Personal DNA

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Fort Frederica

We also toured Fort Frederica again. This was the first English settlement in Georgia to defend against the Spanish. They happened to be having a reenactment the day we visited, lucky us, so we got some shots of that as well. I am really entrigued by the construction of the homes at the fort and it is still a style that is prevalent in the homes around St. Simons. Must have been tons of oyster shells in the day. Check out the rat underneath the table of the Dr. reenactor's table. I asked why it was there and he smiled and said there were always vermin present during operations...yuk... don't think you can see some of the operating implements.... they are horrific.

Oh how I love the ocean

Last weekend Wood and I went to Saint Simon's Island in Southeast Georgia and stayed at our favorite, the King and Prince Beach resort. We had a cabana room right on the beach, so I was in heaven because every morning we could just get up and go out the door and either sit on our private patio and watch the sunrise and the birds or walk on the beach or listen to the rain. I loved it. Very refreshing after the previous two weeks trip

Two final shots of the 9th Ward

the Ninth Ward

The area around Nunez college

the houses in the picture above were originally located ACROSS the canal. The surge picked them up and deposited them across the water. they had just finished building this state of the art activities center at the college. The mold below is where the water settled... about 6-8 feet up The hardest hit area that I have seen so far is what is exactly the same as the service area for Nunez community college. Although they serve several parishes (counties) every parish they serve was hit both by Katrina and by the levee breach. The staff at Nunez are AMAZING. They have started the recovery effort themselves but working diligently the last 5 months to clean up and rebuild their own campus so they could begin classes and get on with some kind of normalcy for their students. I was so moved and impressed for the community and family atmosphere that the staff have for each other and for their students. They were seriously knocked down but have refused to stay down and are back up and fighting to restore their campus and the programs that they were offering their students to be productive citizens in their community. They really need a lot of support.

Lakeview

Pictures from the first day. This area was hit pretty hard. Notice the dead bushes... it is from salt water covering them for a long period of time and killing them. A lot of the rubbish has been moved to what was a large median in this neighborhood. It is about 10 to 20 feet high and several miles long. Another interesting image (that I have not yet captured ) is the tons of cars ruined that have been stored under freeways.

Lake Charles

Yesterday I made a 3.5 hour drive from New Orleans to Lake Charles to visit a few schools that had been hit by Rita. Whoa that was one whopper of a hurricane. 6 hours of 110 mph winds. Blew away the wind meter at the airport. Anyway no flood damage there just lots of wind damage which resulted in blown off roofs which then resulted in lots of water coming in through missing roofs and resulting in water damage. I drove through miles and miles and miles of bayou country. Long and straight drive like the 5 fwy through CA but instead of flat farm land, here you had raised two lane fwy through swamp and bayou country. I did keep my eye on the road (sort of) because we were really zooming along and I was driving, but I got to see lots of egrets, and herons and cormorants and grebes. I was scanning for alligators (or maybe crocodiles- don't know what they have) but didn't see any. So you drive from New Orleans for about half an hour and then hit bayou for about 40 minutes then hit Baton Rouge and then another 45 minutes of bayou ( read this no human civilization ) ( can you just imagine what is going on in the water though???? I so wanted to get in a boat and go exploring) and then Lafayette and then more bayou and then Lake Charles.... now there was a little bit of grazing land from time to time so it wasn't completly bayou, but I really loved the drive. Would have liked to have had a few of my cds with me and really cranked up the music and sung to my little hearts content and done some bird watching. But since I had a brand new friend/colleague with me didn't think I should freak him out with my singing and driving on the same day ( he did say I was an excellent driver- even at 85mph- hard to not keep with the flow of traffic you know?) Didn't take too many pictures on that trip but will be going back Monday to see two more schools so will try to take some pictures...especially the egret island that I say covered with white birds of all sizes, so I imagine cattle egret and regular ones and maybe even some black legged big egrets and yellow legged herons. Remember black=egret, yellow=heron, Anne?

New Orleans

Well I have been here for about 4 days. You cannot even believe the devastation that is still present. Entire blocks and blocks and blocks of neighborhoods wiped out.... Not from the hurricane but from the levy breaks. I am hoping to be able to download pictures to my computer tomorrow to post. It is overwhelming to see the kind of devastation every day. Where we are staying is sort of back up to speed, but there are lots of businesses still down. People still living in the Embassy suites I am staying in and navigating around the city is quite an adventure. Downtown is okay, but there are either no street signs or they are turned around backwards so you really can't read them until you are past. Lots of street lights still out.. and stop signs temporarily posted to help control intersections. can't tell you how many I have missed and gone right through as well as how many left hand turns I have ended up making from the right hand lane. There are several different areas of the city that look like an atomic bomb hit.... still after 5 and a half months. Folks have given up waiting for some kind of government help and are trying to rebuild themselves. Been really encouraged and heartened by a couple of schools I've visited that have had whatever staff returned to help clean up the mud and water damage. Tear out walls to get rid of mold and start to rebuild, so people can return to some normalcy by continuing their college education. Truly incredible.