A picture is worth a thousand words, and a video is worth a thousand pictures, but what if you only had a singe word to describe my volunteer visit to New Orleans? What would it be? There are many superlatives such as “amazing”, “wonderful”, “unbelievable”, and “incredible” but they they are too commonplace. How can you compare incredible ice cream with an incredible experience? To many, there are incredible cities, for me New Orleans isn’t one of them.
From a distance it is incredible, but it becomes very real when you explore it even in the limited way we did. The city exists as a mosaic. Fragments separated by neutral grounds, geography, and history but slowly fusing at the edges due to the common experience of Katrina. There was a collage on the floor of the Entergy Innovation Center that I visited that expressed it well.
The mosaic was fascinating to me. The independence of the grassroots efforts within each community, the drive of the entrepreneurial spirit and the exuberance of the city officials to revive the city were all palpable. And yet it was simultaneously troubling. For example, as community efforts become stronger, how will they influence the city’s future? Is the mosaic brittle or strong?
It is said that Michelangelo mocked da Vinci over the grandeur of his vision to create a giant bronze horse. Michelangelo was young, how could the older da Vinci ever have had a worthwhile vision? The same is happening in New Orleans today. Young enthusiastic entrepreneurs are arriving to redirect the city’s rebirth adding another set of hues, textures and creativity to what currently exists. With this new influence, will the mosaic splinter further or will it fuse even more to create a blended work of art?
I wonder about the commitment of New Orleans to the most badly affected areas of the storm. In many places the Ninth Ward and St. Bernard Parishes seem like house cemeteries with foundation slabs marking the tombs of homes that once stood. What was urban has become suddenly rural. The slabs form a mosaic of their own. Closed schools and businesses bode ill for the long term fate of those areas becoming metropolitan centers again, but hope lies in the efforts of many of the projects we visited and in which we participated.
I don’t think anyone has the single answer to these questions, but we should all consider playing a part in the city’s revival. The internet now offers so many tools to not only organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible, but also to facilitate dialog which is now essential. The US experience in New Orleans, the mistakes and triumphs can be used to model the responses for many similar societies around the globe. Those affected by disaster, those that are on the verge of rapid growth due to the enabling influence of the internet and those that have to reinvent themselves due to shifts in industry or demographics.
A chance discussion with Mayor Landrieu provided insights into the future of the city and role of information technology as the axis around which many initiatives orbit. The need for and importance of cloud initiatives for the city’s future was made patently obvious. Facilitate communication and the city will figure out the rest. It is not that simple, but it is a step in the right direction.
I was most affected by the St. Bernard Project. As Zack Rosenburg, its co-founder says, “these are good people, there is a lot of work to be done, and the problems are solveable”. It was deeply satisfying to assist in their and other programs. The outreach work I saw was wide ranging and provided tangible assistance to many.
But what struck me as an Internet professional was the limited use of the web in most of the non-profit organizations I visited that was very eye opening. The fact that the older members of the team were unaware of the potential was to be expected, but the what was educational for me was how younger staff were only familiar with the web as consumers of content, not as the developers of it. The Internet was a productivity tool, an educational tool, but largely unheard of as a planned strategic tool to further the aims of the project.
Fun wasn’t lost on me at all. I thoroughly enjoyed a campy vampire tour and a swamp tour guide’s quirky commentary was both lightly entertaining and very thought provoking near the end when a heartfelt recollection of the storm’s impact him nearly evoked tears. As the foundation for deep friendships, the bonding with other other volunteer members of my team was priceless. There were so many different points of view radiating the creativity to help and learn from the city. I also hope the initial contacts I made with those who have chosen New Orleans as their home will thrive and so make my 2010 experience forever memorable and the inspiration for may return visits.
I have lived through many hurricanes, none as deadly as Katrina. The visit was humbling and evoked a great sense of empathy within. The mosaic of stories triggered my own memories of survival, sadness, healing, satisfaction and resurgence. New Orleans has the advantage of being a part of a larger society and now as part of such a society I want to contribute further and hope more opportunities like this will be available for me to look, listen, learn and ultimately help.
Now the growing environmental and economic calamity caused by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico poses more questions to ponder. How will this affect the recovery of the city and state from the impact of Katrina? Only time will tell.
