, we need protection from the fiercest storms, the Category 5 storms that are out there waiting to strike.

Some voices in Washington are arguing against us. We were foolish, they say. We settled in a place that is lower than the sea. We should have expected to drown.

As if choosing to live in one of the nation's great cities amounted to a death wish. As if living in San Francisco or Miami or Boston is any more logical.

Great cities are made by their place and their people, their beauty and their risk. Water flows around and through most of them. And one of the greatest bodies of water in the land flows through this one: the Mississippi.

The federal government decided long ago to try to tame the river and the swampy land spreading out from it. The country needed this waterlogged land of ours to prosper, so that the nation could prosper even more.

Some people in Washington don't seem to remember that. They act as if we are a burden. They act as if we wore our skirts too short and invited trouble.

We can't put up with that. We have to stand up for ourselves. Whether you are back at home or still in exile waiting to return, let Congress know that this metro area must be made safe from future storms. Call and write the leaders who are deciding our fate. Get your family and friends in other states to do the same. Start with members of the Environment and Public Works and Appropriations committees in the Senate, and Transportation and Appropriations in the House. Flood them with mail the way we were flooded by Katrina.

Remind them that this is a singular American city and that this nation still needs what we can give it."

Contact key congresscritters here.

Evil Genius Interview

2005-11-17T05:53:00.000-05:00

Truck washed into the bayou behind the roadside park, off Old Highway 90, Slidell, La

I was interviewed a few days ago by Dave Slusher at Evil Genius Chronicles, about Operation Eden, how it began, how I've worked, and how hurricane Katrina has changed me. I haven't listened to it myself, for fear that I will cringe myself into a perfect ball, but if you'd be interested in listening to the whole thing, you can find it here.

McKain Street

2005-11-16T02:06:00.001-05:00

This is where it all starts. My grandmother's shotgun shack on McKain Street in New Orleans. The reason I had come back into the city, snuck past checkpoints and debris and flooded streets and orange X's marking dead or alive. The touchstone. The knot that ties my family history together. The dark age and the golden age. My roots. This little unmarked dead-end shell gravel street.

It's in a no-man's land in New Orleans, which is a testament to its desperation. Not quite the Ninth Ward. Not quite Gentilly, it's a forgotten industrial nook between two canals, served by no one, cared for by no one. And it's been that way for at least fifty years, since they decided to build I-10 right over it. My mom and my Aunt Susan were little girls then, playing at the back of the house, when the I-10 "high-rise" was going up, blocking the sun at the end of McKain Street forever. They heard the scream and thud, when a worker fell off the bridge to his death in a bloody puddle, just a few feet from where I stood to make this picture, right in front of Old Ma's house. My mom watched him breathe his last.

It's about twelve feet wide, and thirty feet long, Old Ma's shack. It's now just a frail shell of what I remember, and what I remember is from a time when it was just a shell of what my mom remembered. Nine people lived in four rooms in this tiny shack, their laughter and cries and lives and deaths never being heard by the thousands of cars literally driving over them every day. One by one my family trickled out of the shack, moved out, or died, or went to prison, until only Old Ma was left, an ancient little Cajun woman, who had never taught her children her language, except for the occasional "Embrasse mon tcheue!"

Mae Langston, maiden name Dugas. The shack smelled of old linoleum and window fans stirring the humid air. McKain Street outside smelled of spilled motor oil from the junkyard across the street my family had owned in better times. We would dig in the white shell gravel out front and occasionally find ancient sparkplugs for our troubles. It smelled of chicory and baking white bread from nearby food factories. There was always the hum and clanking of cars overhead, the far off deep horns of tugboats on the canals, and the crackly radio playing old Motown and gospel.

Every wall had an old enamel or wood painting of Jesus or Mary, and palms over each door. When we would visit Old Ma would give us pecan candy she had made, and gifts of old doubloons or beads from the Mardi Gras passed before we were born. She smelled of fresh laundry and soap, had a Cajun accent made thicker by her lack of teeth, and one of the friendliest faces I've ever seen. I still miss her hugs. In her early nineties she grew too frail to live alone anymore, and my mom and her sisters moved her out of the city, to live with them across the lake in Slidell. Which is where she died, leaving McKain Street abandoned and deteriorating, taken back by nature and crackhead squatters. The last time my mom paid a visit, a few years ago, one of them walked up to her and gritted through his teeth, "Lady, I could kill you down here and nobody would ever know." And he was right.

I hadn't been back since I was a teenager. Half my life ago. But I felt the pull so strongly, the drive, the call, I risked life to get there, just to see it again. Why? I'm asking myself this. I don't know what's going to come of my hometown, my family's hometown, New Orleans. But I know that the ghettoes are going to be bulldozed. And I don't want to ever forget where I come from. It's how I know where I'm going. This little shack is what made my mom and her sisters who they are, and they're who made me who I am. I take pictures to remember, and to feel, and I needed to always remember Mckain Steet, and to feel it, no matter where I go.

I needed to capture what's left of its soul, because it went into making my soul what it is.

So I walked down this little unmarked dead end, everything smaller than I remember, even the high-rise overpass, now calmly silent in this abandoned, sunken city. And all the stories whispered back in my ear with each step I took closer to Old Ma's shack. The loves, and the beatings, and the laughter, and the drunkenness, and the passion, it all flooded back to me, in the crunch of the shells under my feet. And then the little shack emerged from the weeds and vines, twisted by Katrina, door swollen shut by black floodwater, and with sudden tears blurring my vision I made this photograph. McKain Street.

Update: I was told by mom after I posted this, that it happened to be my grandfather, Old Paw's, birthday. I had no idea that I was writing about his home, his life and family and wife, Old Ma, on the day of his birth. My mom wrote:

James Samuel Langston, Sr. was born on this day in the year 1909 - Happy birthday Old Paw - We miss you and love you and carry your blood thru all of our veins.

Supernatural powers that you would be inspired and so moved to document McKain Street on exactly his day of birth! God is so good! I needed that sooo much - that is a positive confirmation from our Lord that He is using you in a powerful way to impact other lives and your own as well. Regardless of what you and the scientists may think.

I know daddy and mamma and aunt Maude and all our blood are on the other side laughing and having fun seeing McKain Street on the internet! I bet there is a whole lot of Cajun being spoken there right now.

I Love You,
Momma

Mack Truck, Lower Ninth Ward

2005-11-15T06:19:00.000-05:00

A Mack truck rests on its side in someone's yard in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, on its back lays someone's sofa. Twenty days after this photograph was taken a reporter toured the area by bus, and wrote this:

"I'll admit it. I wasn't prepared for what I saw. And I can only begin to understand what it was like for the people who lived there.

On Thursday, I rode along with residents from the devastated Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans as they toured the area by bus.

For some, it was the first chance to see their homes, their neighbors and their belongings. But they weren't allowed to get off the bus. This angered some; others knew there was simply nothing to salvage.

Officials said this restriction was because the houses aren't structurally sound, and because bodies are still being recovered. We did see at least one K-9 cadaver team during the tour.

Home after home was destroyed by the flooding after the breach in the levee beside the Industrial Canal. Block after block is nearly unrecognizable as a place where people once went about their daily lives.

Even the residents on the bus described it as looking like a movie set." Read More...

The Report Card

2005-11-13T19:25:00.000-05:00

Misfit on the beach in North Carolina

My mom proudly announced in an email that my little brother has gotten his first report card from his new school In North Carolina, and its all A's and B's, plus he's reading at the high-school level. We had been so worried about all the time he had been out of school, and all the turmoil, stress, and survival. But he's landed in a good place, with new people that care about his progress, and it shows.

If he had remained in the Gulf, would he be attending school in one of these trailer classrooms FEMA cronies have set up? How much of a penalty would he face then? If his fate had stayed consistent with our family history, my mom and him would be living in a tent on Eden, perhaps just now getting a FEMA trailer. I wonder what his grades would be like then? I wonder what hope his future would hold then?

No-Bid Contract to Replace Schools After Katrina Is Faulted

To the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the modular classrooms lined up next to the soon-to-be demolished former school show, as the billboard out front boasts, "Katrina Recovery in Progress."

But to critics, the 450 portable classrooms being installed across Mississippi are prime examples in their case against FEMA and its federal partner, the Army Corps of Engineers, for wasteful spending and favoritism in the $62 billion hurricane relief effort.

Provided by a politically connected Alaskan-owned business under a $40 million no-bid contract, the classrooms cost FEMA nearly $90,000 each, including transportation, according to contracting documents. That is double the wholesale price and nearly 60 percent higher than the price offered by two small Mississippi businesses dropped from the deal.

Po-Boy Shop

2005-11-11T04:08:00.000-05:00

New Orleans Style Po-Boys, Wrecked

A Call From FEMA

2005-11-10T02:55:00.000-05:00

FEMA Claim Number On Wrecked Home, Pearlington, MS.

"This is an automated message from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, please stay on the line to listen to this important announcement. This call is to confirm that FEMA has reviewed your application, and determined that your damaged property resides within one of the hardest hit areas. As a result, an inspection of your property will not be necessary. You should expect to receive a letter in the mail which will provide your application status within the next few weeks. If your phone number or mailing address changes please be sure to immediately update your information online at www.fema.gov or by calling us at 800-621-FEMA. Thank you for listening, this has been an automated courtesy response from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Goodbye."

The rumor is that FEMA is so overwhelmed with the number of claims that they have given up on inspections altogether, and are now resorting to satellite photos to determine aid distribution. The eyes in the sky. Manna from heaven.

On the plus side for FEMA, they don't have to actually meet any of the homeless survivors that now view them as fondly as moonshiners view revenuers.

Death Needs Time

2005-11-09T12:19:00.000-05:00

Photographed as it rested in the dry mud next to Fats Domino's abandoned house, the one he was rescued from, in the devastated Ninth Ward of New Orleans: a clock.

And I stood there, the toxic dirt blowing in my face, all alone in this vast dead zone, staring through my camera at this clock, and I thought of this:

"Wait, wait. Time, a landing field. Death needs time like a junkie needs junk."

"And what does Death need time for?"

"The answer is so simple. Death needs time for what it kills to grow in..."
-William S. Burroughs

The Day Before Katrina

2005-11-08T04:18:00.000-05:00

We had gotten to Seaside Heights the night before, to chill out and fuck off. My mom called me that morning, at dawn, to tell me she was evacuating. When her voice broke I knew it was bad. But what could we do that day? I took pictures of my friends relaxing, having fun, but my mind was already in the Gulf. These pictures are strange to me. Like somebody else took them. Sleepwalking. Like the memory of the fun didn't have enough time to set before Katrina blew it away.

Or maybe it's the guilt? That I was lounging at the beach, a million miles away, while my family and past was being decimated. I played while my roots were torn up. But, what could I have done? We were lucky that I had moved away. I was the remote backup for my family. I only hope I'm strong enough to help them restore.

Katrina Survivor

2005-11-07T01:05:00.000-05:00

John Marshall, 56, Pearlington, Mississippi. Husband of Orealia, he rode out the storm where he worked, at NASA's Stennis Space Center, which Pearlington is nestled next to. Many people fear that NASA may now buy out Pearlington to increase it's buffer zone around Stennis.

I think more people hope for it than fear it.

Day of the Dead In Brooklyn

2005-11-03T10:46:00.000-05:00

Beautiful children, marching around my neighborhood in Brooklyn, under a pale sky, beating drums, faces painted in black and white like skulls with baby fat, and a banner taking me home again. They followed carrying umbrellas, like the second line in a New Orleans jazz funeral, and I felt sadness, pride, and hope in this show of respect from another world.

Questions On God and Government

2005-11-02T06:00:00.000-05:00

Grace Church With Broken Steeple, Slidell La

Evangelicals. People of Faith. Believers. They're everywhere down South, in Katrina's wake, the Christians. Baptists. Methodists. Presbyterians. Lutherans. Catholics. And more. Helping to clear yards, clean houses. Helping to feed people, shower them, clothe them, often with a beatific smile on their face while doing it. For every dark cloud there's a halo to be earned.

They come down in great convoys, and spill out of extended white Econovans, wearing matching bright t-shirts with hopeful slogans, and crisp tan Dockers, and new work boots. These new arrivals meet up with their local brothers and sisters, muddied and sweaty, already on the ground with a battle plan and a staging ground, and they all set forth like worker ants to fix the world one little bit at a time. It's very impressive, this show of giving, and solidarity, and it makes me feel a little safer that my people are in good hands....

I keep my eyes out for the governmental activity. The secular corollary. I see National Guard troops clearing roads with massive green machinery. I also see them efficiently handing out MREs, ice, water. These are very good things to see. But what I'm really looking, hoping for, is evidence of more personal effort. I want to see my government asking "How can I help you?" and "What do you need?" the way I saw the religious groups doing it.

But no. I mainly see the runaround. I see long lines and little help. I see their frustration with our frustration. I see a huge pile of our forced tax tithes being squandered. Not coldly, or calculatingly. Worse. Unthinkingly. Like a rich kid with a big allowance and no worries, clocking an easy part-time job just to look industrious.

Now, I'm an atheist. Free thinker. By our nature we tend to be individualists. We don't get together every week in a specially-built house and recite quotes from Darwin in unison. We don't sing songs together. We don't go in for matching uniforms. When we help people we don't ask them if they'd considered joining us in not believing in a higher power. In short, by our very nature, we don't have a strong collective voice, or muscle. We don't have the force and organization of the religious.

The closest we have to this is our government, and perhaps this is why it so pissed me off to see how ineffective it has become in recent years. Now, I don't want the religious to be less effective, less organized, I just want my government to be more effective, more organized. I want to know that when the shit hits the fan anywhere in the country, there are people working for us and with us, people who know what to do, who can coordinate relief. People who care, and have the tools to get the job done. But, no, we get incompetence and squabbling while the storm rages. Power struggles and finger pointing.

I see how effective the religious have been, and I see how useless the government's been. And this leaves me with a strange frustration, a feeling I'm torn in two, and nagging questions about the way this all mixes up, God and government. When I look at the bigger picture, I see that in the past few years it's been the religious that have largely taken control of the government, and I have to ask myself, is there some thread that helps connect these dots? Ascendant religion and diminished government. A turf battle. Do the religious feel that an effective secular government is a threat to them?

How can I reconcile my love for these people, my thanks at their massive personal efforts to help the survivors, with my nagging feeling that they are at least partially responsible for how badly hobbled government has become, and how that only served to exacerbate the disaster in the first place?

How can I resolve the idea that they are both helping greatly, and harming greatly? Is it possible for them to have a case of collective societal Munchausen's Syndrome?

No, I don't think it's that devious. I'm not saying they all intend to dismantle government, to neuter it, although a great number do, and not all of them religious. And I'm not saying any of them mean real harm in so doing. Far from it. I believe they are good, decent, loving people. But what I have to ask is, is it possible that, just as the atheists seem naturally incapable of collective private relief and action, is it possible that the religious have such a distaste for government, philosophically, that they can't help but render it ineffective when they control it? And that this ineffectiveness makes us all less safe in a thousand ways?

These are some of the questions I've been working on in the wake of Katrina. They're a tangled knot. A seemingly hopeless lot. But the answer feels important.

Small Big Moments

2005-11-01T04:30:00.001-05:00

The first time I taught my little brother how to tie a tie was in the parking lot of a church shelter, reflected in the window of a parked car, with a tie he'd found in the piles of donated clothing littered about the lot.

Last Chance For Prints

2005-10-31T03:33:00.000-05:00

Some of the new images for sale.

In a week I'll be closing the second edition of prints I issued to raise money for my family. If you enjoy my work, here's a rare chance to invest in it inexpensively, and help me help my people at the same time.

If you'd like to buy a print, or donate via Paypal, click here. Thanks!

Dead Smelly Fridges

2005-10-28T12:29:00.000-04:00

French Quarter Fridge

The only plague to strike the Quarter in Katrina's wake, besides lack of power and telephone, was the horde of stinking fridges. Every street was littered with dozens of them. Alone, askew, or lined up like fat little people waiting for the bus. It might seem wasteful to throw out these fridges just because some food rotted in them, but if you've ever had this happen to you you know it's impossible to salvage them. No amount of bleach can clean that stink away.

I wonder if the same is true of government?

Survival Happy Hour

2005-10-27T04:56:00.000-04:00

MRE #18, Cajun Rice, Beans, and Sausage

My little brother's school in Kiln, Mississippi (often pronounced "The Kill") had 3000 kids in it, for three grades. The school he's in now in North Carolina has a little over 500, for the same three grades.

In The Kill the school bus was so crowded that kids often had to sit on the floor. In North Carolina my brother has the choice of a bus, or three helpful grown-ups to drive him...

In The Kill he couldn't bring his books home, since he had to share them with other students, as many as three per book. In North Carolina he has his own books, they even gave him a book bag to carry them around in, and a tutor to help him catch up on all the work he missed after Katrina.

In The Kill he never had a locker, because the school charged $50 a month for the use of one. In North Carolina he has his own locker, and they even gave him a new combination lock for it.

Mississippi public schools are ranked 47th in the nation. North Carolina's, 25th.

My little brother doesn't want anybody in their new town to know he's a Katrina survivor. He wants to be normal, like any teen. In school yesterday the teacher decided to have a show and tell with my brother's class, and show them what it was like to eat MREs, like the Katrina people have been, many still are. My brother sank in his chair. I don't know if the teacher was doing this for his benefit, to try to make him feel "understood." At least he wasn't singled out to actually prepare the MREs from long experience.

He said the kids had great fun playing with the food. It was very entertaining for them, and many expressed a desire to eat them all the time. I thought, let's not have a half-ass lesson, right? To get the full effect of your MRE it should be eaten in the dark. Please turn the heat up to 97 degrees, and the humidity up to swampy. Make sure there are at least ten hungry mosquitoes per student, and ensure that the students slept on an army cot in a tent for the past two weeks, unsure of if their friends are alive or dead. Potty breaks should be in the woods out back. And before they eat, let them take a field trip to where they lived and find everything they ever owned scattered for miles, wet, and eaten with mold.

Katrina 101.

My brother's in good hands in North Carolina. He'll get a better education. He'll make good friends, who don't have any traumatic stress disorders. But, I can't get a couple things out of my mind. One, at least the kids in The Kill know where he's coming from. Two, the kids in The Kill deserve to have what he's got right now. And they deserved to have it before Katrina.

The Ackers: Katrina Survivors

2005-10-26T01:43:00.000-04:00

Angel Acker, 40, Pearlington. Flooded out of her home.

We must have met half a dozen Ackers in Pearlington in the days after the storm hit. I would photograph people and then get their names, and it seemed like every fifth name was Acker. A few weeks later I stumbled upon an article online, and realized that the Ackers even had a version of me in their family, Leo Acker...

Like me, he had moved to the North to pursue opportunity. Like me, he had gone down to help his people, and bring them out of the disaster. Unlike me, he brought a friggin' truckload of supplies with him, and then got seventeen of his fellow Ackers out. I, on the other hand, brought a measly trunk load of supplies, and took some snapshots around town. I'm basically a pale (literally) imitation of Leo Acker.

"Unloading the supplies took an hour and a half with help from thirty volunteers. Convincing his family to come with him to Massachusetts and making arrangements to fly them all there, took much longer, but now, seventeen members of the Acker family have flown into the area, their airfare paid by Leo Acker, his wife, and his uncle's business. The truck he used was donated by Penske, after the company heard how he intended to use it. His family is currently staying at Anchorage Housing in Middletown, Rhode Island.

Mr. Acker moved to the area from the family's home in Pearlington, Mississippi to pursue at degree in engineering at U-Mass Dartmouth. He currently resides in Swansea, and is employed at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Middletown, Rhode Island. Hearing of the damage done by Hurricane Katrina convinced him that he had to head back to his former home and help his family escape the devastated area." Continue...

The Surreal Life: East of Eden

2005-10-25T00:45:00.000-04:00

Life has become too big, too complex for me to relate. I'm insufficient to the task. My words and photos useless. I sit here, staring blankly at the glow of a computer screen, unable to organize the flood at the gates. I feel the massive hum and throb of humanity, the hive, coming at me through the wires and wireless. If I touch it directly it could kill me, it's that huge, a power line down across my desk. I'm talking about you, here. All the help that's been sent, the words, the relief, the supplies, the thoughts, and yes, the prayers. You've kept a family alive, you know.

Hurricane Katrina blew my family into the ether, and it's the ether that's saved their hope. We've come to a strange and wonderful fork in the road, and it's all because of the internet. I have to tell you this amazing story, a single one in this huge hum, about a small family in North Carolina that was touched by the plight of a little Cajun woman light years away, and yet right next door. It's a story of hope in dark times, of absolute strangers caring like family, of renewal and love and the power of art in the internet age. My mom says it's the strangest thing that's ever happened to her, and that's really saying something.

And no matter how hard I try, I will be unable to convey to you all that I experienced, all that transpired. This can only be a sketch, as this whole site is only a sketch, because I'm insufficient to the task.

I had just evacuated my family to Las Vegas, and was returning to New Orleans, to see if I could reach McKain Street, and my family roots, when I received the email from a guy named Kenny, in Carteret County North Carolina. It's tone was a strangely comforting mix of military succinctness and polite Southern comfort, and was simply titled "An Offer Of Assistance."

In it, he told me how his "sweetie", Elizabeth, had stumbled upon Operation Eden, and how she related to my mom's life, and to her plight, and had been moved to tears by this post. He told me about how they had been aching to reach out and help someone that had been displaced by Katrina since the storm first hit, and had, like many others, been rebuffed by bureaucrats. He told me Elizabeth's daughter, Toni Marie, had just purchased a rental property, and wanted to offer it to my mom and little brother for a year, rent free, until we could rebuild my mom's Eden.

What? I'm sorry. Life up to this point has done nothing but make me a jaded and cynical bastard, and FEMA hasn't done anything to dispel that, so my first instinct was to call bullshit. This guy's yanking my chain. Maybe they want to lure my family in to harvest their organs. White slavery, perhaps? When I read my mom the email, her only reaction, weary from negotiating FEMA lines and the strip malls of Vegas, was "Whaaaat?"

Starve a man for long enough, and food might kill him. A shock to the system. Survival suspicion. Ever try to feed a stray dog?

So while I was in New Orleans I exchanged emails with Kenny, and then Elizabeth, and as I got more comfortable with them we made plans for me to visit them in North Carolina and check it all out. I was weary from things that had happened to me in New Orleans, and things I had seen, including McKain Street finally, which I'll talk about later. I had the weight of my family on my shoulders, and the knowledge that Las Vegas was going to eat them alive in short time, despite meeting some wonderful people there. So I was a glass-eyed zombie, apprehensive, at the end of my rope, when I made the ten hour drive to see Carteret County for myself, hoping that it was what they said it was, but fearing it wouldn't be.

It was. And more. It was as if Katrina had ripped open a hole in time and space, and shifted the Gulf coast to the east coast. Like the Gulf, before it was destroyed. Delicate marshes, huge forests, small country roads, churches everywhere, white cotton in the vast fields, the beaches. Beautiful, but with the far off threat that coastal living carries with it. I started to understand. These people knew, really knew what my people had gone through. Where they came from. It could have been them, after all. And that's when the offer made sense to me.

Kenny and Elizabeth couldn't have been sweeter, or more down to earth and genuine. I was given a whirlwind tour of their small community, Kenny called it the nickel tour, and I soon realized it wasn't just their family that was reaching out to mine, it was the whole little town. It was the mayor, who's office was a golf cart under an oak tree at his nursery business. It was the local water company executive, it was the real estate agent, the insurance agent, and long-time family friends. They'd all pitched in for the effort. The local banker had even set up an account under the name "Katrina Survivor."

I told my mom to roll. No more motel-living in Vegas. No more quasi-homelessness. She rolled.

In the meantime, Kenny had taken to calling the beautiful little trailer they had for my mom East of Eden, and that's an indication of how sensitive they were to my mom's perceptions and needs. This was not charity, this was giving and relief in it's purest form. Selfless, empathic. They had furnished the place sparingly but tastefully, knowing my mom would want to pad her own nest. The attention to detail was astounding. Pots, pans, dishes, bedding, silverware, glasses, appliances, bathroom items, household items, all left in its packaging, so my mom could put it where she wanted it. A local business had donated a computer. There was a ginormous TV, cable, high-speed internet.

They even bought some damn Pepto-Bismol for the medicine cabinet.

Desperate, my mom cleared over 700 miles a day, and each night I'd give her updates on what I was seeing of the place, and the people, and the community. The next day, spurred by hope, she'd drive a little harder. The last day she cleared over 900 miles, and arrived exhausted, in the dead of night. Before she got there the rest of us, Kenny, Elizabeth, and my girl Katie, had spent the night putting the finishing touches on the place. Assembling a TV stand, framing some photos that had been salvaged from her Eden but that she hadn't seen yet, lighting candles. Elizabeth made beautiful arrangements of tulips throughout the house. It was like Christmas Eve, we were so excited for them to arrive.

My mom and little brother were shells when they finally got in. Beyond exhausted. Zombies. They had been going non-stop since the day before Katrina hit. Being a survivor is more than a full-time job. When your future is only as far as tomorrow it's tough to sleep, even when you're a lucky one with a bed. They stumbled through the house, barely able to absorb it all. Only able to point out this or that, like they were tourists at the museum of their future. I could tell they were having a tough time processing it all, waiting for the rug to be pulled out, the other shoe to drop, the catch.

We hovered in the kitchen, speechless, resting, and my mom just slumped towards me, hugging me. That's when I could tell she was slowly crying. Tears of joy for this refuge from the storm. I just held her up, stood there with her, cried with her. She let it all out. It wasn't home, but she felt like she belonged.

Elizabeth and Kenny sat by us as we hugged, quiet and respectful, as always. This is the picture that shows the moment when two American families came together. It shows the hum of the internet made tangible. The ether made solid. Touchable.

And there it is, for now. The internet saved my family. My camera saved my family. I'm a high school dropout, but my writing saved my family. If this had happened ten years ago, my photos, my writing, wouldn't have saved anybody, because nobody would have seen it. It wasn't on CNN. It wasn't on the broadcast networks. It wasn't even on PBS. It was on a plain, small, free website, and that's the only reason Elizabeth saw it, and brought her family into the effort.

Katrina has shown me some things. She's shown me that the American government is unable to protect anything we hold dear. She's shown me that the American people are an amazing, giving, tough, resourceful, huge people, and that they're not being represented fairly by the current class of small-hearted politicians and lazy bureaucrats. She's shown me that people around the world care about us after all, despite our government. She's shown me that it's not about FEMA, it's not about the Red Cross, that it's about amazing families like Elizabeth and Kenny's family in North Carolina. Like I've said before, it's just about people like you and me, on our own, together.

And at the end of the day, I'm just very happy to see my little brother smile again, laugh again, play again. But I know I can't call this a happy ending. We still have so much to do, so much to rebuild, so much to recover, so many pieces to pick up, so many questions to answer. This is a sunny day, but the end of the road is still clouded. No, it's not a happy ending, but thanks to this small, loving family in North Carolina, and all of you out there in the ether, it's damn well a happy end of the beginning.

And that's more than any of us hoped for a month ago.

Thou Shall Love, New Orleans

2005-10-24T17:28:00.000-04:00

Thou Shall Love, Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans

9th Ward Sealed

2005-10-24T06:43:00.000-04:00

Playground, Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans

"On Wednesday, the men tried and failed to gain access to Mr. Calhoun's neighborhood. Mr. Calhoun, an inspector of nonfederal airports and a Baptist minister, was stunned. He had repeatedly toured the area since the storm, both when it was unguarded and after troops began blockading the northern half of the Lower Ninth Ward. At a time when the rest of New Orleans was reopened, he never expected to find that the National Guard had sealed his beloved neighborhood so tightly that even Mr. Willie, as he calls himself, could not sweet-talk his way in.

"They're treating us like we're already dead," Mr. Calhoun said after he was turned away at three checkpoints and took his leave of a local police officer - "All right, then, brother" - who informed him that he needed an escort from a City Council member. There were no council members present."

Longing for Home in a Sealed New Orleans Ward - NY Times

How I Work

2005-10-23T19:23:00.000-04:00

I'm often asked about what kind of equipment I use in my work, whether it's the fashion and celebrity portraiture, or now, this body of documentary work I've been thrust into with Operation Eden. My answer is always the same: I use the least amount of gear possible to achieve the look I want. I'm agnostic when it comes to camera brands, and I'm equally comfortable with either film or digital capture.

But, for those that are curious, I'll list what I used to shoot most of what you've seen here... My camera of choice was the Canon 1Ds. I use it because it's rugged, well-sealed against the elements, and, most importantly, has a huge full-frame sensor. This is important to me for the best image quality, and because I often use very shallow depth-of-focus, which is much harder to achieve with the smaller sensors used in most digital cameras.

I most often couple it with a 24-70mm f2.8L lens, usually shot on the wide end, seldom past 50mm. Most of the portraits you've seen here where shot with this lens at about 50mm, usually wide open at f2.8. The only other two lenses I used in these shots were fixed focal-length, a 50mm f1.4, and a 35mm f1.4, used when I wanted something lighter and smaller, or when I needed even shallower depth of focus.

The only flash I used was the Canon 550EX, portable strobe. In these pictures I have it attached directly to the camera, but I most often use it with an off-camera cord. I need an assistant when I use it with the off-camera cord (most often my girlfriend, sometimes my little brother.) For the candids shot in the field, competing with the sun, I have my assistant hold the flash upside down, as close to the lens as possible, pointing straight forward, the flash head zoomed in so that light falls off somewhat at the edges, creating a hotter area in the middle. In this case the flash is set to sync at high speeds, which enables me to shoot wide open in blazing bright sun and sill sync a flash at 1/8000 of a second shutter speed (normally, you can't sync a flash higher than 1/250th or so), so I can get that bright "lit" look, and make the background dark enough and blurry enough to not distract from the subjects eyes, which are the most important thing for me.

For the "studio" portraits I use the same flash, this time attached to a small portable softbox, to diffuse the light. A second flash is placed behind the subject and fired into the backdrop by wireless when the first goes off. At least, that's how it's supposed to work. In practice, the second flash didn't fire half the time, and fired too brightly the other half. Nikon has a much better wireless flash system. But they don't make a full-sensor camera body to go with it.

These pictures of me and my little brother were taken, unbeknownst to me, by a national guardsmen I had met a few minutes earlier, who also happens to be an excellent photojournalist. Or more accurately, maybe he's best described as an excellent photojournalist who just happens to be a national guardsman. His name is Edouard HR Gluck, and we had met when he came up to me to talk about gear (it's the equivalent amongst photographers of dogs sniffing butts). He had assumed I was a photojourno down covering the destruction, but I told him, no, I normally shoot fashion, these are just unfortunate family snapshots.

He emailed me these shots later, of me and my little brother walking by the destroyed volunteer firehouse, which at the time housed the relief efforts in Pearlington, which were soon moved to Charles Murphy Elementary. The road we're walking on was a paved two-lane highway before Katrina turned everything in the area into dirt roads.

See also: Process and Intent

Dead Baby Doll

2005-10-22T15:13:00.000-04:00

Black Baby Doll and Limbs, Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans

"Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a staunch opponent of pork barrel spending, tried to block $453 million for two Alaska bridges that had been tucked into the recent highway bill. Coburn wanted to redirect the money to the Interstate 10 bridge across Lake Pontchartrain, a major thoroughfare that was severely damaged during Hurricane Katrina.

Sen. Ted Stevens, the veteran Alaska Republican, was dramatic in his response. "I don't kid people," Stevens roared. "If the Senate decides to discriminate against our state . . . I will resign from this body."

Love and Hope in the French Quarter

2005-10-21T06:06:00.000-04:00

We're married.

Walking through a deserted French Quarter, my people blown by hurricane to the four corners of the world, my tough little Yankee girl at my side from day one, we passed by a boarded wedding chapel.

I stopped her and said, "Last chance. This is as low as I've ever been. You want out, I don't blame you."

She said, without breathing, intense dark eyes staring into me, "Never. Never."

So I said, "I marry you. I marry you. I marry you. Here in my city, just us, under this setting sun, I marry you."

And we took this picture, as the sun faded to pink over the empty and quiet French Quarter.

Katrina Survivors

2005-10-21T05:02:00.000-04:00

Patrick Crowe, one of my little brother's friends, Pearlington, Ms. I wonder if they'll ever play together again?

The Soul Of The City

2005-10-20T02:55:00.001-04:00

Seven Years Bad Luck, New Orleans

My soul vibrated at a strange pitch those days. The world I grew up in torn apart. The future clouded and gray. Trapped, stranded in the silent French Quarter, so near the places of my childhood, the reasons I'd come here, yet unable to get to them. A stranger at home. The prodigal son talks like a Yankee now. And the babble of history around us in the Quarter, oppressing me with it's weight. Ursulines Street, the nuns came here almost 300 years ago, to teach the little Octoroon girls how to marry well. And the history made the current misery seem indulgent. How many have died in this ancient city? Hurricanes, floods, epidemics, murders, wars. Ghosts at every turn, making me feel a coward for my anxiety.

"This is nothing new," I felt them spit, "we've seen it all before. Grow up. You're not special. This is life. Life is death. Move on." But I can't.

A magazine contacted me, they were putting together an issue on Katrina and New Orleans, and wanted to know if I had any images of renewal, of hope, of the spirit returning to the city. I understand their desire. They want to move on. It's been so long, after all. Isn't it better, now?

No. The people are the spirit of the city. How can the spirit return, when the people can't?

Big Red XVI

2005-10-19T16:24:00.000-04:00

Big Red, in the wreckage of his coop

My family has owned a long line of roosters named Big Red. The first Big Red I remember was when we lived in the Nevada desert near Pyramid Lake, but for all I know there may have been many ancestors. That earlier Big Red died one night when coyotes dragged him off into the black desert night, leaving only feathers, and my first lesson about death.

This Big Red, though, he's a survivor. Let's call him Big Red XVI, because it sounds fancy, and like I said, I don't know how many preceded him. He once had six hens. He would fuck exclusively one hen at a time. Often. So often that they died from his affections. When he had fucked one hen to death he moved on to the next, until she died. So on and so on, until Big Red was all alone in the coop my mom had built for him in Slidell, Louisiana, just a few miles from her home in Mississippi.

That few miles made all the difference to Big Red when Katrina hit. Her town in Mississippi was flattened and flooded, the part of Slidell that Big Red's coop was in just had trees down. His roost fell apart, but he survived, missing just a few feathers. And hens.

But the hens were his own damn fault.

Help Pearlington Mississippi

2005-10-18T16:56:00.000-04:00

Pearlington Living, September 2005. Bedrooms on the left, kitchen in the middle, living room on the right, bathroom out back, in the woods. That's my mom kneeling on the right, trying to comfort one of the ladies.

Been camping? What's the longest you've ever roughed it? Two days? Three? Five? Living in a tent, exposed to the elements, your grooming slowly falling apart, making you look more crazy, more primal, each day.

Many people in Pearlington, Mississippi have been roughing it for 51 days now. 51 days. The first Gulf War was fought and won in less time. We flew men to the moon and returned them to Earth in less time.

Many of the church groups who had been coming through and helping are now gone. Americorps is there. But most of the people who are helping now, they're just regular individuals, like you and me. They're helping distribute aid when it comes in. They're helping people clear trees, in case the mythical FEMA trailers ever show up. Here's what's needed in Pearlington right now, as of today, 51 days later: (read more after the jump)

--Food, non-perishable. MREs are still available, but they're worried that could end soon and want to begin stocking up for the winter. They particularly need hearty meals, like stews. They're working hard all day, and need a lot of protein.
--Packaged socks and underwear (all sizes)
--Daily toiletries, like deodorant, shaving cream and razors, and soap (including laundry soap)
--Daily staples like coffee, sugar, salt, pepper
--Towels, all sizes
--Trash bags
--Paper towels and toilet paper
--Cleaning supplies
--Work gloves
--Chain saws
--Rakes, shovels, and yard tools
--Volunteers, volunteers, volunteers. They have a big tent set up for you. Don't go to Disneyland. Go to Katrinaland. It's the vacation you'll never forget, I guarantee.

Send items UPS or Fedex, not by mail, because this is what the Pearlington Post Office looks like.

So, again, it's just us, people. You and me. If you want to help out, send stuff (or yourself) here:

Charles Murphy Elementary School
c/o Operation Eden
6096 1st Street
Pearlington MS 39572
Thank you.

Update: A few people have told me they've had problems with Fedex not delivering packages they sent, and suggest sticking with UPS. Aside from knowing that the Post Office is useless, I can't confirm anything about Fedex or UPS. It seems hit or miss, many Fedex packages get in, others don't. But, I haven't (yet) heard any complaints about UPS, so maybe they're the safest bet right now.

Old Smashed Truck

2005-10-18T14:46:00.000-04:00

Pearlington, Ms

Katrina Survivors

2005-10-15T22:30:00.000-04:00

William, Jackson, Ms

We met William by the pool at the hotel we had evacuated to for a day, to get a taste of civilization. He was worried about three elderly sisters of his in New Orleans that he still hadn't heard from, two weeks later. He talked nonstop, nervously, and gave us several recipes that none of us had time to write down. Everyone we talk to has a tragic story, a misery on their shoulders. We do too. There's too much tragedy and not enough shoulders to carry it. It's just too big, this.

I really hope William found his sisters.

Huge Ass Beers To Go

2005-10-14T01:06:00.000-04:00

Bourbon Street Tries Again

The French Quarter maybe had a couple hundred people in it, and they all had huge ass beers.

Two nights later, along this sidewalk a couple of blocks away, Robert Davis got beaten by the police.

I guess the French Quarter really is getting back to normal.

One More Dead In The Lower Ninth

2005-10-13T11:13:00.001-04:00

One Body Found Here, Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans

Flooded Cars

2005-10-12T01:01:00.001-04:00

Near Waveland, Ms

Many people parked their cars along this highway, because it's the highest point in town. It wasn't high enough. There were at least dozens of cars and trucks tossed and littered along a stretch of highway maybe three miles long. It was like the La Brea Tarpits for automobiles. Like I could imagine them struggling vainly to right themselves, to pull themselves out of the ditch and clean up, to await their owner's return.

Mom Finds Her Glasses, FEMA Loses Mom

2005-10-10T23:30:00.000-04:00

They washed up just fine.

My mom and little brother are still in Las Vegas, so far from home. And home is still a mess. My mom feels like she's drifting and rootless. She was stunned by the wealth on display in Vegas, the contrast from where she just was. She's still getting the runaround from FEMA, but by this point we don't expect much more. It seems the application taker we dealt with in that sun baked parking lot in Mississippi, the one who could barely operate the computer, who had been up for 24 hours, the earnest blue shirt, well, he messed up her application, and now she's in a bureaucratic no man's land. But at least in Vegas they have AC and seats to wait in for six hours, and when they tell you you need to call the 800 number, well, look, they've got a special little room off to the side with a couple of phones in it just for that. We'll take any improvement we can get.

I had a drink with one of those earnest blue shirts, in the French Quarter recently. She was a Peace Corps volunteer who had come down to help in any way she could. She was assigned to be one of the FEMA application takers, and when she told us about her experience she was almost in tears with rage and frustration. She told us about how she got less than an hour's training. She told us about how the official FEMA reps, the mandarins above her, hiding from the public, how they were little better than glazed-eyed morons, just shuffling papers and waiting to leave. She told us about the trick questions on the FEMA application, designed to automatically disqualify people if answered wrong. She told us how the poor survivors were yelling at her in frustration, then consoling her when she would almost cry from it, then asking her if she had any food they could take on the way out.

She grit her teeth, held back tears, took a big drink, and said "I only wanted to help, but I can't."

She said she and some of the other volunteers had taken their official FEMA blue shirts, and used them to clean the floor.

Charity Hospital

2005-10-09T18:45:00.000-04:00

Hello, America. You fancy yourself the proudest member of the First World, and since you're reading this on your computer, you probably are. Got air-conditioning? Cable TV? A microwave? Congratulations, citizen, you're doing just fine. But, as some of you are learning, uncomfortably, there's another America, the Third World version. Dark and brutal, dimly lit by a faint flickering American Dream high up and far away. That's where I come from. If you could embody this shadow America in a single institution you'd be hard pressed to find a better candidate than Charity Hospital in New Orleans, where my mom was born. (read more below)

A cousin I never had a chance to meet died here. My uncle Sonny and Aunt Dusty had an infant here. After delivery he was taken away and placed on a bare table by the overworked staff. He had been low birth weight, probably due to malnutrition, and died that day. Being too poor to arrange funeral services, Sonny took his dead baby home with him, sitting on his lap in a little plain coffin, and buried his son himself. Three weeks later Charity Hospital called to tell him to come claim his dead son. They didn't even know he was gone.

Charity Hospital loomed large as a horror house for my family. They lost themselves there, literally. Eyes. Teeth. Limbs. Lives. All butchered, then forgotten about. Your cat or dog, First World America, was getting better health care than the poor wretched humans forced to decide between nothing, and Charity. And that was their only choice.

It's always been that way down here. Charity Hospital was founded over 250 years ago, which makes it about the oldest hospital in America. It was wretched from the start, because, after all, you get what you pay for, and this was literally a "Hospital for the Poor."

In 1815 someone wrote, upon visiting Charity Hospital, that it "served no purpose than to confine the wretched and compel them to die in a place contrary to their choice." Patients were found abandoned. Chickens wandered in, and their shit covered the furniture. The mattresses on which the patients slept were filthy with “the visible marks of the putrid discharges of those who had died on them of the most pestilential diseases."

This is how the other half dies, citizens. 1736. 1815. 1967. 2005. The years keep rolling by, a time lapse stream of lives lived hard and lost easy. Welcome to the new era, same as the old era. Everything new is old again.

I told my mom that after what happened at Charity last month, the flooding, the abandonment, the death, the bodies floating up from the basement morgue, the damage to what had been damaged its whole life, that they were thinking of tearing it down. She said she's been hoping for that since she was born.

See also:
Lord I Just Can't Keep from Crying

An Afternoon Of Forgotten Stories

Storyville

2005-10-07T02:02:00.000-04:00

Iberville Housing Projects from Basin Street, New Orleans

This was where Storyville stood. Where Louis Armstrong was born, and sang the Basin Street Blues. Where jazz was dreamed up. Where EJ Bellocq photographed the prostitutes. It was the underbelly, the joy, the passion, the fear, the anger, the sex, the death. The wild sweaty life. They tore it down and built a big prison, what you see here. The Iberville Housing Projects. Now empty and quiet, its residents storm-tossed first to the Superdome, then the Astrodome, who knows where now. Next door is St. Louis Cemetery #1, where Marie Laveau sleeps. All's quiet and dead on Basin Street tonight, and it's lonely.

Laundry Basket In Tree

2005-10-06T19:29:00.000-04:00

Pearlington, Ms

Under The Crescent Moonrise

2005-10-06T04:13:00.000-04:00

Philip Turner, 62. Alva McKay, 44. New Orleans.

I took my girl for a walk along the Mississippi River, where it snakes around the Quarter, bending the city into its crescent shape. It was under a pink setting sun and a rising crescent moon, and a cool breeze blew the stink out of our noses, and the mosquitoes off our arms, and then we met Philip and Alva.

They were half on their way to drunk, watching the River drift past Algiers. As we walked past, Philip shouted "Hey, I saw y'all on TV last night!" Only, we weren't on TV last night. But we stopped and talked to him, and that was the point. Philip's a street performer in the Quarter, and that's the line he uses to stop people. To stand out from the crowd. Philip dances with a broom for tourists. Whenever I would raise my camera, he would laugh and burst into song. He lives in the Ninth Ward. Rather, he used to live in the Ninth Ward, before Katrina, and the flooding. He survived in his attic, and said he swam like fucking Johnny Weissmuller to get out. At the moment this picture was taken, Philip's earthly possessions consisted of a large lady's bike he called his Cadillac, a small bag of clothing, a nine iron, and a half-gone twelve-pack of beer.

Alva was helping him finish the beer. She was also from the Ninth Ward. She was separated from her entire family, and her husband. She was distraught, and despite Philip's heroically drunken efforts to make her laugh, she often slipped into quiet tears. She asked me if I remembered that big wave that happened last year. It happened on Christmas, she said. She said she cried when that happened, and she knew in her bones that New Orleans was next. She said she was no Bible thumper, but that God was so powerful he just flicked his hand and her family was gone. And when she said this she made a flicking gesture, like dusting off her arm. She said God's so powerful, and tears started. So powerful, she said softly. She asked, Do you believe? No, do you believe?

I don't even know what I'm saying anymore, these days. What am I saying? Like Alva, I'm no Bible thumper. I don't even believe. But I'm saying, when you look at the faces of my people, I'm saying you need to know, really know, that "There But for the Grace of God go I." We're all one really bad day from oblivion. I'm saying, live with that in mind every day, and you'll understand the power and love and soul of New Orleans, and my family.

Katrina Faces

2005-10-06T01:13:00.000-04:00

Catherine Carr, 55, Pearlington, Mississippi

Catherine was a volunteer helping with relief efforts in Pearlington. She had been through some scary hurricanes in Florida, where she lived, and came to Mississippi with Presbyterian aid workers to help in any way she could. She had a stern, no-nonsense air about her. Not mean, more like a sweet art teacher that's sick of students goofing off. She was so frustrated, a restrained anger, at how this hurricane was being handled by the government agencies, compared to the lightning response she had seen in Florida in the past couple of years. As we were leaving she came up to my mom and gave her a nice little work blouse she had found for her in the donated clothing, saying simply, "Here, I knew you would like this." And she was right.

People like Catherine are the anti-FEMA. Effective. Caring. Personal.

Survival In Mount Zion

2005-10-05T14:20:00.001-04:00

Greater Mt. Zion AME Church, Pearlington, Ms. Two skiffs rest on it's front steps. They were used to rescue several elderly parishioners from the floodwaters.

Mr. Marshall Collins sits in the wreckage of what was once the church. You can see the hole they hacked in the ceiling to escape the rising waters, pews and snakes and the occasional alligator swimming in the water below as they waited for help to arrive. The walls are buckled, and the waterline mark is visible near the top of the stained-glass windows. The floor is coated in inches of oozing swamp muck.

You could breathe the wet heat.

Katrina Survivors

2005-10-04T18:49:00.000-04:00

Tom Page, Pearlington, Mississippi

A Quarter Life

2005-10-04T04:38:00.000-04:00

Ensconced with my girl in an evacuated courtyard apartment on Ursulines Street. A midnight call to my mom for her birthday leads to two hours of telling the old French Quarter stories. I'm older now, and now I'm more curious about her crazy life back then, as a teenage hippie runaway on Bourbon Street in the sixties, back when the French Quarter was truly weird.

She told me about how she go-go danced (not stripped) in silver boots at the Gunga Den. It was owned by mob boss Larry Lamarca, who's girl my mom also knew, Linda Brigette, a famous bombshell burlesque dancer. About how one night a local guy grabbed Miss Brigette's boob, and Lamarca went off, told the bouncers to watch the door, told the band to play loud and don't stop, and took the man into the back courtyard and beat him bloody in front of the dancers, including my mom.

She told me about Ruthie The Duck Girl, who used to roll through the streets of the Quarter on roller skates, holding a big white duck, bumming Kools and beers off locals, and occasionally screaming "Fuck off and die, motherfucker!" to startled, nervously amused passersby.

So many stories. I thought her life after I was born was full of turmoil and craziness and stress and eccentricity, but it was always so. Things I've seen in this life lead me to believe that some people are fated to a wild, erratic life, tossed from storm to storm. My mom is one of those people.

That's what I was trying to do when I bought her her Eden, make a place for her that wasn't erratic. A place with no strings attached, and no landlord breathing down her neck. A safe home for the runaway. But now she's a runaway again, of a sort. Back to square one. Try again.

She said, laughing, "Thanks for the trip down memory lane." And I had been Googling while she had been telling me her stories, not because I thought they were tall tales, but because I wanted it in front of me, to see as well as hear. And Google confirmed everything she told me. And I told her what Google said about the characters she told me about.

It told me that Miss Linda Brigette died of a stroke a couple of years ago. That Ruthie The Duck Girl became the Duck Lady, and went mad, and wound up in a nursing home. Hopefully not one of the Flooded Death Nursing Homes Katrina left behind.

"Awww," she said, "New Orleans was easier on people like that back then. I don't know if it would be possible for them to exist the same way, now."

Life On Hold

2005-10-02T21:59:00.001-04:00

Katrina Gothic, Slidell, Louisiana

Here's were we are now, one month later. My mom was going to go crazy if I let her stay in the Gulf. There's nothing that can be done there right now. Nothing but survive, living day by day, in the newly-created Southern tribe of third-world hunter-gatherers created by the storms. It's a nonstop job, sun-up to midnight. Cleaning, worrying, lining up, being knocked down, gathering decaying provisions, drifting.

My mom said that for people without jobs, they sure work hard. If you've ever been homeless you know just how much work it is. If you've never been homeless, don't worry, with the way things are headed it's just a question of time.

I can't have her living in a tent, waiting for the Bushvilles to be built, someday, maybe. So, a few days ago we evacuated her to Las Vegas, at least for a couple of weeks, to recuperate. We have some history there, and some contacts, and I figured if she's going to be competing for survivor scraps she's got better odds in a city with 3000 other survivors than in the gulf with 100,000.

So far I've been proven right. The FEMA office there is at least indoors, with seats to wait in, and air conditioning. These small condolences make a difference, even though the idiot blue-shirts she finally reaches after her six hour wait tell her the same things their idiot cousins told her in the Gulf, weeks ago:

"I'm sorry, the FEMA computer is down right now."
"Did you try the 800 number?"
"Here's a trick, instead of pressing 3 when you call, press 2, there aren't as many Spanish speakers so you might get through to somebody. Oh. Ummm. Maybe try calling at 3AM, it's less crowded then."
"I'm sorry, the computer is still down."

So, we finally discovered where the Red Cross has been all this time. Looks like they've been in Vegas. Turns out they must also like roofs and air-conditioning a lot. I guess it's really hard to concentrate on aid when it's all hot and dirty and the sun is beating down on you. So, a quick 2000-mile commute is all that's needed for Gulf victims to get some living money and a voucher for two weeks in a hotel while FEMA looks for the power switch on their computer. And it looks like even this little program might soon be going, going gone.

There are two huge blindspots in the future right now, for us. One: what exactly is the government's plan for short-term and long-term housing? Good, bad, or ugly, just tell us what it is and where we stand, so we can plan accordingly. Two: is my mom's job, her perfect $6.91/hour job, going to restart, and when? And if it restarts but she has no place to live locally, is she allowed to sleep under her desk?

Without clear answers to both these questions it's impossible to make many plans for the future. So it's day by day. Same life, different line. Is this how the diffusion happens? Is this how families get separated? Is this what the Dustbowl felt like?

Finally, and most importantly, my mom wanted to thank everyone who's written, everyone who's donated, everyone who's offered her help. She said her mind is blown. This little Cajun woman at the back of life's line, she's in awe of you all. She's in awe of your generosity and spirit and care. Thank you for keeping her spirits up when fate conspires to drag her down.

Thank you all for not forgetting about her little corner of the world.

The last picture I took of them before we split up.

Me, I'm going into New Orleans tomorrow to see what I can see there. I'm going to see if I can get to the starting place of this whole story. That little shack on McKain Street, in one of the roughest parts of town. See that street sign in the background of the top picture? That's all my mom's got left of the street she grew up on. I want to see what's left now.

I'll try to keep you posted.

Life and Death at the Roadside Park

2005-10-02T17:43:00.001-04:00

There's a little park just off Highway 90, on the far outskirts of Slidell, Louisiana. We always called it the Roadside Park. It's huge mossy shade trees and shell-gravel mini-roads are surrounded by marshes and inlets on all sides. It was one of the anchor points of my childhood, a place we always went to on our frequent "adventures" around the countryside. When I was fourteen my mom taught me how to drive on its little shell road, and I can still remember the crunch of the shells under the tires as I rolled around at walking pace, an ice cold bottle of Pepsi sweating between my legs.

Now a houseboat, washed in from the marshes across the highway, rests in the middle of the road I learned to drive on.

This massive concrete picnic table is the only one in the park that wasn't dislodged and ripped from it's foundation by the hurricane. I was kind of glad for this, because this is the one we sat at that day when I was fourteen, and had po-boys and that ice-cold Pepsi to celebrate good times. I was glad that at least one of my anchor points had stayed anchored.

There were a dozen or so abandoned cats wandering what was left of the park, in the fading light. Padding silently in and out of the bushes, hungry, surrounded by the smell of death and rotting plants.

We found some cans of cat food nearby, lined up and unopened. I had no can opener, so I caveman-bashed the can into the edge of this dislodged concrete bench until it splattered out all over the bench, and my pants. We also left the remains of some donated hot lunch we had had that day. You can see a truck washed into the bayou in the distance behind the cats. Normally that would be a wall of dense green trees, now washed away. We sat back and made sure the cats came over to eat, which they did, although not before the flies got there.

Dinner came much too late for this guy.

Snoballs and Seafood

2005-10-02T15:35:00.001-04:00

Snoball Dude, where are you when we most need you? (hope you're OK)

MRE jambalaya can only cut it for so long.

New Round Of Print Sales

2005-10-02T03:26:00.000-04:00

Some of the new images for sale.

The first edition of prints I offered for sale to raise money for my family's rebuilding is now closed. If you were one of the early people to grab a print, thank you. I'll be posting the edition numbers as soon as I can.

I've now issued for sale a second edition of entirely new images. Many people have been asking me to sell prints of the images I've taken in the Gulf, so this second edition includes a few of those, as well as style, scenics, still-lifes, and nudes. As with the first edition, these images will be issued on a time-limited basis. I'll sell them for no less than two weeks, no more than a month. When I close the edition, they're done.

Like I've said before, I never sell prints this way, but this is an extraordinary need, so I'm doing whatever It takes to help my people myself.

If you'd like to buy a print, or donate via Paypal, click here.

Thanks.

Katrina Survivors

2005-10-01T03:41:00.000-04:00

Rock and Sheila Zeringue, Pearlington, Ms.

Some survivors say they'll rebuild, others say no way. Most just shrug weakly, and look at you a little lost, as if to say "How can I know? Can I rebuild on nothing? I'm just surviving."

I didn't spend much time with Rock and Sheila, above. I recognized that they had business to take care of that day I stopped them to make their portrait. The business of surviving is more important than my stupid snapshots.

But luckily, Will Rothschild was able to spend some time talking with them, and others fighting so hard in Pearlington, and you really should hear what they're all struggling with:

"Like a lot of folks in this hidden corner of southwestern Mississippi, where seemingly every home has an old pickup and a boat, Rock Zeringue can do most things for himself.

A wildlife artist, furniture maker and wood-carver, Zeringue came here with his wife 20 years ago because he always wanted to build his own home right on the water.

He drove 700 pounds of nails into his wooden stilt house, all by himself.

He’s dealt with several storms, and with a deck almost overhanging the mouth of the Cowan Bayou, flooding was a yearly occurrence. He and his wife of 36 years, Sheila, have always cleaned up and stayed on.

But 61-year-old Rock Zeringue is shaken now, and he’s not ashamed to admit it. “There’s no way we can stay here now,” he says softly. “We just can’t do it.” Read more...

Katrina Hero

2005-09-30T02:21:00.000-04:00

James Peters, 58, Pearlington, Mississippi.

The storm raged, and while federal officials vacationed, or shopped, James Peters drove his boat through the floodwaters and rain. While FEMA officials and local officials faxed each other permission slips, James Peters used that boat to pick up neighbors and family members trapped on roofs and in trees. While the media flogged video of reporters standing in sideways rain, James Peters saved thirteen American lives in Pearlington, Mississippi.

And while politicians gave endless press conferences, and FEMA gazed at its navel, and the media looped helicopter shots of looters, and bloggers debated about parked school buses in satellite photos, James Peters quietly stood next to his boat, in his front yard, and said "I don't know, Sir, I just felt something working through me."

Forgotten People

2005-09-29T16:29:00.000-04:00

My mom and little brother in front of what's left of a neighbor's house. In Pearlington, either a tree is in your house, or your house is in a tree. The water line of the flood was somewhere near the top of that roof draped over the branch.

I know what it looks like now to watch people fight for their lives, sinking in quicksand. And I'm shouting, help, look, and yet there's no cavalry to save the day, and the sheriff's fat and content and sleeping off his binge while people sink and die.

This disaster is huge, and getting bigger by the day. Like the mold that's slowly eating all their lowly possessions, neglect and incompetence and cronyism are slowly eating these poor people alive.

My mom's little trailer was in Pearlington. After the storm, Pearlington started off ignored and has slowly devolved into forgotten. When I talked to the one FEMA inspector handling the whole town, he could barely look me in the eye. Not because he was a shady man, but I sensed, because he had been abandoned, too, and he knew the futility and impotence of his mission. Polishing brass on the Titanic would be too charitable a way to describe his task. More like, standing next to the brass, telling you he's going to be polishing it very soon, as soon as some cloth arrives.

Between you and me, the only help is going to come from you and me. Forget about FEMA. Forget about the Red Cross. We were hopeful when, after three weeks, a Red Cross truck showed up and started serving hot lunches. About the same time they began prepping the local school (where I shot the portraits of survivors) as a shelter for the people who were living in tents in their front yards next to the rubble of their homes.

The locals were shocked and frustrated with all the demands Red Cross had for the space before they'd use it.

"We need dehumidifiers." Says Red Cross.
"We need air conditioning." Says Red Cross.
"We need a 100k generator." Says Red Cross.
"We need to power wash the walls, maybe even repaint." Says Red Cross.
"We're afraid of being sued." Says Red Cross.

After waiting eight days (three weeks after the disaster) Red Cross left, and even took their hot lunch van with them.

I asked who's been helping, on the ground, really helping. The National Guard, the Salvation Army, the Southern Baptists. That's it.

Many people have asked how they can help directly, so I talked to some locals last night, the ones that I took portraits of in that sad broken school, and I asked them what the Outside World could send them. The list came back, pitifully long and basic. This is one month later, and still they need such basic things:

--Packaged socks, and underwear, all sizes (and I was told by a big girl not to forget the big girls in this size request)
--Daily toiletries, like deodorant, shaving cream and razors, and soap (including laundry soap)
--Bug spray and sunblock
--Daily staples like coffee, sugar, salt, pepper
--Towels, all sizes
--Ice chests
--Clothes hangers and clothes pins
--Rubber boots, all sizes
--Gas cans
--Trash bags
--Lights and bulbs, in case generators ever show up

And the larger, lifesaving items, but harder to ship:
--Generators (still no power down there)
--Chain saws (there are thousands of trees down everywhere)
--Tents (not for camping, for living)
--Air mattresses (because sleeping on the ground for a month really sucks)

On the medical front, they're trying to set up a medical clinic to serve people who may be injured by the debris while cleaning up, and the large poverty-stricken elderly population, and I spoke with the volunteer doctor who was working on that. She's asked for home blood pressure monitors, nebulizers for asthma patients, and thermometers. She also pleaded for any doctors, nurses, or assistants to come down and volunteer at the clinic, even if just briefly. There are many poor patients down there who haven't gotten social security or Medicare checks since the storm hit, and many of their medical referrals were to New Orleans, now also gone as an option. And the state of Mississippi is notorious for not caring for it's citizens medical needs.

So, if you have any of these things, or skills, and want to step in to fill the huge gap our government has left, please send them to:

Charles Murphy Elementary School
c/o Operation Eden
6096 1st Street
Pearlington MS 39572
Because, it's just you and me here. This isn't a two-week issue. It's not a two-month issue. This is long term. Do you want to live in a world where it's every man for himself?

Update: USPS (government) mail might not make it to the school, as it's being forwarded to ~~Waveland~~ Bay St. Louis, and I don't know if anybody's picking it up. Locals confirm, though, that UPS and FedEx have been making deliveries to the school, so packages sent via those companies should work. See a trend? Government not working (FEMA, USPS), private groups working (UPS, FedEx, Salvation Army). It almost looks intentional.

Also, I can't verify delivery or receipt of any packages sent down to the school. I'm in touch with them, and will try my best to find out what they need, and that they're getting things, but I'm not able to monitor or control anything, as I'm just one guy with a camera, trying to put the word out and help his family.

Soldier and Boat

2005-09-29T03:30:00.001-04:00

National Guardsman Hager stands in front of a flood-tossed boat at the entrance to the vast Kmart parking lot in Waveland, Mississippi, called Camp Katrina (at least that's what the homemade banner on one side read). This parking lot doubled as an aid distribution point for a church group to give out supplies and hot meals, and the useless waiting line for FEMA that I previously ranted about here.

The boat was at the exit to the parking lot, and Hager and a partner were stationed there to make sure nobody came in the wrong way. They seemed to be enjoying the sunset, and drop in temperature, because they work in those long-sleeve fatigues all day, and the heat is brutal. After I took his picture he said to me, "Want to see the real story?" and showed me what was written near the steering wheel:

"Sorry about your boat it saved 5 peoples lives."

Katrina Survivors

2005-09-28T18:28:00.000-04:00

Connie Crapeau, 41, owner of Pearlington's only restaurant/bar/marina, Turtle Landing. She's a smart-ass and a firecracker, and she takes shit from no one. She vowed to rebuild so my mom could again have a proper po-boy, and she extolled the virtues of being with younger men (her husband is 29, and she joked about having an 18 year-old on the side, for "backup")

We love Connie.

The Creeping Mold

2005-09-28T01:45:00.000-04:00

CNN - 'That mold ... It smells like death'
You get used to something living in the Deep South, especially in the swampy lands around New Orleans, and the bayous near the Mississippi Gulf. You get used to the knowledge that the land around you, that nature, is slowly and constantly creeping in on you. Sneakily seeking to devour your home, it's possessions, and maybe even your slow moving pets. Vines. Kudzu. Weeds. Mold.

But what I saw inside my mom's trailer was like a bad sci-fi movie. The whole thing was being devoured, coated on all surfaces by what looked to be many different species of creeping mold. Dark black mold, green mossy mold, light cotton-candy mold, slimy algae mold. Above, my mom's living room ceiling, which was formerly white.

My girl and my little brother both have asthma, so we kept them outside. My mom had fresh wounds from some hurricane debris that had attacked her, so I kept her outside, too. It was just me, my camera, a face mask, a steady stream of sweat in my eyes, and a wild kingdom of mold and mud. Above, the space between the kitchen cabinet and the vent over the stove, which is slowly peeling away. It looks like the mold is all that's holding it together.

Seriously. Any biologists out there? What the fuck is this stuff?

Process and Intent

2005-09-27T19:09:00.001-04:00

Many people have written asking me how I shot the studio portraits of the Katrina survivors.

First, my intent. I normally shoot fashion and portraiture for magazine and advertising clients. I'm often called upon to make celebrities look heroic. Celebrities aren't heroic. These survivors are. I wanted to make portraits of them that showed their pride, and dignity, and strength, even in such low circumstances. I wanted to show my respect, and love.

Second, my process. The portraits were shot at Charles B. Murphy Elementary School in Pearlington, Ms. The little town was totally wiped out by the storm, and it's people left without anything. The school was one of the only surviving structures in the town, and it's sweltering gymnasium was being used as a distribution point for clothing, food, water, and ice. Hot meals were given out, and medical attention for those that were injured (including my mom) could be gotten at a motor home parked outside.

We talked to survivors who walked in for help. We heard their stories, which took some of the weight off their shoulders. We asked if we could take their portraits. These are people, my people, who aren't used to having people care enough to take their picture. A few were too shy, or felt ashamed at the way they looked, with no sleep, no showers, no home. Most were happy to pose, and brought others.

I had brought a white backdrop to place behind the subjects, as I normally would with celebrities. But because of the hectic nature of the environment, with new supplies being brought in and moved, and people needing help, I decided to just use the gray cinderblock wall, to minimize my footprint and to be as mobile as possible. But I never intended to leave the cinderblocks in. It was important to me that these portraits looked crafted, cared for, and the institutional backdrop looked too much like mugshots. So, the extent of the retouching was removing the backdrop and replacing it with what I would have accomplished in-camera anyway, had the environment been more normal.

The faces were left unretouched, and beautiful.

Clothing Donations

2005-09-27T15:56:00.000-04:00

Donated Clothing, Midnight, the Parking Lot of Grace Church, Slidell, La.

After the storm hit many people were left with just the clothes on their backs, and what they could carry. You try living in the same clothes for a week, in a shelter, in 100 degree heat, 95% humidity, no air conditioning, and no running water. About a week later the first clothing donations started rolling in. And they kept rolling. Truckloads. Hallelujah.

There are, however, some strange things I noticed about the clothing donations. Of course all these observations are wrapped in the knowledge that donations are donations, and all clothing was appreciated. But I couldn't help wondering, as I watched the desperate people pick through the clothes, in some cases, what were the people who donated them thinking?

I saw boxes of corporate logo t-shirts, maybe originally intended for company picnics, I guess. It stuck me as odd, imagining all these smelly, desperate, sweaty homeless victims now wandering around, advertising for some office product wholesaler in Akron. "This disaster relief brought to you by OfficeCo!" I survived Katrina and all I got was this lousy XXL shirt, indeed.

I saw old lingerie. Single shoes. Torn clothing. Pit stains. Old sweat pants with skid marks. I thought, did these people just donate clothes they were going to throw out anyway? Beneficent recycling? Trash for the poor?

Victims were so desperate for underwear. And socks. And towels. There was none of that.

No one complained about anything. It was just me, cynical, crusty me. They were overjoyed by any help arriving, after being left alone at first. Beggars, after all, really can't be choosers, can they?

Mourning Mississippi

2005-09-27T15:42:00.002-04:00

"The mourning in Mississippi has begun in earnest. At the funeral homes that Hurricane Katrina did not destroy, there are waits up to four weeks to schedule services. Some families have chosen to skip the church eulogies and hold a simple graveside service. Cremation has become more popular.

As the detritus from the storm is cleared, the death toll could grow. The Army Corps of Engineers estimates that the hurricane left 18 million to 20 million cubic yards of debris in Mississippi alone, the equivalent of 200 football fields piled 50 feet high, and that it will take eight months to clear the roadways.

Coroners are hiring so-called spotters to check the landfills for signs of remains.

In Pass Christian, a stone plaque has been placed on the porch of what used to be the Harbour Oaks Inn. This inscription was on it:

Our hearts still ache in sadness,
and secret tears still flow.
What it meant to lose you,
no one will ever know."

From NYTimes: Portrait of Mississippi Victims

Ragged Hymnal

2005-09-27T03:25:00.000-04:00

Photographed as it rested, in the rubble of the Catholic church, Pearlington, MS.

Page 196: The Lord Is My True Shepherd
"The Lord is my true Shepherd, My needs and wants he knows;
Though I should walk in darkness No evil shall I fear;
His goodness and his kindness Shall ever follow me"

My sweet aunt and uncle still struggle in Slidell. There's eleven of them forced into one house now, with all the kids and in-laws. FEMA still has no timeline for temporary housing. A mythical program exists in the dreams and hushed whispers of victims waiting in the FEMA lines. Legend has it that FEMA has secured thousands of shiny white trailers for people to live in while the world is rebuilt. Trailer cities are coming for the homeless. An Eldorado with dwellings where only two people live in a room together. My aunt and uncle are on the List. Right now, lists are Life.

But she wonders how they're going to do it? The place across the street used to rent for $700, and now it's a steal at $1750. Somebody's making a killing. All the housing's blown away. Supply and demand. Carpetbagging a new Reconstruction.

"Can I do anything for you? Anything? What do you need?" I say.
"Pray for us, baby." She says.

But I never was much of a prayer.

Highway 90 Debris Field

2005-09-26T17:19:00.000-04:00

Debris stretches from the highway to the horizon along old Route 90 from New Orleans to Slidell, LA. Normally this marsh would be green reeds to the horizon. That brownish sludge in the lower right corner of the photograph is what's left of the reeds.

For scale: The little round circle in the lower left foreground? That's a tabletop, like you'd have on a backyard deck. That little white dot in the middle of the horizon? An overturned shrimp boat.

JR on Route 90

2005-09-26T16:26:00.000-04:00

JR had a small houseboat just off of Highway 90, or as locals call it "Old 90", the two-lane highway that hugs the marshes and inlets from New Orleans heading east, to the white beaches of Biloxi. His houseboat and shell-gravel yard was overrun with oddities and knick-knacks, a perpetual yard sale. He had a little fenced pit with a pig in it, and whenever you'd buy something from him and offer payment (whatever you wanted) he'd nod towards the pit and say "Give it to the pig."

JR's houseboat is long gone, and his knick-knacks washed away. No telling where the pig is. The block in the foreground says:

"JR if you come here please call me - Dorothy Gardner", and then, under that, a hurried postscript, "Hope you are alive, you was my best friend. 'Smile'"

My Mom's Bedroom

2005-09-26T14:22:00.000-04:00

King, Of The Rubble

2005-09-25T17:58:00.000-04:00

The Catholic church that once stood along the little highway that winds through Pearlington now exists as a small pile of rubble on either side of it. Broken pews and torn hymnals. Smashed statues of Jesus and bent altar rails. Like the rest of Pearlington, it smells like dust and mold and death.

A small pack of dogs now roam the former grounds of the church. They're hungry and dirty, and have largely reverted back to nature. The leader of the pack is this large golden dog, scruffy and proud, his snout swollen and bruised. I took to calling him King, because that's the way he acted, and was treated by his pack.

That's King, above, standing atop the rubble of the church, the Virgin Mary in the background and the swamps behind her. King's barking at some well-meaning animal rescue volunteers from Virginia who were trying to catch him and his pack. It was a fifteen minute stand-off, but in the end they ran off with their tails between their legs.

The animal rescue people, did, that is.

Pearlington Catholic Church

2005-09-25T17:33:00.000-04:00

All that's left of Pearlington's Catholic church is this chipped statue of the Virgin Mary, standing atop the steps that once led to its front door, a tattered songbook resting against her feet. Behind her you can see the foundation where it once stood. After the storm surge subsided the entire church, torn apart, came to rest in the two-lane county highway that serves as Pearlington's main street.

A few days later, parishioners moved Mary under a tree nearby, and arrayed a dozen or so folding chairs around her for Sunday services.

My mom's always been spiritual, when I was young it was in a vaguely Earth Mother hippy way, as she gets older it's getting more specifically Christian. She's still not a big formal churchgoer, but she refuses to accept my atheistic ways. She's always telling me that I'm a real Promise-Keeper, and that God's working through me with my art, and that it's just a question of time before I understand.

When I was kneeling down to take this picture my mom said to my girl, "See that? It's like he's praying."

And she wasn't wrong.

Broken Jesus

2005-09-25T03:05:00.000-04:00

Found by the side of the road, not far from the demolished Catholic church in Pearlington, MS.

Human Services

2005-09-24T15:31:00.000-04:00

My mom works for the State of Mississippi, helping distribute food stamps to the poor, and helping to make sure that dads pay child support. She makes $6.91 an hour before taxes, and she feels it's the best job she's ever had.

That's a picture of her in front of what was left of her office. After being torn apart by Category 4 winds, it was submerged under the water of a Category 4 storm surge (18-22 feet according to national officials, 24-28 feet according to locals). The front wall collapsed, and desks floated and came to rest on their sides. Her boss had a wooden swivel-chair in his office that had been handed down from his great-grandmother. It could be seen on it's side through the broken windows, covered in the swamp mud, molding and decrepit, office knick-knacks strewn around it. A bizarro office. An alternate reality.

The parking lot and sidewalk outside were caked in drying mud, cracking under the oppressive sun that had been baking us since the storm left. Strewn about were official documents that had been blown out of her office, torn and fading, some baked under the inch-thick dry mud, others resting on top.

A small contingent of National Guard troops, maybe six teens and their 24 year-old sergeant, were stationed at the other corner of the parking lot, with their humvee. We told them about the documents, and how my mom worked there, and how she was worried that the personal information might be used by identity thieves. One of the teens relayed this to his sergeant, who came back with a decisive Southern "Thank you ma'am we'll take care of it."

A few days later there was a state trooper from Orange County, California stationed in front of the office. A few days after that the office was bulldozed. My mom doesn't know where her $6.91 an hour dream job will go, now.

A torn marriage certificate bakes in the hot sun. It reads:
On this day celebrated the Rites of Matrimony between (torn)
Mr. Timothy Reed Cooke (torn)
Ms. Eileen Rene Tucker (torn)
Given under my hand, this the 25th day of June (torn)

I wonder where the happy newlyweds are now?

Katrina Survivors

2005-09-24T14:45:00.000-04:00

Billy Gray, 57, Pearlington, MS.

He was like long-lost family, baked skin, wearing only faded cut-off jean shorts, bare feet. He and my mom commiserated about how useless FEMA and the Red Cross are. He told my mom she would be better off leaving, "Get the hell out, keep going, don't look back, there's no help coming for us."

We last saw him sitting on the bleachers outside of Charles B. Murphy school in Pearlington, the aid distribution point manned by the National Guard. He was having a cigarette in the hot noon sun, and he winked at us as we said good luck.

Katrina, Is That All You Got?

2005-09-23T15:26:00.001-04:00

"Katrina, is that all you got? Come on back, you bitch!!!"

I guess this gets filed under "Be careful what you ask for," as Rita heads towards the Gulf Coast to take care of the few homes Katrina missed. Although I can't blame him, with his shattered home resting in a neighbors yard three houses down.

Once you've lost it all, what's left?

The Contents Of My Mom's Life

2005-09-22T23:41:00.000-04:00

My mom now owns:
1. The majority of her family photos and snapshots.
2. A minority of her cherished framed pictures (well, at least the small ones.)
3. My baby book and the baby shoes that all three of her sons have worn.
4. Inspirational notes she's written to herself.
5. Notes from me as a child telling her to not be depressed, because it's sunny outside.
6. My fingerpaintings.
7. A Taurus 38 Special revolver, loaded (blue-steel finish.)
8. Her purse.
9. The clothes on her back.

My little brother now owns:
1. An old wooden chess set.
2. A skateboard.
3. His CD collection (what's left of it), in an old zippered case.
4. A hand-me-down CD walkman.
5. His backpack.
6. The clothes on his back.

It all fits on a small coffee table.

Katrina Survivors

2005-09-22T17:03:00.001-04:00

Orealia Marshall, 45, Pearlington, MS. My mom started talking to her and her two children at the food aid center one hot afternoon. She, like many of the survivors, had a dazed and unfocused look in her eyes. Actually, it's more like a searching look, constantly casting about for something to hold onto. Unsure, and scanning for options. With just a hello, their stories flood out in a fast and desperate jumble of facts and details.

Orealia and her two children and a cousin survived by clinging to the branches of a tree. The cousin died the day after the disaster struck, and Orealia and her two children waited three days for officials to take the body.