Heading into the final week of August 2005, the Rev. Louis Adams had a verse from Nehemiah much in mind. In the passage, the prophet described Jerusalem in ruins, its gates burned by invaders. Then he declared, “Come, let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach.” Mr. Adams and his congregants in the Holy Ground Baptist Church here had spent three years and $125,000 buying and rebuilding a dilapidated church in the Lower Ninth Ward. Once their labors were done, they would no longer have to worship as weekend tenants of the Care Bear Daycare Center. They would no longer be sojourners.
The pews, the altar, the baptismal pool were already installed in their new home. The kitchen and the social hall were complete. All that was left was to lay the cedar planks of the floor, then tack down the carpet. On the third Sunday of September, Holy Ground’s members would march into a sanctuary of their own.
Before then, of course, Hurricane Katrina struck and Holy Ground sat deep in floodwater. A house across the street, which had been swept off its foundation, had smashed into one corner of the church.
And so began a story of destruction and dispossession, of natural disaster and human failure, that has yet to end, even as the third anniversary of the disaster approaches.
… and now Gustav is headed in that direction. I was in the lower 9th ward 10 days ago. Very little is back there — just high grass hiding concrete slabs, street signs and buckling sidewalks. Many of the streets are also buckling. Sitting right there is the ominous levee. Other neighborhoods which received 12-15 ft of water are slowly restoring but many, many still sit in shambles displaying their spray painted “X”, a date when they were searched (most over a month after Katrina). Many who are rebuilding are going “up” and I would hope anyone rebuilding in the lower 9th would do that.