Craig Fritz

Journalism: Projects: Revisiting New Orleans

Two months after photographing rescue efforts in the flooded streets of New Orleans, I returned with Albuquerque Tribune reporter Ollie Reed to see how, or if, the city was recovering from the pounding it took from Hurricane Katrina. 

We found reason for hope, a French Quarter stirring slowly back to life. But also reason for despair, too, - families salvaging what possessions they could and leaving the city they loved, neighborhoods that looked as if they might never live again, a city that was a shadow of its once brazen, festive self. 

  • Buildings along N. Peters Street on the south side of the French Quarter face the Mississippi River shortly after sunrise. Two months following Hurricane Katrina the French Quarter is one of the first areas of New Orleans that appears to look like it did before the storm and associated flooding.
  • A baker makes beignets, the signature pastry at Cafe Du Monde. The shop, a French Quarter landmark, was established in 1862. The cafe was not yet open for all of its pre-Katrina hours and was still struggling to find enough staff.
  • A statue of a colorful jester, representative of New Orleans' annual Mardi Gras celebration, stands in the shadow of a museum on Jackson Square. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans planned for a scaled-back Mardi Gras early in 2006.
  • Jarrett Parfart takes a break from spraying baking soda in order to clean the surfaces inside Pascal Manale's restaurant on Napoleon Avenue in New Orleans. The restaurant suffered flooding and looting. The intersection it sits at served as the launching point for a fleet of rescue boats searching for survivors of the flood. The neighborhood marks a transition area into the flooded part of the city.
  • Two months after Hurricane Katrina, water marks provide a record of the receding the flood in the B.W. Cooper housing projects along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in New Orleans.
  • Tommie Elton Mabry rests in an apartment in the B.W. Cooper housing project along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in New Orleans. Mabry remained inside the building during the flooding and kept a written log on the walls, recounting each day since Hurricane Katrina through Oct. 31. The 80 plus buildings in the projects had floodwater that reached anywhere from their foundation to several feet inside the first floor. Two months following the storm, only a handful of residents resided in the complex. The city declared it must be cleared by Dec. 31, 2005.
  • A home, which was pushed 100 feet off its foundation during the breach of the London Avenue Canal Levee, now rests in the middle of Wilton Drive in New Orleans. Work has begun on stabilizing the levee in the Gentilly District, but very few people have returned to the area.
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