Hurricane Katrina Survivor Gives Tours of Its Destruction | National Geographic

Let me tell you a little bit about the City of New Orleans. Right after Katrina, I kept hearing everybody say, "Why should we pay our tax dollars to bring New Orleans back? They below sea level." I am a tour guide. I do Katrina tours. I never was an emotional person until Katrina. I was semi-reluctant because I would have to live through Katrina once again, but it turned out to be pretty good therapy.

Actually, to give you an example, the house that I live in today, over 100 years old, has never flooded for any storm until Hurricane Katrina. For Hurricane Katrina, I had 7 and 1/2 ft of water. At some points, it gets emotional, and I've been doing it about three years. Probably each and every tour, there's, you know, it evokes some type of emotion in me.

I do try to educate them as far as what happened and why it happened, but also try to let them know what we have to do in the future for our survival. I think a lot of people that haven't been here may still think that we're a swamp, too close to the water; we shouldn't be here; we're below sea level. They don't realize the economic impact that we have on the rest of this country, and they don't realize that the survival of New Orleans will affect pretty much everybody in this country.

Well, that's what helicopters were trying to drop: 6,000 lb sandbags sealing everything up. This whole area off to the right was totally washed away. The houses, they go to enough locations; they see the breaks that we had in the flood walls. They see the pumping system that we use. I kind of show them some of the destruction. I explain to them about the destruction, but what I'm really showing is, I guess, how we're recovering from it.

A tour guide's position is we should educate, engage, and entertain. Even before educate or before being a tour guide, I like the idea of being an ambassador to the city of New Orleans. If you haven't felt it yet, I kind of love the city, and I'm trying to say, "You're in a good place," to the city. I look at it as educational; I look at it as something great for the City of New Orleans, because 80% of the city was underwater, and we're making it right. I'm proud of the city.

People from New Orleans are like ants. If you have an ant pile in your yard, and it's really big, and you knock it down, two days later that ant pile is back again. That's how New Orleans is; we're coming back.