Losing Coast And More

As the huge oil spill threatens to destroy much of the Louisiana wetlands, damage the coastline, ruin habitat for wildlife and fish, interrupt or perhaps destroy the food chain leading to massive kill, I thought that today I would pass on an article from my newspaper about the nature of some of the buildings in New Orleans that were destroyed during the "other" great natural disaster of this decade, Hurricane Katrina. Click this link and read and view pictures of some of the styles of architecture we have here that make New Orleans a different looking place from the rest of the United States.

http://www.nola.com/homegarden/index.ssf/2010/05/new_orleans_houses_101_a_guide.html

Interesting housing styles, huh? And quite varied. In the city proper these housing styles are often intermixed in neighborhoods regardless of income area or location. I remember after the hurricane in 2005 how so many of the houses, damaged and not, were stripped of their ornamental features, from copper wiring to hand cut ornate cornices and just about anything one could sell to a person or business interested in old and unique styled architectural craftsmanship. The internet was ablaze with "sales" of stolen products, and some compared the thefts and sales to robbing graves of the newly deceased.

Even the local lumber yards and scrap yards had thieves trying to sell old growth custom swamp cypress doors and other swamp carved cyprus (it is a wood that is almost impervious to water, so highly valued), plus fixtures looted from homes. It was said that a few months after the hurricane one could find just about any 18th or 19th century treasure at many of the unscrupulous scrap dealers who were selling it. Drug addicts in answer to their cravings for a hit had a field day ripping out whatever they knew would bring top dollar, and selling it for a fraction of the true value.

And now with the oil gushing still and threatening the whole Louisiana and Gulf Coast I remember the carnage of the hurricane in 2005 that took away man made edifices that were part of the definition of the city, but which now threaten to destroy so much of the natural environment on which Louisiana relies much on. I wonder if this will be a kind of knockout punch....first hit with hurricane Katrina destroying land, buildings and lives, and now firing at the treasured water of my state and all the resources and life within it. Whatever.... it will test the mettle of man and beast here.