New Orleans Day 1 (4/20)

I was in New Orleans for four days and change; now I've been back for four days and change. And I've only just made it to a place that I can start to unpack from my head the significant experience that was the Touro Student Hurricane Network's NOLA III trip. For Touro, this is the third time (thus NOLA III) that it's sent its SHN network down to New Orleans. Each time, between 20 and 30 enthusiastic students have gone on the trip.

As someone who grew up a stone's throw from New Orleans, I have wondered, truthfully, how much of the enthusiasm was about doing good and how much was about Bourbon Street and the French Quarter. The further you live from New Orleans, the more likely you are to regard Bourbon Street as a genuine vacation destination. Granted, I always traveled in a particularly dorky circle, but New Orleans seemed like too much effort to just end up sleeping on the bathroom floor at the end of the night. In college and law school, I thought I'd demonstrated sufficiently that I could do that from the comfort of my own apartment. So that's the bias I carried with me to New Orleans.

The other bias I carried with me was that no one who hadn't experienced Katrina and its aftermath firsthand could ever fully understand what happened and how intentional -- or at least reckless -- some of the destruction and diaspora-creation was. I had been at the Astrodome as bus after bus of Gulf Coast evacuees came in, and I saw how devastating the flood caused by levee breaches had been on the residents (to say that this was the result of a hurricane doesn't put responsibility where it goes -- to me, this will always be the 2005 Levee Failure, at least where New Orleans is concerned).

I was wrong, wrong, wrong about the students on both counts and am reminded once again that I should have donated my righteous indignation to a worthy cause before I left Houston -- I have very little occasion for it in New York. While students definitely wouldn't hit you over the head for offering them a drink, that wasn't their primary motivation for coming to New Orleans. That became abundantly clear as 30 students (and three faculty members) showed up in the early mornings to assemble with their teams, bleary-eyed at times (not the faculty), but ready to go do some good.

I should have known better when I realized that my plane ticket, arranged for by Touro's SHN and paid for by my generous dean, had me leaving with the rest of the group from JFK at 7:35 a.m. We clearly weren't trying to get there just in time for happy hour. In fact, the leader of Touro's SHN, Ray Malone, had arranged for us to tour the Lower 9th Ward and check in with Common Ground to see what progress had been made with their legal clinic specifically and with other operations generally. Only after we had the lay of the land would the students be set free for some down time.

First, Daniel -- Malik Rahim's assistant -- took us down the Lower 9th Ward to see the current state of the levees down there. There's definitely some new levee building down in the Lower 9th, but not exactly what's needed from what we saw. As long as the next rush of water asks politely in which direction it should go will the levees hold back the water. Daniel took us to a platform that had been built so people could get a better view of the levee system that "protects" the Lower 9th as well as a better view of the Lower 9th itself. You'll notice in the pictures large expanses of undeveloped land. Those are lots that used to hold houses. They've since been razed, and

Common Ground is working hard to make sure that the landowners for those lots are able to come home and rebuild.

The students were appropriately appalled as they heard stories about what happened in the immediate aftermath of the levee breaches. Students who had been to New Orleans on previous SHN trips were able to talk about the difference in New Orleans since the first trip last year and the second trip earlier this year.

About 1/3 of the group would be there until Thursday; the rest would be there until Saturday. We were divided into teams for a variety of projects. I was in the team assigned to Common Ground's Legal Clinic in the Lower 9th, an organization that had previously occupied a converted school bus. Everyone who had worked in the school bus was excited to see a bricks and mortar building to work in, even if didn't yet have air conditioning (which was already necessary in Louisiana's oppressive "spring" heat). We also had two teams working on a mapping project in St. Bernard Parish, the purpose of which was to determine who lived in the houses that were habitable and who lived in the houses that were in various states of repair or disrepair. This is part of a concerted effort to bring residents back to New Orleans. We had a team working on various legal issues at New Orleans Legal Assistance Center and another at the Alliance for Affordable Energy.

In addition to the dedicated students on the trip, Prof. Marjorie Silver, Prof. Louise Harmon, and I were there to do what we could. It was good for us to be able to sit back and let the students take the lead. We were the rookies for a change; it was definitely the students' show.

Up next: Day 2 in which we get started at Common Ground and find a "charge" for the week!