November 1, 2005\r\n\r\nDear Friends and Family, \r\nCan it really be two months after Hurricane Katrina? \r\n\r\nYikes, where to start!\r\nWe are now living near St. Martinsville, Louisiana in a travel trailer on sister Debbie�s bucolic spread and are grateful to wake up to horses in the meadow. Many evacuees live in tents in relative�s carports, or with 12 people in a 1500 square foot house and one bath or share apartments with families they had never met before�there just isn�t enough housing. Most are Houston, Baton Rouge or Lafayette. The traffic in Baton Rouge is not to be believed - what used to be a 2 hour trip from New Orleans to Lafayette can take two hours just to get through B.R. \r\n\r\nSo here we are and our house sits in Metairie, quite empty. It has been �gutted� to the ceiling - doors and windows remain open in hopes of drying out. All grass, shrubs are dead without hope of revival. Many trees are gone, if not to wind, then did not survive the flood waters. It is the same for most of the city of New Orleans- in fact, most of New Orleans looks like the day after the end of the world. Even in our neighborhood some owners have not returned to have any work done to the house�since none of us live there anymore we don�t know what happened to our own neighbors. Some have apparently walked away in hopes that the house will magically be `dozed. Everything stands still and grey. In much of New Orleans, there is no one who even comes to try to salvage something from the flood because there is nothing to salvage. Fortunately, New Orleans has been uncharacteristically dry.\r\n\r\nWhether a colorless neighborhood or a neighborhood that looks green and untouched, EVERY house in the metropolitan area lost it�s frig and freezer (of course we all had shrimp in the freezer!), and all of these appliances, along with zillions of washers and dryers are at curbside, many with hand painted signs that say things like, �Mr. Stinky�, or �going cheap, and we�ll throw in the London Bridge�. One might think it would be incredibly depressing to drive mile after mile and see such complete destruction�mostly it is awesome. Unbelievable. Incredible. One block after another just as bad off. Everyone in the area is been affected: jobs are gone because businesses have been destroyed�businesses are closed because there is no one to work. No one is there because there is no where to live. Not far from us in Metairie, however, business is springing back. Every time we go back into the city we are amazed at how much has been done, thanks to wonderful American citizens like you who pay your taxes. Salvation Army came by our house twice while we were salvaging - that was impressive. One group turned out to be from my hometown in Wisconsin�we had mutual friends. We�ve had to look long and hard for American Red Cross, but I�ve been hearing that about the Red Cross since WWII, so didn�t expect to see them. But people are far from depressed, I would say most are anxious to get back and get at it again.\r\n\r\nSo we wait, and we clean the belongings we were able to salvage, which incredibly, is filling an 8� X 8� storage unit! We have most of the paintings and photos above the water line, thanks to sister and brother-in-law, Debbie and Len, who insisted we canoe in before the waters receded�there isn�t anything quite like canoeing into the front door of your home. The water was black and heavy looking and so still that it reminded me of the front of the First National Bank of Sparta where I was a kid � black and shiny and perfectly reflective. As we canoed out of the neighborhood I remember telling my brother-in-law that it was a good thing that the scene was so incredibly beautiful. The still day was broken only by helicopters flying overhead. There were no birds. I was to recall that scene often in order to make it through this ordeal. \r\n\r\nWe are fortunate to know a contractor of good repute who has put us on his the list. He can raise the house - we are waiting for FEMA to announce whether we will be required to raise our home in order to get insurance- but I will sleep better if the house is raised even if not required. With relatively little wind damage to the house we will be pretty much on our own nickel for the rebuilding, but this is the rainy day everyone talks about saving for�\r\n\r\nFEMA: the epitome of big government operation. SLOW, SLOW, SLOW. If this isn�t an advertisement for private enterprise nothing is! Travel trailers have been brought to this part of the country from as far away as New Brunswick, and FEMA is proud of having distributed 48 to date!!!! \r\n\r\nWe are well. We have a wonderful grandson born in Houston during evacuation: Gardner Hennaway Ebrahim. Daughter Chrissy and her husband, Sherif, are well - Chrissy has been offered a part-time job as counselor in a large co-ed Catholic High School uptown. (She lost her job because her school was destroyed in St. Bernard Parish.) And I am going into Metairie two days a week to stay with baby while Chrissy works! Sherif�s business is slow because the city is still in �tear down� mode, but when building resumes he should do o.k. Some schools are starting up sharing campus� of other schools - the whole process is amazingly creative. \r\n\r\nAll in all, it�s been an experience. We have evacuated twice - once for Katrina and again for Rita and ended up riding out Rita anyway (in Debbie�s house). Don�t want to repeat it. Don�t want any of you to ever experience it. But we do want you to plan to visit New Orleans in the next few years to see how we�ve done and enjoy our French Quarter (which is recuperating quickly I�ve heard) and Garden District and the rest of south Louisiana culture�We still got cultcha� darlin�! And the seafood is fine, thanks be to God! (Oh yes, and our little sailboat is bobbing nicely in its little slip, would you believe?!)\r\n\r\nLove, Lorene\r\n\r\nDecember 1, 2005\r\nDear Family and Friends,\r\nWe are still here in our little travel trailer in the country! Don�t see being back in Metairie anytime soon. We have been awarded a 5.38% loan by the SBA where everyone else has a 2.83 % loan. The SBA lady who broke the news to us said she has worked hurricanes in 4 states and this is only the third time she has seen a rate that high. (She hinted that we must pay our bills on time). It seems discriminatory and we will request a review.\r\n\r\nLast week we stayed in New Orleans the whole week to do some volunteering -Did any of you see Chappy on CNN when they featured the Jackson Barracks Military Museum in New Orleans? He was featured prominently as the volunteer crew worked to send exhibit items out for freezing/storage and possible restoration. Chappy intends to bid to restore an Army �mule� he had already restored (I suspect so someone doesn�t �screw up� his previous handiwork!) Also we both hung the rotating monthly art exhibit at Ochsner Clinic Foundation - something we�ve done for years. We had an opportunity to take in two of our favorite restaurants in New Orleans. One, Feelings, is in an old French building below the Quarter - it was nice to sit in the patio and enjoy a brandy milk punch and a Creole meal of Chicken Clemenceau and Crayfish Etoufee. Son Chip and a friend were down from Madison, Wisconsin for Thanksgiving. \r\n \r\nOur house: we have permits to re-wire, and re-sheetrock, but await word on whether we must raise house in order to receive flood insurance. We want to raise, but the cost is $28,000 just to raise�quite a nut. We were told by a neighbor that �someone� came out and seemed to be taking a reading on the house from the street�we don�t know what that was all about. No one else was �lazered�. \r\n\r\nWe are up to a library of three volumes! Thanksgiving Day we received a �Joy of Cooking� cookbook signed by family and guests at dinner at Debbie and Len�s house.\r\nThen a wonderful surprise arrived from a hamlet in northern Connecticut. East Hartland, Ct., is the home of a wonderfully picturesque church first erected in 1776, and rebuilt in 1802 by our ancestor, Daniel Bushnell. Chappy and I visited the church a few years ago and were given a tour of the belfry by the town historian. A package arrived with a history of the town and another of the church, signed by congregants of the church, wishing us luck and bestowing prayers. Some of these citizens have offered to come help us re-build! \r\n\r\nI�ve said over and over that for every sad and disappointing story I�ve heard about the hurricane disasters, the good and heartfelt stories number ten-fold. Kolbe Japan has been here to take a look and advise on how they rebuilt their city after their devastating earthquake - the Netherlands has been here to advise us on flood control. If only the federal government was awake and listening. \r\n\r\n(Anybody know if there is anyone awake in Washington?)\r\n\r\nWith love, Lorene \r\n\r\nChristmas, 2005\r\nHoliday Greetings from the Big (not so) Easy!\r\n\r\nThis is the big weekend! Many things to be thankful for: our grandson�s first Christmas, and celebration of his having successfully come through surgery to repair his lip. We have an electric �pole� set up in our front lawn, in anticipating of getting electricity, in anticipation of having a trailer on the front lawn�$1500 for a pole. Seems a little steep to me.\r\n\r\nThe neighborhood is beginning to come to life, with white travel trailers dotting front lawns - sometimes even with electricity and an occasional Christmas wreath on the door. The house two doors down got sub floors yesterday!\r\n\r\nWe will meet friends across Lake Ponchartrain tonight for the first time since the storm. Although they didn�t get high water, they spent the last three months repairing damage from 8 fallen trees - one that skewered the kitchen right through the sky-light! At least we didn�t have any trees on the house!\r\n\r\nOur family is doing well, Chrissy, Sherif and baby Gardner looking forward to the new year and more prosperity�Metairie is beginning to rebuild and that�s good for Sherif�s business, and Chrissy may be working more hours as counselor at DeLaSalle High School in New Orleans. \r\n\r\nChappy and I will spend more time in the city, either taking care of Gardner or working on the house. The yard provides an opportunity to re-think and re-design�Two of the 14 trees I�ve planted over the years survived, along with two Nandina plants. It will make clearing the yard easy - I was getting tired of lobelia anyway. And nothing like good physical work to clear one�s mental cobwebs.\r\n\r\nChip is still in Wisconsin but will graduate in May and hopes the federal government has room for him somewhere in law enforcement here in South Louisiana. It will be wonderful to have him home. \r\n\r\nOur first purchase found a temporary home in the apartment of Jean Heid, our 93 year old friend who, after evacuating first to California and then Lewiston, Idaho, returned to New Orleans on Thanksgiving, saying Lewiston was �deader than New Orleans�. She�s now volunteering at the recently reopened Sidney Bestoff Sculpture Garden in City Park, and when the tourist information desk reopens at the police station on Royal Street in the Quarter she will return to that position as well. Though Jean lost her home, she found a delightful newly restored � shotgun on Tchoupitoulas Street just a block from Audubon Park. She�s enjoying the 14 foot ceilings, French windows, fireplaces, and neighbors who put her newspaper on her front porch and stop to chat when they walk their dogs. \r\n\r\nSo, here we go New Orleans- getting back to what we do best�each of us in our own way and at the rate in which we are able. My personal goal - though� I haven�t told Chappy - is to have a spring crawfish boil for any neighbors who are around�.bring your own chair, plastic glass and roll of paper towels. Ya�ll come too.\r\n\r\nGreat wishes for the New Year, blessings to you all.\r\n\r\nLove, Lorene\r\n\r\nSometime late January, 2006\r\nGreetings from Metairie! \r\n\r\nOur mailing address is back to the original address in Metairie. Although we are not living there, mail is delivered 3 times a week\r\n\r\nLast Sunday we loaded car, van, change of clothes, rudimentary tool box, pertinent papers, camera, pill boxes and left Lafayette �in the dead of day� as sister Debbie said. \r\n\r\nOur arrival to more or less permanent residence in New Orleans (we still have our travel trailer in Lafayette if we need a get-away) was not without psychological trauma. The FEMA trailer we were given the loan of is governmental design par excellence. No storage. I know NOLA survivors aren�t supposed to have any belongings, but gee whiz! It could creatively sleep 8, but no place to hang a washcloth or a towel, hot water tank is 5 gallons�try bathing in 5 of those gallons of milk, buddy�black water tank has to be emptied once a day with two of us there only in the early morning or late at night. There is no place to hang clothes except on the edge of one bunk - the same bunk where you have to store your folded clothes, washcloth, shoes, papers, soup cans and loaf of bread. So, are we glad to be back in New Orleans? Well, we�re gonna� save on gas traveling back and forth from Lafayette!\r\n\r\nNow the frustration begins. Do we have to raise the house in order to get flood insurance? When will electricity be hooked up to the pole in the front yard so we can move our travel trailer in from Lafayette? (I�m not certain I�m in a big hurry!) The school where Chrissy is a counselor would like her there full time but has no money to offer. Now it seems the faculty is in more need of counseling than the students. Some are alone and lost everything, including pets.\r\n\r\nOn the bright side, New Orleanians are trying to resume normality where possible. A friend had a 60th birthday party Sunday at the New Orleans Yacht Club. It was quite a hoot! The food was good (his daughter is a test chef for Emeril Lagasse), the dress was quite casual (wear what ya got!) the room was nearly whole (what�s a wall or two of draped canvas?) and the scenery was a 2nd story overview of the much photographed outer harbor of the New Orleans marina. Very few boats left. A few still on docks or pilings or partially submerged, or cut in half, but most of the water ways look to be cleared (tho� one sailor who ventured into the harbor in dinghy reported running into a �sinker�. It was a chance to connect with others, and we all wondered how long it would take before our opening greeting would no longer be �how did you do?�. Those of us who have boats that survived wished they could see what the boat went through - those who lost their boats don�t even want to know!\r\n\r\nChappy learned today he is the new president of the local BMW Owners Club. The president bailed to the Carolinas. And we received an invitation to Galatoire�s Restaurant for a club dinner. It�s a �coat and tie� restaurant and so Chappy and I are going out to buy a tie this afternoon. Good thing someone invented pants suits for women - I�m not about to buy a dress to fold on the top bunk!\r\n\r\nIt�s a �beautimus� day. Low 70�s. Sunshine. Camelias in bloom in Chrissy and Sherif�s yard. Hard to imagine 8 blocks away could look so different. Who knew!? \r\n\r\nLove, Lorene\r\n\r\nFebruary 1, 2006\r\nGood News! (We think!)\r\n\r\nWe�ve arrived! Thanks to the lovely Cajun couple from whom we bought our trailer in September, our travel trailer arrived at our Metairie address last weekend. This young couple chose to spend their wedding anniversary transporting our trailer, touring the devastated city and spending much appreciated dollars in the French Quarter. The short tour I gave them to �ground zero� (17th street canal) and the lakefront marina �blew them away�. They remembered the seafood restaurants they had enjoyed as children and were amazed that nothing remains of any restaurants at the lakefront.\r\n\r\nChappy finished hooking up the sewage while I purchased a telephone and 9 azalea bushes. Next Chap will connect the phone so we can be reached at our original phone number. The trailer is placed across the front lawn and we step out onto the front sidewalk. Ordinarily I would feel exposed being that close to the sidewalk. But in fact, there are few folks in the neighborhood, although the nearby park has just opened and runners and bicyclers sometimes pass. \r\n\r\nWe wait for word on how high we must raise the house in order to get flood insurance at an affordable rate. (Gosh, I think I�ve said that before!) Meanwhile we have enough to keep us busy. There are still tree limbs and shrubs to be removed, and an Alfa Romeo to be moved to a garage across the lake. (Chappy will put an Army �Mule� in our garage and RE-RESTORE it for the Jackson Barracks Military Museum.) We will do much of the work of restoring the house ourselves: first, the cost of raising the house will take a huge chunk of restoration cost, and, it�s impossible to find workers to perform work on anything like a reasonable schedule � not to mention reasonable cost. We�ve looked for someone to repair a few spots on the roof, but there is no interest in a small job when so many homes need a new roof. The air conditioning compressor continues to hang off the roof. \r\n\r\nThe family: Happy grandbaby Gardner is a real glamour puss! His lip was repaired beautifully at Children�s Hospital in New Orleans. Chrissy resumed doctoral classes at the University of New Orleans and continues part time counseling at DeLaSalle High. Sherif�s tile business hums along under a blue tarp roof and with so many hospitals trying to decide whether to reopen, or with which services to re-open, his medical administration consultation business has him hopping. Yesterday he was asked to represent the city business community at a press conference with the visiting King of Jordan.\r\n\r\nThe huge 17 floor Charity Hospital will NOT reopen. \r\n\r\nTourists are trickling back into the city, if for no other reason than to gawk. That�s good. Unless one sees New Orleans, one has no idea. (Grey Line offers bus tours!) But parts of New Orleans are definitely on the road to recovery: of 575 restaurants that can be said to carry a �*� rating of some sort, 475 have reopened. Mardi Gras this year will be special. I expect it to be one of the best ever from a spectator perspective: crowds smaller, problems fewer, and the costumes! Who could resist dressing as a blue roof or chocolate candy bar? Every politician from Bush to our parish president, Aaron Broussard, will take a hit; the military, first responders and repair folks will be honored. I�ve already seen a t-shirt that says �Vote for Juan� (a reference to the thousands of Mexican workers here to help rebuild). I can�t wait. Maybe our theme will be �Bring New Orleans Back � One Plastic Bin at a Time�. We�ll wrap ourselves in bubble wrap. \r\n\r\nWish you could be here too, Lorene