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Residents return to oil-caked suburb
By Andy Sullivan
CHALMETTE, La., Sept 26 (Reuters) - Robert Jorns caught the first glimpse of his home in St. Bernard Parish since Hurricane Katrina struck a month ago, and promptly announced that it could be one of his last.
"Just make me a fair offer, and I'm gone," the retired 70-year-old construction worker said on Monday as his sons-in-law pulled the plywood off the windows of his brick bungalow.
Thick mud had cracked and dried on his driveway, and a neighbor's refrigerator sat on his lawn. Inside, his own fridge lay toppled on the wrong side of the dining room. A brown line about six feet (2 metres) high showed how high the floodwaters had filled it.
Some parts of the working-class area remained under water, but life returned to the devastated New Orleans suburb as residents were allowed back in to check on their homes for the first time since the killer storm arrived on Aug. 29.
Parish authorities set a curfew of 6 p.m. and warned that services remained spotty, but many of those returning found they couldn't stay in their homes even if they wanted to.
Some said they would rip out the moldy walls of their brick bungalows and start over. Others, like Jorns, said they would take what insurance money -- and memories -- they could get and move to higher ground.
Jorns said he hoped to retrieve his computer hard drive, which held seven years' work on his genealogical records.
WILL ANYTHING SURVIVE?
Wedged between the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico, St. Bernard Parish took heavy losses from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and it remained to be seen how much of the area would be declared a total loss.
Cleanup crews had spread sand to soak up oil that spilled onto a main street from a local refinery, but oil still caked the floor of Billy Fletschinger's mobile home, one of few in a nearby trailer park not twisted beyond recognition.
Fletschinger, 44, pulled out his son's bicycle and a soggy photograph of his daughter posing with Santa Claus.
He said there was one thing he had not lost in the flood - his sobriety, hard won after a lifetime struggling with drug and alcohol addiction.
"I seen the light. I'm not going back to that," he said.
"Billy was getting out of his rut. He saved his money and bought the trailer but he was not able to afford any insurance. This was everything he owned right here," said his friend Ethel Kidd, 61, who waited nearby with a U-Haul truck.
Several blocks away, neighbors Rhonda Parajes, 46, and Ray Fernandez, 38, drank cans of beer at 10:30 in the morning as the stench of spoiled food filled the air.
Parajes, who worked at a Honda dealership, said the house she grew up in was completely ruined - even the cast-iron pot that her father used to cook gumbo.
"Bulldoze it. I'd like to be able to climb into my feathered bed right now, but this house needs a total overhaul," she said.
Fernandez, a mechanic, said he wouldn't give up. He said he plans to clean his house, mow his lawn, and throw a barbecue and crawfish boil for all his neighbors once they return.
"Everybody's displaced, all your friends you've been knowing since grammar school," he said. "You've got families spread all across the Southeast. If everybody gives up, you're giving up on your friends and family."
(c) Reuters 2005.