The Long Road Back
At its eastern, or downtown end, in Central City, Freret Street's population is almost entirely black. Head west, or uptown as they say here, and Freret cuts through Tulane University and runs past the back entrance to one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city, Audubon Place. After the flooding, some residents of the gated community hired former Israeli soldiers to guard their homes. Others chartered private helicopters to buzz in and check on their property. Continue on toward the river bend, and the houses grow more modest once again, with shotguns and the occasional Creole cottage, home to blacks and whites alike.
The residents of Freret were spared the worst of the flooding, but even so, many will never rebuild, and, like the rest of New Orleans, the consequences are greater than that of a neighborhood's physical integrity. "What makes this a catastrophe isn't just the loss of physical structures," says Louisiana State University sociologist Jeanne Hurlbert. "It's the phenomenal destruction of networks, the enormous loss of emotional and social support." In New Orleans, family ties are "what helped people hold down jobs and keep their kids safe," says Hurlbert. For many now, that support is gone.
Making do. For Peter Parker, the first step in the unraveling of his extended family's life happened in the blink of an eye, as he watched the floodwater "start to walk up the sewers"in front of his shotgun at Second Street and Freret. As the waters continued to rise, Parker's family found refuge first on the second floor of a school building close by, then in the hull of an inflatable raft they found--"I ain't gonna lie to you, we took it,"says Peter's wife, Sarah Parker. Sarah and her husband spent much of the day in the water, pushing their children to the convention center. Once they got there, says Sarah, "I never slept."
Not coming back. Eventually, the family was evacuated to San Antonio, but Sarah Parker was anxious to get home. Sitting on her front stoop surveying the empty shotgun houses that line her block, some days she wonders why. "People are gone," she says. "And most of them aren't coming back." Parker's sister used to live next door, but she decided to stay in San Antonio. Her house on Freret is being gutted, and the landlord is raising the rent once it's fixed up--too high to allow her to return. Parker's niece, who lived in the house next to that, is in Alabama "with her husband's people." No word on whether they're planning to return. Parker's husband, Peter, works about an hour and a half away, bunking on a couch with her relatives, returning to Freret Street every other weekend.
Lonely and depressed, Parker got counseling while she was in San Antonio, but she hasn't seen anyone since she came home. She sleeps most of the day, all four gas burners running on the stove to help keep the house warm. She used to work at Babykeepers Day Care Center, but the center is closed, and that job is gone. Plus, she says, now she has no one to look after her kids once they get home from school. To make matters worse, she also can't find her Rottweiler, Rosco. According to the marks spray-painted on the side of her house, Rosco was rescued, but no one seems to know where he is. "I really need him back home," Parker says. "I really do." With the price for nearly everything skyrocketing and few signs that things are apt to get better on her block of Freret anytime soon, Parker understands the decisions of her neighbors. "If no one wants to come back," she says, "I'm not mad at 'em."
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