New Orleans

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After Memphis we headed to New Orleans. We had heard mixed reports about how well advanced the city was in rebuilding after the cyclone and floods of 2005 but overall the information suggested that the tourist areas were back to normal so we decided to proceed.

Our flight to New Orleans was one of those interesting experiences that will probably be remembered longer than the places we visited. We had to fly via Dallas, and the first part of the trip was uneventful. However there was plenty of bad weather to the west of Dallas that had played havoc with flights, and consequently the airport itself was fairly chaotic. Despite this our flight from Dallas to New Orleans headed out from the gate on time and all was looking good, until we got to the runway and saw about a dozen planes ahead of us in the queue waiting to take off. After 20 or 30 minutes we finally got to the front of the queue but instead of heading down the runway to take off we simply drove across the runway and parked on the other side. The captain then announced that the people who calculated these things had determined that with all of the changes to passengers and baggage that had occurred we were now too heavy to land in New Orleans and therefore couldn't take off (I can't disagree with this logic). Therefore we had to wait until we were issued with a new flight plan that would allow us to burn off more fuel on route. He then added that the person who worked out the flight plans was pretty busy because of the weather and he had no idea how long this would take. Of course by the time we got our new flight plan the storms had closed in on the airport and they closed all runways for about an hour. We were quite relaxed about this (we had been on holidays for 2 months and were in no hurry) but it is fair to say that some of the other passengers were not quite as relaxed as us. We will spare you the details but it was quite funny to listen to some of the conversations that took place. What would have taken around 4 hours to drive (from Memphis to New Orleans) ended up taking around 11 hours by plane so I guess you can understand their frustration.

We finally arrived in New Orleans and spent 3 fairly uneventful days in the city. There is almost no sign of the devastation caused by the cyclone and floods in the tourist areas but we took a 3 hour Hurricane Katrina tour which took you through the various areas of the city that were badly affected by the flood, and also showed you the levies that broke during the flood. It was very interesting, and in a couple of areas people have only now started to return to rebuild their houses (21 months later).

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Photos

Dallas Airport
The queue of planes waiting to takeoff at Dallas airport - before the rain.

Rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina
The caravans out the front of these houses show that they are currently being repaired after the Hurricane. People will live in the caravans while they are restoring their house to a livable condition.

Hurricane Katrina damage
This house is next to (maybe part of ) a yacht club on Lake Poncharin, which borders New Orleans. Storm surge in the lake was one of the major factors that resulted in levies failing. All levies on the Mississippi River side of the city survived intact.

Levy Wall repairs
Repairs are still being made to some of the levy walls that failed during the floods