It is beginning to look as if Hurricane Katrina may have added New Orleans' famed streetcar system to the "Fallen Flags" list.
There has been so much damage done to the City of New Orleans by the floodwaters from Lake Pontchartrain (more than 80% of the city is underwater and the city has had to be entirely evacuated) that it is going to be months, if not years, before the majority of its residents can return - and for most of them, their homes, personal property, and jobs have been destroyed. There is literally nothing left for most of them to come back to but water-soaked houses contaminated with mud, sewage, poisonous snakes and other tropical reptiles and fish, and chemicals).
Most housing will have to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up. It will take years before New Orleans can begin to function as it did before the hurricane struck.
I'm afraid that the streetcars there may very well have turned their last wheels, because there is no one left to take care of them, or to ride on them. The cars themselves have been flooded by the foul brackish (salty) waters, and have likely suffered extensive damage. They will be sitting there, rotting away for months, if not years, before anyone can get working to rehabilitate them.
Tourists are not going to be coming back to New Orleans for a very long time, either. There is even debate in the United States Congress as to whether it makes any sense to throw federal dollars and effort into rebuilding this city, only to have another hurricane come along and wipe it out again. There are suggestions being made that New Orleans should be moved inland and rebuilt from scratch, abandoning its present below-sea-level location, which has now been rendered uninhabitable by the flooding. If it survives in its present location, the city will likely be only a shadow of its former self.
Therefore, I am prepared for the likelihood that we will have to bid a fond and very sad farewell to New Orleans and its lovely old streetcars.
There has been so much damage done to the City of New Orleans by the floodwaters from Lake Pontchartrain (more than 80% of the city is underwater and the city has had to be entirely evacuated) that it is going to be months, if not years, before the majority of its residents can return - and for most of them, their homes, personal property, and jobs have been destroyed. There is literally nothing left for most of them to come back to but water-soaked houses contaminated with mud, sewage, poisonous snakes and other tropical reptiles and fish, and chemicals).
Most housing will have to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up. It will take years before New Orleans can begin to function as it did before the hurricane struck.
I'm afraid that the streetcars there may very well have turned their last wheels, because there is no one left to take care of them, or to ride on them. The cars themselves have been flooded by the foul brackish (salty) waters, and have likely suffered extensive damage. They will be sitting there, rotting away for months, if not years, before anyone can get working to rehabilitate them.
Tourists are not going to be coming back to New Orleans for a very long time, either. There is even debate in the United States Congress as to whether it makes any sense to throw federal dollars and effort into rebuilding this city, only to have another hurricane come along and wipe it out again. There are suggestions being made that New Orleans should be moved inland and rebuilt from scratch, abandoning its present below-sea-level location, which has now been rendered uninhabitable by the flooding. If it survives in its present location, the city will likely be only a shadow of its former self.
Therefore, I am prepared for the likelihood that we will have to bid a fond and very sad farewell to New Orleans and its lovely old streetcars.
