Museums

Outer Blog:

Standing in front of the St. Louis Cathedral two identical buildings can be seen seen on either side, The Cabildo to the left and The Presbytere. Looking at these buildings you would never imagine that they are museums and not government buildings. The reason for this is that they used to be government buildings, Cabildo translates to town hall which was its original purpose and the Presbytere was used supposed to be used as a home for the priest. The Presbytere museum holds an exhibit that tells the story of a great tragedy in New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina. Walking into the dimly lit corridor the sounds of the news broad cast can be heard. Rounding the first corner can be found signs in order describing how the tragedy unfolded. A TV broad casting the news broad casts is strategically placed over the signs describing how quickly Katrina moved through the gulf, transitioning from a tropical storm into a category five hurricane.

Rounding the next corner stand three large screens playing images of the flooding that was so deep tops of homes could barely be seen, the winds ripping through houses and the city, and water flooding up the stairs as people try to quickly move into the upper levels of their homes. The video was overlapped by audio of a woman telling her story, "we were trapped in the attic, five pieces of bread were the only food that did not get wet, and we survived for days of one bottle of water between the two of us....we knew we had to get out, it was getting so hot, we would die, he broke through the attic roof and we were finally able to climb out onto the roof...". The exhibit continues on in this manner with signs talking about peoples stories, the break down in communication, the terrible conditions people were faced with in the dome, how the emergency system failed and how the catastrophe was due to poor engineering designs that failed.

However, even through all this devastation there were countless stories about how average people helped their fellow neighbor, when emergency crews could not get there fast enough. The exhibit highlighted the tragedies these people went through, the devastation of the aftermath but also the resiliency of this culture and the amazing strength they possess.

Inner Blog: Going through the Katrina exhibit brought out a lot of raw emotions, to say that I did not cry through this whole exhibit would be a lie. Standing in front of the section that discussed how quickly the tropical storm changed into a hurricane, was heartbreaking. If only those people had any clue what devastation was about to follow, maybe the initial evacuation rates would have been higher, maybe the state would have been better prepared to help their citizens. However even if the citizens of New Orleans had know how bad the destruction was going to be could not have saved everyone. So many people couldn't evacuate due to lack of transportation, medical issues or just having no where else to go. Listening to the nurses and doctors talk about loosing power and their patients dying due to that, then listening to the patients talk about the nurses and doctors being angels who worked endlessly around the clock to keep patients alive, gave me a pit in my stomach. Hearing how the generators to the hospital failed would have sustained them, but failed because they were located too low to the ground and the flooding killed them. It makes me angry to know that a such a simple mistake that know one cared to put any thought into, caused the death of so many patients. I feel such grief and sorrow for the people who lived through this. They were terrified and scared and thought they were going to die, one many was so sure they were going to find his body that he wrote all this information on his jeans. This was so if they found him injured they could treat him properly, or be able to identify his body if he died in the flooding. The levy system failing, along with their system failing to pump water away from the city all failed due to someone overlooking small details that made a difference in this hurricane causing a small amount of destruction vs the massive amount of destruction it did. It makes me angry, frustrated and so terribly sad, knowing this might have been preventable. There were some good emotions felt through this exhibit, learning about how so many people risked their lives to save others.

The people of New Orleans showed their amazing character in the face of danger and even possibly death. They are the type of people I would want in my corner any day.