A Front Porch View of What Was Lost

Preston Stanley sat on his front porch, gently swaying back and forth in a white rocking chair. Surrounding him, there are several lots full of overgown weeds, swarming with mosquitoes that are buzzing through the humid air. Stanley points from lot to lot, recalling the families from his youth whose houses once stood there before Hurricane Katrina swept them from existence.

“Back in the day, before Katrina, all of this was houses,” Stanley said.

Stanley is nearly 60 years old, and he grew up in the same house that he lives in today. His mother was a housekeeper, his father a mechanical engineer. In the late 1960’s or early 1970’s, his parents purchased the home.

Stanley is the oldest of 12 children. His house was once full of children and activity, like the streets of the Lower Ninth Ward were once filled with houses.

Prior to Katrina, Stanley recalled how every lot on his street was occupied. He knew all his neighbors. Children would play from sunrise to sunset in the streets. There were backyard gardens, and the sense of community was always strong.

“Before, it was the best,” Stanley said. “We had crime and all that, but there were houses and families. You knew everyone on each block. It was a family block.”

Hurricane Katrina forever altered the block that Stanley once knew. Residents were forced to evacuate, and several of them never came back after receiving money to rebuild, which Stanley partially blames for the current conditions of the Lower Ninth Ward.

“And I’ll tell you what, a lot of people took and left,” Stanley said. “I didn’t leave. You have to blame the people also because you got the money, but you didn’t come back.”

Now, nearly 21 years post-Katrina, the entirety of the Lower Ninth Ward is similar to Stanley’s block. Lots remain empty, consumed by grass and weeds that reach human heights. For Stanley, this poses the issue of dealing with an abundance of mosquitoes.

“They will eat you right out of your socks,” Stanley said.

But the issues span further than the overgrowth and residents not returning, Stanley also blames both the federal and state governments for the ruin present throughout the Lower Ninth Ward.

“They run everything,” Stanley said. “They can go overseas and take other countries and blow them up and then rebuild it. But we’re home, and we can’t get the help. Look around you. You can see. And what do you see? Devastation.”

Over the years, Stanley worked as a chef, specializing in French and Creole cuisine, and his career took him all over the country. Despite opportunities elsewhere, he remained connected to home in the Lower Ninth Ward.

So again, he rocks back and forth on the porch of his house surrounded by vacant lots that once held neighbors, friends and family.

Did he ever think it would still look like this nearly 21 years after Hurricane Katrina?

“Yes,” Stanley said. “Louisiana, that’s the type of government we have, and that’s the type of government we have in this country. So, it is what it is.”

Stanley’s block may be quieter now, but he can still name every family that once lived there. The empty lots around him tell one story; his memory tells another, and that’s the Lower Ninth Ward.

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This story is part of a semester-long investigative reporting project into New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward nearly 21 years after Hurricane Katrina. It was created by an immersion journalism student in the Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies program at UW-Milwaukee. Other stories from the project are available on The Storm That Never Left: Inside New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward Nearly 21 Years After Katrina.

This work was made possible through the support of MPC Endowment Ltd., the philanthropic affiliate of the Milwaukee Press Club, and a private donor.