New Orleans two years later

by John Stallings

While sitting in a restaurant in Mobile last Sunday night after church with Juda, my sister Barbara, my niece Beth & her husband Leno, plus several of their offspring, I threw one of my typical ideas on the table. I usually make a few preliminary remarks to “prepare ye the way” for my coming suggestions; especially when the suggestion is a little scary.

I said, “Why don’t we drive over to New Orleans tomorrow (Labor Day?”) Juda & I have been through New Orleans twice in the last year but we only saw the city from I-10. I was now proposing that we drive the 100 miles to N.O & take a “grunge tour,” looking at what’s left of the great city up-close.

To my shock & amazement the group went for the idea & everyone got almost as excited as I was. Monday morning at eleven which was supposed to be ten, all eight of us crawled into Beth & Leno’s new Dodge SUV & left for New Orleans. I drove. At least I drove into New Orleans & Leno drove us home at dark-thirty. The hours in-between were indeed, and this was agreed by all, awesome, breath-taking & unforgettable.

As we turned off the interstate in front of the Super-dome, on a street that immediately after Katrina was flooded as were most of the streets we drove that day, my mind went back to the second time I visited New Orleans in 1964. My first visit was as a kid of eight when we accompanied my dad who was treated for kidney stones at a New Orleans hospital.

My second thought was when I was in New Orleans in 1964 & 65 preaching for my good friend, the late Dan Ronsisvalle. Brother Dan took me on several trips around the city in those days; showing me the levees & explaining to me that one day they’d probability give way & allow water to engulf the city. He also shared with me that even the school text-books told the students that one day, barring a miracle, the levees would probably break & the city built below sea-level would be inundated.

During the trip last Monday, in a way I felt like Ezekiel when God sat him down in the middle of the valley of dry bones. Every where you look in New Orleans you see the hollowed-out shells of homes where life used to exist, but no more. You see sky-scrapers that were so devastated they are condemned. You see the homeless pushing their carts down the streets & government trailers parked beside the shells of what used to be proud dwelling places. As a faithful reporter I’d have to say that things looked better in the great city than they did even a year ago. Where we once saw the ruins of dilapidated shopping centers, we now saw vacant lots with what looked like the beginnings of new construction in the works. We reminded ourselves that Rome wasn’t built in a day.

For a little respite to shake off the horrible depressed feelings brought on by viewing the remnants of what once was a robust metropolis, we pulled into the parking lot of the downtown Hilton Hotel & walked the famed river-walk on the picturesque Mississippi river.

As we looked around, some life was still in evidence. We struggled for every breath of steamy Louisiana air, in the 95 plus temperature, & watched tug-boats pushing their burdens of what looked like steel & petroleum products along the river front as well as luxury liners transporting their passengers past all the carnage to destinations far southward; the windward isles of the lush Caribbean.

As a weary bunch of tourists returned to Mobile later that evening, the only way to describe our feelings would be to say we felt we’d witnessed a city hit by a nuclear bomb.

You will remember that when Ezekiel surveyed his valley of death, which represented symbolically the “Whole house of Israel”, God asked him, “Son of man can these bones live.” This was the question we all asked as we reluctantly left the wounded city on the banks of the Mighty Mississippi that evening.

Mine was the lone sleepy voice that spoke out of that little SUV that wound it’s way east to Mobile that evening & it was not unlike Ezekiel’s answer;

OH LORD, THOU KNOWEST.

John