My plea for New Orleans’ Hurricane Ida recovery

Hello from New Orleans where I am doing hurricane relief and wetlands conservation for an organization called Common Ground.

My story with the organization actually starts 15 years ago in August of 2006 when I graduated college and followed the tide of a lot of my peers who began their adult lives (at least temporarily) moving away from the DC area of their homes. I headed down to New Orleans driven by the vivid and disturbing images of Hurricane Katrina. Experiencing and impacting history seemed more appealing at the time than hanging around with my parents and dropping off resumes. I spent a little under 2 months working as a volunteer in Saint Bernard Parish with Camp Hope and then Common Ground in the middle of the 9th Ward of New Orleans.

My trip however if I didn’t see Katrina’s damage up close and learn about its effect on people. Part of this was simply accomplished by being down there in person and opening your eyes. I soon realized that the extent of the affected area was so vast that it would take hundreds upon hundreds of pictures to convey the destruction of what I was seeing.

The other part was listening to the affected people. The very first New Orleans citizen I met was the cab driver who picked me up from the airport reminded me from Howard Beale from the film “Network” in his “mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore” diatribe. Like…