Beyond Katrina

Katrina, Rita and the Houma: A Nation in Recovery

Reznet, the online newspaper for Native America, has been covering  the impact of the hurricanes of 2005 on Louisiana indigenous coastal tribes via a  year long project, "Katrina, Rita and the Houma". Journalism students Mary Hudetz, a Crow reporter from the University of Montana, and Martina Rose Lee, a Navajo photojournalist from Arizona State University, collaborated  with veteran  journalists Victor Merina, a former Los Angeles Times investigative reporter, and multimedia journalist Steven A. Chin to produce the special report.  See the special report, here.

An anonymous commenter at the Reznet website posts the following:

• Bayou Landfall: The Houma Nation vs. The Hurricanes is a documentary that chronicles the struggles of The United Houma Nation after the hurricanes swept ashore on the Louisiana coast. The film has been shown internationally and won the 2006 Alan Fortunoff Humanitarian award at the Long Island International Film Festival. Please visit www.snowflakevideo.com for more information about Leslye Abbey's films.
• Bayou Landfall will be screened at the Global Green Indigenous Film Festival in Santa Fe, New Mexico on Friday, April 18, 2008, 10 AM at the Santa Fe Film Center at Cinema Cafe, 1616 St. Michael's Drive and again on Sunday, April 20, 2008, 4 PM at the Center for Contemporary Arts, 1050 Old Pecos Trail, Santa Fe. For additional festival details, please visit: www.globalgreenfilmfestival.com

John Verret, Bayou du Large, LA. (c) Matthew White

Louisiana coastal photographer Matthew White was in Terrebonne Parish last fall documenting  endangered landscapes  inhabited by the Houma Indians and other native coastal tribes  with traditional guide, Captain John Verret.  To see Matthew's photographs of Terrebonne Parish go here. (click the X upper right of slides if you prefer to view captioned photos.)

Call for Speakers/Ideas: Katrina Event in Houston, Texas

I am working on a Katrina/Rita related program or event for a Foreign Media Tour of Houston, Texas ---March 5-7. The theme is how Americans view health care, the economy, and immigration in an election year. Since Houston is a  major gulf coast city that has also been impacted by the hurricanes of 2005,  there may be room in the schedule for a Katrina/Rita related program.  If you are a Katrina survivor who has relocated to Houston, or an individual or group working on behalf of Hurricane Katrina recovery issues,  I would like to speak with  you regarding  ideas  for this event. This is a great  opportunity to support the cause - i.e. to brief the foreign media  and help them better understand  issues and challenges related to ongoing gulf coast hurricane issues as well as recovery and rebuilding efforts post-Katrina.  If you have an interesting idea or contribution to make towards this endeavor,  please contact me at beyondkatrina@gmail.com.

Margaret Saizan
Beyond Katrina: The Voice of Hurricane & Disaster Recovery
www.hurricane-katrina.org.

help foreign political reporters better understand the role of local and state governments, parties, and lobbying organizations in U.S. elections.  To deepen the reporters’ understanding of the 2008 contest, the tour will also focus on key issues that both parties and all candidates are debating:  the economy, immigration, and health care. 

Hurricane Katrina - Two Years Later

Time Magazine has published a special Hurricane Katrina second anniversary feature. Well worth the read. Check it out here.

Children of New Orleans: Still Weathering the Storm

In July 2006, almost a year after Hurricane Katrina, Gulf South Summer Youth Action Camp opened to give students returning to New Orleans a safe place to go. The camp staff knew that engaging youth who had endured a year of hardship would be a challenge, so they created a special film class where students could learn to express themselves through an exciting medium and gain valuable skills in emerging technology and a media. This 24-minute documentary film, takes the emotional and physical journey with the students as they explore and capture for the first time the effects Katrina had on their lives and environments. More information here.

Movie Set in Post-Katrina New Orleans Takes Top Prize at Columbia University

Columbia University’s School of the Arts Film Division, one of the nation’s leading graduate programs for filmmaking, concluded its 20th annual film festival on Thursday night, May 10 with the top award of the evening, the Onion Best Film Award, going to "The Second Line," written and directed by John Magary and produced by Geoffrey Quan, both Columbia MFA candidates. More here.

Adventures of a Roving Ethnographer (5)

Our Lady of Tickfaw

By: Maida Owens

After lunch on the northshore of Lake Pontchartrain, friend Daria Woodside and I headed north and into an area that historically was more influenced by Anglo- and African-American culture. In addition to a shift in culture is a change in soil and vegetation, too. The soil becomes reddish clay with pine trees dominating. This is Upland South culture of small farms.

We go to Our Lady of Tickfaw, a Marian apparition site just north of Hammond, La. Alfredo Raimondo, an Italian immigrant and visionary, along with his wife Vita care for this five-acre site. I photographed the site in the mid 1990s.

Our Lady of Tickfaw-  "Alfredo Praying"

Since 1989, individuals and community groups have placed shrines on his land commemorating apparitions.

Our Lady of Tickfaw,-  "Blessing of St. Ann"

Feast days attracted hundreds of people.

Our Lady of Tickfaw - Entrance

Comparing the photos from the 1990s to now, the wear is evident. Even before Katrina, upkeep was taxing his resources, but since Katrina, it is even difficult just to keep it mowed. This is too far from

Lake Pontchartrain to have been affected by the storm surge and salt water, but this area had many tornadoes and wind damage. They, too, lost many trees.

Our Lady of Tickfaw - Rosary Garden

Our Lady of Tickfaw -VinePost

Our Lady of Tickfaw - Guadalupe Post

Vita runs a small shop on the property. Since Katrina, they have had to move in to part of it. There are still so many people living in situations that they never imagined before the storms. They used to have a website, but that isn’t available since the storms. For some more background info, see http://www.mcn.org/1/miracles/motherz.htm. Scroll down to Louisiana.

There’s another labyrinth north of Tickfaw in Louisiana, in Inspiration Park on Memorial Garden. It’s a cemetery with several prayer areas, a labyrinth being just one of them. Aimee Dominique, a labyrinth facilitator in Lafayette, helped him build the labyrinth. Daria and I visited it about a year ago, but we’ve run out of time today.

To Be Continued...

About Maida Owens

A cultural anthropologist and a native Louisianian who cares deeply about her home state, Maida Owens has been director of the Louisiana Folklife Program, www.louisianafolklife.org, since 1988. She has curated exhibits and websites, authored and edited books and articles, produced videos, and created educational materials on Louisiana’s many traditional cultures. She works with organizations and researchers to identify traditional artists and determine the most appropriate way to present folk musicians, storytellers, craftsmen, and traditional cooks to the public. She has worked with hundreds of folk artists from Louisiana's diverse cultures. Her work takes her throughout the state and in the process, she has photographed Louisiana’s people and landscapes. Maida Owens’ fine prints are available by contacting her at maidaowens@cox.net.

All images are the property of Maida Owens and may not be linked to another website, copied, or reproduced without permission.

What would America be like without New Orleans?

Bravo to PBS, director Steven Ives, and the folks behind "American Experience: New Orleans,” a two-hour program focusing on the distinctive city’s past and how it relates to its present. I applaud this effort because while there is a real need  to raise awareness for the very real, dire, and extreme  conditions and challenges the city faces post-katrina its important to put that in its larger context.   Ives told the Baton Rouge Advocate  "when you drive for block after block after block after block, then it really begins to sink in. And the enormity of the catastrophe and the enormity of the challenge of trying to recover really begins to make itself plain".

I truly understand the difficulty in communicating this. When I talk to folks from afar it becomes quickly evident that even those  who want to understand the situation in NOLA - indeed the Louisiana-Mississippi  Gulf Coast really don't. And at the same time I've always sought  to create a balance here between the  need to raise  that awareness while also communicating the  wonderful zeitgeist and genus loci of these unique places and their need  to be preserved.

And always the questions loom, these more focused on Louisiana than anywhere else, and particularly  New Orleans...why should we rebuild? Why does it matter?  Photographer and Beyond Katrina contributor Matthew White once told me he sometimes feels that he has to defend his decision to live here. It's true we've heard the comments on the news --- Some paint New Orleans as a silly place and wonder why any one in their right minds would choose to live in a soup bowl below sea level.  And then there are those in  the "why should the nation help build New Orleans?" camp.  So the need to frame up the reasons  in context of the bigger picture is great. And it's taken me sixteen months of blogging to paint that picture, and I wonder at times if my effort doesn't fall miserably short.

Now  I have not viewed the film yet, and cannot comment on it as a creative work, however I am delighted that PBS "gets it" and that they have  tackled this big  question in a documentary. To read more about the documentary, American Experience,  see this article at  The Baton Rouge Advocate. I hope I get the opportunity to preview it soon --- watch for additional commentary.

BTW, the link  to the official page at  PBS for American Experience is currently not working. When I tried to click it, I was taken to a page about a different documentary.  As soon as it corrected  I'll whip up another post with the corrected link. In the meantime, you can go to www.pbs.org   to order the DVD from  the  main page. 

Katrina documentary focuses on animals

Director Screens Film at LSU

Now here's some news that I find interesting because it focuses on topics I am passionate about ---Katrina, grassroots media, a good story, and (as the Native Americans call them), "the four leggeds".  Folks may not realize that Katrina created  the nation's largest pet evacuation  with over  50,000 animals abandoned. The pet saga was one of the most horrific aspects of the katrina disaster for me personally--- It definitely contributed to my own feelings of shock, helplessness, and consternation as I witnessed its unfolding in those dark, chaotic days when NOLA was submerged.

At any rate long tail** filmmaker and photo-journalist  Mike Shiley  was at LSU  yesterday   to screen his film "Dark Water Rising: Survival Stories of Hurricane Katrina Animal Rescues," a documentary about animal rescues during those early harrowing days after the storm. The story behind the story is quite interesting and it definitely validates the rise of personal, independent media - a movement I am also deeply passionate about. 

Armed with a homemade press pass Shiley left his home in Portland Oregon three weeks post-Katrina and headed to NOLA in search of a good story--and he found it. Five years earlier  Shiley left cubicle nation (Corporate America)  to pursue his passion: "voluntarily placing his life in danger in order to tell the story". Now this to me describes a true visionary and a person after my own heart.  Not only because folks like me  and Shiley seem to be configured in some strange way to gravitate toward disaster, but because  in my view the epitome of a well lived life is to pursue one's vision with passion and conviction ---where there is no vision the people perish.

BTW,  Shiley has traveled to 38 countries, creating documentaries for the past five years.The Daily Reveille reports here.   I would like to add, however,  that I  do not agree with Shiley's assertion  that the   "the mainstream media has failed us." In my humble opinion mainstream  media stepped up to the plate bigger than ever before during Katrina ---Reporters showed their humanity in the face of the crisis  and I found it very comforting.  A "we're-all-in-this-thing-together mood" seemed to prevail in journalism at least for this time and it helped get me through. And I feel that the most  intriguing aspect of our times  is precisely the convergence of  mainstream media and grass roots, independent media---what might be birthed out of this intersection is something that I feel will transcend but include them both.  Differences in opinions aside, Shiley's story is quite amazing.

**Often presented as a phenomenon of interest primarily to mass market retailers and web-based businesses, the Long Tail also has implications for the producers of content, especially those whose products could not - for economic reasons - find a place in pre-Internet information distribution channels controlled by book publishers, record companies, movie studios, and television networks. Looked at from the producers' side, the Long Tail has made possible a flowering of creativity across all fields of human endeavour. (Source Wikipedia)

A.D. New Orleans: After the Deluge

When the levees broke, nothing was the same for New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge is about surviving Hurricane Katrina — and what happened next in the lives of a cross-section of Crescent City residents. Told in webcomic form, Josh Neufeld’s A.D. is presented by SMITH magazine.

Now Available on DVD: "Katrina - South Mississippi's Story"

Katrina - South Mississippi's Story

 WLOX-TV is offering "a look at Hurricane Katrina and what it did to South Mississippi through dramatic video, archived newscasts, and interviews with survivors". You can order it here.

Katrina Recovery Overshadows the Election

msnbc.com's excellent Katrina feature "Rising from Ruin" has some good coverage on the state of the union along the gulf coast as citizens here focus on election day. You can catch it here. Be sure to check out the excellent video interviews of gulf coast citizens sharing their views. If you're not sure how things are going in "Katrinaville", this will surely bring you up to speed. 

Louisiana: A Series of Photo-Essays (2)

"Pilottown"

by: Matthew White

Pilottown is the last manned outpost on the Mississippi River, located two miles above Head of Passes, the point where the Mississippi ends and splits off into various smaller channels that empty into the Gulf of Mexico. (See maps: google, yahoo, and/or mapquest.) Accessible only by boat, Pilottown has been the base of operations for the Associated Branch Pilots, who take smaller boats out into the Gulf to meet large ships and guide them into the mouth of the Mississippi at Southwest Pass. Reaching Pilottown, the Crescent City Pilots jump on board and steer the ships up to New Orleans. Although the pilots lived with their families in Pilottown until the the 1960's, they changed to a system of rotating two-week shifts so they do not have to be permanently situated in such a remote location.

Several large buildings make up the pilot headquarters, along with many small camp-homes built on pilings alongside a raised concrete pier that runs the length of the town. Though in the late 19th century Pilottown had a population of near 800 people, the numbers slowly diminished over time, leaving a permanent population of only a dozen or so by the year 2000. The one-room schoolhouse had closed by the 1970's, and though Pilottown still has an official zip code (78001), the post office was closed by the late 1980's when the US Post Office couldn't find anyone willing to live there year-round. Too many hurricanes, including hits from Betsy in 1965 and Camille in 1969, caused many Pilottown families to move upriver; the only remaining residents are those who sought out extreme isolation, or older folks who were born and raised there and couldn't imagine leaving it behind.

I first discovered Pilottown around the age of 12, when I used to read maps as a hobby; I remember trying to imagine what life would be like in such a remote locale, and always said to myself I would visit there some day...if I could ever find a way.

During my first photo shoots of lower Plaquemines Parish, I began stopping by local marinas to ask if anyone would be willing to take me to Pilottown for a small bribe, but plans were usually thwarted due to wind picking up, or other times captains would have their hands full with chartered boatloads of anglers ready to go out and hit deep water.

It wasn't until early January of 2005 that I got lucky on a day when I drove down to the delta with my stepson in tow, determined to find a way to Pilottown.

Stopping at the Venice Marina, I asked at the check-out counter if anyone was around who'd be willing to go to Pilottown for the day. After the requisite stare of suspicion -- (I suppose it's not easy to immediately trust a long-haired punk with two cameras around his neck creeping around a marina) -- the check-out girl made a phone call and told me to wait outside. Within ten minutes I was approached by a man named Brandon who spent his days taking duck hunters out into the marsh or ferrying fishermen down to Port Eads at South Pass. By chance, his charter cancelled and he had the day off. He put his boat in the water, we jumped in, and were off. I remember feeling very anxious; I first thought of doing this in my early teens and now it was all about to happen. "Never done this before," said Brandon with a wry smile, as we scooted out through the Venice Jump and out into the Mississippi.

It was an unusually balmy January day, about 80 degrees as I remember, although when we got out into the river the temperature suddenly dropped about 30 degrees. We headed downriver; it was a very windy and pretty bumpy ride, but I couldn't stop smiling -- I was already in my south Louisiana dream mode. Brandon headed south for seven miles, sticking close to the west bank, then stopping to wait for a northbound oil tanker to pass us. We turned left and shot across the river, jumping the tanker wake. I turned my head right and could see Mile Zero on the Mississippi, and the entrances to three major passes which take ships into the blue water of the Gulf. When I turned back, the temperature suddenly shot up thirty degrees again, and there was Pilottown. We made it.

I remember jumping out of the boat and running down the pier like a kid who had just been cut loose for summer vacation. Now on the concrete walkway, I took a few shots of the Associated Branch Pilot house.

Bar Pilot Headquarters, January 2005

Two men who were talking on the front porch spotted me, so I decided I'd better go introduce myself so as not to appear rude. After all, we weren't invited here. The tall man who reminded me of Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now introduced himself, saying "Welcome to our island," then took us inside and introduced us to the rest of the Bar Pilots, who were sitting around watching TV, waiting for the next boat call. We were offered a free lunch and shown around the headquarters, (where they eat & sleep), and how they get it done in Pilottown. Though I still can't remember the Duvall man's real name, I haven't forgotten what a gracious host he was. He went back to his business, and we headed back out to the walkway, where I spent the rest of our time taking shots along the way.

Overgrown and green even in January, the grass and vines line the raised walkway that stretches about a mile along the riverbank. Secluded camps, some owned by the Bar Pilots, were all along the path. A good third of them were abandoned by families who used to live in Pilottown generations ago, and some were completely overtaken by weeds.

abandoned Pilottown home, January 2005

I did encounter two people who had lived their whole lives there -- the first was a woman in her late 70's who ran occasional errands for the Bar Pilots and was the last of her family still living on the island; the second was a disheveled man, obsessed with his need for privacy and isolation, who had a few rude comments of the you-don't-belong-here variety after he saw me taking pictures near his house. Good riddance said I, and moved on to get some more shots of the old schoolhouse, which had been purchased and carefully preserved by a former full- time resident who made occasional trips there for recreation. I didn't want to leave, but we'd left Brandon sitting on the pier for quite some time now, and we had to get back. As we slowly left Pilottown, I snapped away the rest of my film, figuring it might be a long time before I got back here.

View of Pilottown village, January 2005

Brandon took a more scenic route back as we headed north, diverting into the wetlands off Main Pass, which although being an indescribably complex expanse of criss-cross canals, Brandon seemed to know like the back of his hand. Here were more "secret" camps built out in the marshes, tucked away around some corner somewhere, a good place to be if you didn't want anyone to ever find you. After making what seemed like a giant U-turn, we entered what I am fairly certain was Emeline Pass, which took us back to the Mississippi, directly across the river from Venice. Brandon gave me his card; perhaps, he said, he could take me back again, when the Bar Pilots might let me spend a few nights if I helped out in the kitchen a little bit.

Head of Passes, mouth of the Mississippi River - January, 2005

Seven months later, the right front quadrant of Hurricane Katrina passed over Pilottown, vaporizing all but three or four of the camp homes; the large house which served as Bar Pilot headquarters, that survived Betsy and Camille, was hit badly by Katrina, being pushed backward off of its foundation several yards or so. The water had gotten up to the first foor ceiling, perhaps 20 feet off of the ground. The Crescent City Pilots house stood still, but was flooded out and wind-damaged. ( View "After Katrina" at barpilots.com.) Although the Bar Pilots were able to resume operations only a few days after the storm, allowing ships to enter the Mississippi, bringing aid to Louisiana, they had now set up temporary headquarters in Venice, as Pilottown was in ruins.

It wasn't until July of 2006 that I was able to meet up with them again, knocking on their door in Venice to give them a few prints of the January 2005 visit. Duvall-Man was there again, and he told me that although it was the toughest decision the Bar Pilots ever had to make, they had chosen to rebuild in Venice, abandoning Pilottown and leaving behind a tradition which lasted over 100 years. It was getting harder to maintain phone and internet service down there, he said. Since there was no more general store and tavern in Pilottown, someone was always having to head upriver to Venice to get something. And there were just too many hurricanes; Katrina was the final straw. Again, he was his usual engaging self -- polite and confident. I had to admire this man; you try jumping off of a moving vessel onto a rope ladder hanging over the side of an oil tanker some time.

Although I've heard that the Crescent City Pilots are looking into keeping their house at Pilottown, the future is still at this point uncertain. (see this article.) I have no idea where the few permanent residents of Pilottown are now, but I doubt they will ever make it home again. Pilottown now sits alone and abandoned on the lower Mississippi, torn to pieces by Katrina, the weeds growing over where the camps used to be, alongside the concrete pier that now leads to nowhere.

To view more of Matthew White's photo-essays at Beyond Katrina, go here.

About Matthew White

Matthew White is a native New Yorker who made Louisiana his home and his artistic focus in 2000. For five years he photographed nearly every notable location on the Louisiana coast. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita changed the landscape, but not Matthew’s vision and desire to show Louisiana’s unique beauty. While hundreds of others have documented the tragedy wrought by the storms, Matthew’s body of work captures the beauty that the storms of 2005 could not erase. Rather than clichéd incongruity and depressing devastation, Matthew’s photos capture a landscape touched by and triumphing over catastrophe. Matthew shares the same vision as blogger Margaret Saizan, looking “Beyond Katrina,” and lending a silent voice to disaster and recovery.

All Images are property of M.W. and may not be linked to another website, copied, or reproduced without permission. To see more photographs visit his website at http://rigolets.blogspot.com/. Matthew White’s fine prints are available through gymnopedies13@yahoo.com.

Louisiana

A Series of Photo-Essays by Matthew White

CSX Turnbridge - the point where Katrina made its *final* landfall (around 9am on 8/29/05).

Hurricane Katrina's first landfall occurred at Buras in Plaquemines Parish, around 6 a.m. on August 29th, 2005. After traveling north across east St. Bernard Parish for the next few hours, Katrina made its second and final landfall on the Louisiana- Mississippi state line at the mouth of the Pearl River.

The easternmost part of Orleans Parish is a sparsely inhabited maze of wetlands separating Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne, with many navigable canals that tend to lead eastward toward the Louisiana-Mississippi frontier. Cutting east- southeast through the marsh is the Rigolets, at one time the main by-sea entrance to New Orleans, albeit through the back door, to the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain at Elysian Fields. Once across the Rigolets, Honey Island swamp sprawls out in what is the southernmost portion of St. Tammany Parish; the Pearl River, winding southward through Honey Island toward Lake Borgne and Mississippi Sound, marks the LA-MS state border. (See maps, screen shot, interactive & satellite imagery).

Little Lake

This area, collectively known as the East New Orleans Land Bridge, was essentially my playground during the summer of 2005, leading up to “Katrina Day” on August 29th. Living with my family in a camp-style home in the Lake Catherine community -- a nine-mile long island between the Rigolets and Chef Menteur Pass -- I remember that particular summer being noticeably on the stormy side. Daily thunderstorms in New Orleans are the norm in summer, but this summer was already quite different. We had already been through Hurricane Cindy, the Cat-1 surprise that passed right through the land bridge on the night of July 5th. I kept the night watch while everyone else slept; I remember we somehow never lost power that night on the island, even though the wind was shaking the house at around 2 in the morning.

Only five days later, we had a close shave from Hurricane Dennis, which struck near Pensacola, Florida. This time it turned out just to be a very windy and gloomy afternoon; I watched landfall on the Weather Channel. On most other days that summer, I remember sitting on the back porch, looking out onto Lake Pontchartrain, watching the thunderheads slowly drift by, pummeling the I-10 twin span or somewhere near Slidell.

In between thunderstorms, on good days, I'd grab the camera, hop in the boat, and head out into the wetlands maze, looking for a few good shots. Boating in this area seems to occur mostly on Saturdays and Sundays, when people break out the Jet- Skis or something bigger and pleasure- cruise in the Rigolets, or head further out to fishing holes near Lake Borgne or in Unknown Pass, which connects the Intracoastal Waterway with Lake St. Catherine. But on weekdays, afternoon or evening, it's virtually deserted. I would cruise the various passes and waterways, sometimes venturing out into Lake Borgne if the wind was calm enough. Situated along the CSX rail line, which runs east-west from New Orleans through the land bridge into Mississippi, were a noticeable number of what I used to call "secret" camps; hideaway hunting or fishing camps built out in the marsh, accessible only by boat. Some were quite nice, some slightly damaged with rusted tin roofs, others obviously abandoned many years ago.

Abandoned Camps, Unknown Pass, Lake Catherine 7/05

The area is a good place if you are seeking solitude; that's part of the attraction. But it's also a reason to be cautious. I've often wondered about what may have happened out here over the years, and I admit that I find it fairly fascinating that this area is basically beyond the reach of the law; you could do pretty much anything out here, and no one would ever know. There have been times where I've been out there for an entire afternoon and never seen another boat.

On August 12, 2005, after dinner, I took off in my little 17-ft. Bayliner with the intention of finding and taking a few shots of the CSX railroad bridge, a turn bridge that crosses the Pearl just before it makes its final turn into Lake Borgne, on the state line. Almost at the end of the Rigolets, I cut left into Little Lake. Very shallow and egg-shaped, Little Lake allows access into the Pearl while avoiding Lake Borgne. More like a big pond rather than a little lake, there is a deeper channel cut through the center marked by lighted red and green towers. Even though it looks simple on a map, it is sometimes hard to navigate Little Lake. On extremely humid evenings with the sun to your back, the haze becomes thick enough to obscure the horizon, which automatically causes me to lose my internal sense of direction. This evening was one where I had to keep my eyes on the towers. Finally entering the Pearl, the water becomes suddenly upwards of 50 feet deep and smooth as silk. Around a corner, the CSX bridge can be seen.

I decided to stop the motor and let the current push me slowly toward and underneath the bridge so I could get out the camera and start clicking away. It wasn't until I got underneath the bridge and on the other side that the good shot popped out, looking back into the hazy sun, with the bridge now just a silhouette. On that evening, I thought that this particular place held a lot of power -- here in a boat, straddling the state border at the mouth of a river spilling into Lake Borgne. It was very quiet, with not much wind; just peace and solitude. I dropped the anchor and stayed there for a while to make it count. Unknown to anyone at the time, in just over two weeks, the center of Katrina's eye would pass directly over this bridge as she made her final landfall, burying the Mississippi coast and the entire East New Orleans Land Bridge in the storm surge.

Heading back across Little Lake and west into the Rigolets, I made it to the camp at Lake Catherine right at sunset, where I soon spent another lazy night sitting out on the back porch, watching the thunderheads rolls by on the lake, hammering the North Shore. Katrina was coming.

To be Continued...

About Matthew White

Matthew White is a native New Yorker who made Louisiana his home and his artistic focus in 2000. For five years he photographed nearly every notable location on the Louisiana coast. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita changed the landscape, but not Matthew’s vision and desire to show Louisiana’s unique beauty. While hundreds of others have documented the tragedy wrought by the storms, Matthew’s body of work captures the beauty that the storms of 2005 could not erase. Rather than clichéd incongruity and depressing devastation, Matthew’s photos capture a landscape touched by and triumphing over catastrophe. Matthew shares the same vision as blogger Margaret Saizan, looking “Beyond Katrina,” and lending a silent voice to disaster and recovery.

All Images are property of M.W. and may not be linked to another website, copied, or reproduced without permission. To see more photographs visit his website at http://rigolets.blogspot.com/. Matthew White’s fine prints are available through gymnopedies13@yahoo.com.