This is Buras, Louisiana. It is located in Plaquemines Parish and is the first place Hurricane Katrina made landfall. The last time myself and Will were in the South, most of this area was still underwater.
This is sketchy land to begin with. In much of it, you can see levees on two sides with only space for a small subdivision or a few houses in between. The levees look very high here compared to the city but this did not help when the eye of the storm passed over.
The area was hit with more than 30 feet of water from at least two different directions as well as sustained winds in excess of over 200 miles per hour. Most of the people who lived here evacuated, but any who did not stood no chance of survival.
Much of Louisiana's shrimping industry was down in Plaquemines and was completely obliterated. We had hoped to be able to help with the reestablishment of said industry, but in Plaquemines, there is no shrimping industry to reestablish. The shrimp boats are in piles at the sides of the roads, or up against bridges. In other places they are in houses and sometimes even in trees.
There is a group of volunteers, the same group which ran the Waveland Cafe in Bay St Louis last year, but they are the only ones save for a few locals. They are managing to provide free meals to people who have returned and are living in tents and trailers.
We went down to Buras in order to fix a mobile satellite unit which has been providing the center, which used to be a YMCA with Internet. We have been asked to procure computers and networking equipment in order to create a community access communication centre as phone lines are still down and internet is far from available. We have sourced a limited quantity of computers in Baton Rouge and hope to be able to get our hands on them within a week or so.
- Geoffrey Young
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