Curious Tourists Examine Disaster Areas
A tourist from Charleston, S.C. takes a picture of an upended car in a back yard in New Orleans. He drove to the city just to take pictures of the damage. Rolando Arrieta, NPR hide caption
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Hurricane Katrina dealt a body blow to New Orleans' main industry, tourism. But now a group of curiosity seekers are trickling into the city to see and photograph the damage done by the storms.
JENNIFER LUDDEN, host:
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jennifer Ludden.
More than two months after Hurricane Katrina hit, tourists are trickling back to New Orleans. Some are drawn to the traditional hedonistic attractions of Bourbon Street, but others want to gawk at the dramatic sad scenes of a disaster zone. NPR's Rolando Arrieta reports.
ROLANDO ARRIETA reporting:
On a sunny Sunday afternoon in New Orleans' Lakeview neighborhood, there's a steady stream of cars moving slowly through the streets.
(Soundbite of traffic)
Unidentified Man: ...in the town.
ARRIETA: Lakeview is where the 17th Street Canal levee broke flooding thousands of homes. Since the area reopened, people from all over are cruising by to see and to take pictures of upended cars, crumbled roofs and piles of rotting furniture on the curbside. Gloria Manswa(ph) is from outside New Orleans. She's in a red convertible with the top down, holding the steering wheel with one hand and a video camera with the other.
Ms. GLORIA MANSWA (Tourist): It's sad, but it's something you want to see, you know, before they clean it all up. You want to see it because it's like a once-in-a lifetime event.
ARRIETA: There's still a lot of cleanup to do and plenty of pictures to take, and that's why Brian Dolphin(ph) is in town. He drove in from Charleston, South Carolina, and says he's building a personal collection of Katrina photos and he's being pretty aggressive about it.
Mr. BRIAN DOLPHIN (Tourist): I've been taking a lot of pictures of the damage, like a lot of the boats in the yards and stuff like that. I've been going into people's houses and just kind of looking at what they've left behind, stuff like that.
ARRIETA: Dolphin calls himself an amateur, but he's prepared with a high-tech digital camera, a huge zoom lens and safety gear.
Mr. DOLPHIN: This is a debris and particle mask so that I don't breathe in any mold or anything.
ARRIETA: The mold is thick inside some of these houses and it can be dangerous, but that doesn't seem to deter the visitors from checking out the devastation at least from the outside.
(Soundbite of traffic and horns)
ARRIETA: Some sightseers even arrive in organized groups. On this day, it's the Down and Dirty Scooter Rally. This year, the agenda includes what they call a city gawking tour. Jack Vogel, a local member of the scooter club, says he understands the sense of attraction to the damage.
Mr. JACK VOGEL (Scooter Club): Yeah, people lost everything and now it's just a spectacle to them, the tourists, not the people who lost everything, obviously. I mean, it's a spectacle to us. That's why we're here, you know?
ARRIETA: Yet some Lakeview residents like Mignon Marcello(ph) have mixed emotions about the tourists trolling through her neighborhood.
Ms. MIGNON MARCELLO (Resident, New Orleans): You know, I don't understand why people want to see other people's misery, but in the same token, they're trying to get a feel for, you know, what took place. And really you can't--pictures and TV don't do it justice. You literally have to come down here and see for yourself and it's quite shocking.
(Soundbite of heavy machinery backing up)
ARRIETA: In Lakeview, rebuilding efforts are slowly under way. Contractors hold up street signs to direct the car traffic and they often smile and wave while drivers inch forward and stop to take that perfect shot. Cynthia Allen(ph) drove more than 90 miles for her own set of pictures.
Ms. CYNTHIA ALLEN (Tourist): Everybody you see out here's doing that, you know? Everybody's making photo albums of Katrina, you know? I guess I'll make me one, too. And that's what I'm doing, taking pictures of all the damage. It's curiosity, you know?
ARRIETA: Curiosity may continue to draw more visitors to Lakeview and other neighborhoods devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Some residents think the city should build a memorial where the levee broke at the 17th Street Canal and that way tourists who visit New Orleans would not only have a photo op on Bourbon Street or Cafe Du Monde but also on a permanent landmark that pays tribute to the city's loss.
Rolando Arrieta, NPR News.
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