Residents of Ninth Ward insist neighborhood be rebuilt - Yahoo! News
Residents of Ninth Ward insist neighborhood be rebuilt - Yahoo! News: "NEW ORLEANS - Three times in the past 40 years, hurricanes have flooded this city's Lower Ninth Ward. And three times, the generations of blacks who called it home have vowed to rebuild.
Federal officials and others have questioned the wisdom of rebuilding in this and other low-lying areas. They say New Orleans needs instead to renew the system of wetlands that protected the city against flooding in previous generations. That would mean allowing much of the Ninth Ward and other low-lying areas to return to marshland.
Ninth Ward residents say their neighborhood instead should be reconstructed to withstand storms.
'You get homesick,' said Louise Brumfield, as she returned to the Lower Ninth Ward for the first time Thursday. 'The people we've been seeing here, they are so happy to be back, even with it looking like this.'
She and her sister, Tierza Gray, surveyed acres of houses blown off foundations or shattered into giant piles of pickup sticks.
'That's my house. It was once there,' Gray said, pointing. 'Now, it's across the street.'
Her house had landed on top of a maroon Nissan.
'It looks like the `Wizard of Oz,'' Brumfield said. Their 16-year-old nephew, Paul Adams, donned a breathing mask, broke a window and crawled inside Gray's house. He retrieved a few family photos, the faces obscured beyond recognition by mold."
Federal officials and others have questioned the wisdom of rebuilding in this and other low-lying areas. They say New Orleans needs instead to renew the system of wetlands that protected the city against flooding in previous generations. That would mean allowing much of the Ninth Ward and other low-lying areas to return to marshland.
Ninth Ward residents say their neighborhood instead should be reconstructed to withstand storms.
'You get homesick,' said Louise Brumfield, as she returned to the Lower Ninth Ward for the first time Thursday. 'The people we've been seeing here, they are so happy to be back, even with it looking like this.'
She and her sister, Tierza Gray, surveyed acres of houses blown off foundations or shattered into giant piles of pickup sticks.
'That's my house. It was once there,' Gray said, pointing. 'Now, it's across the street.'
Her house had landed on top of a maroon Nissan.
'It looks like the `Wizard of Oz,'' Brumfield said. Their 16-year-old nephew, Paul Adams, donned a breathing mask, broke a window and crawled inside Gray's house. He retrieved a few family photos, the faces obscured beyond recognition by mold."
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