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Levee breach is a destination

At Katrina's ground zero, some people just need to see the breach in the levee that led to the devastation of the city.

By AARON SHAROCKMAN
Published September 14, 2005

NEW ORLEANS - Ronnie Brooks climbed a wooden pallet propped up against a levee wall along the 17th Street Canal. He gazed at the spot where concrete and steel gave way to torrents of water, death and destruction.

"Can you imagine the force behind it?" said Brooks, a 49-year-old carpet layer from nearby Metairie. "Mother Nature is terribly strong."

Hundreds of people like Brooks are drawn to this spot each day. For them, this is ground zero for the Katrina catastrophe.

This is the levee breach that surprised everyone the day after the hurricane hit, sending floodwaters around the Superdome, Canal Street, City Hall and other parts of New Orleans.

Visitors have created impromptu viewing stands with wooden pallets or overturned shopping carts to peer over the 10-foot walls. They take pictures of the repairs and the temporary sandbar acting as a levee wall.

It is not a memorial - no flowers or cards mark the spot. For many, it is simply a stark reminder of the power of nature and the weakness and resiliency of man.

"It was the best of man-made ingenuity, built with stone and concrete and steel, and in a heartbeat, it was gone," said Chris Chupina, 23. Like many, he had seen the breach in newspapers and on TV but wanted to see it for himself.

The canal separates Jefferson Parish on the west and Orleans Parish on the east. Residents of Jefferson, largely unaffected by the flooding, are returning to their homes. And many are making a point to look at the breach that wreaked so much havoc.

Visitors strain to see what has happened on the other side: a brick home shattered and five feet of water still flooding homes in the Lakeview neighborhood.

"I feel so bad for these people," said Craig Rinderer, 44, foreman for a crew of Wisconsin utility workers who are in New Orleans to help with the recovery. After 10 minutes and a few photos, the group returned to work.

LeAnn Sepulveda brought her 10-year-old daughter Haileigh Howell to see the breach, climbing on a gray shopping cart to peer across the canal.

"It's probably going to be stuck in my head for the rest of my life," Sepulveda said.

People have been coming for days, said Susan Breaux, who lives across Orpheum Avenue from the levee walls. They're polite and don't stay long, getting a quick look and moving on.

Breaux, 39, has found herself looking at the breach and wondering what would have happened if it had been her wall that broke.

"I can't think about that," she said.

[Last modified September 14, 2005, 20:38:55]