Debris

Many residents have not yet been able to return and their empty wrecked homes stand as a testimony to their loss. Houses are spray-painted with their street addresses (though the houses themselves may not have ended up where they stood before the storm) and the owner’s names, a poignant reminder that these were once neighborhoods. FEMA has become something of the hand that giveth and the hand that taketh away; after initially offering money for newly homeless residents who’d had no insurance, FEMA has recently issued a new map prohibiting the rebuilding of property in 80% of the parish, leaving residents with literally no place to call home again. The state is appealing the ruling.