Welcome to the Lower Ninth Ward

Last week, I was in New Orleans for the annual Nonprofit Technology Conference. While there I had the immense pleasure of being given a post-Katrina tour by my friend Quintus Jett, a professor at Dartmouth. He is the Director of the Gentilly Project, an effort to use open source principles to map the state of storm-damaged New Orleans neighborhoods. At their web site you can use dynamic GIS maps to zoom in on the condition of each lot (ie: vacant, being renovated, occupied, etc.), and zoom out to see the block-by-clock process of rebuilding.

I was so grateful for a chance to see the community personally. As you may know, there are still spray-painted symbols on many homes left by the rescue efforts. The biggest shock was that much of the Lower 9th Ward, which used to be hundreds of homes, is now a grassy field with just a few cement blocks and slabs marking former foundations.

You can browse my pictures at Flickr or watch the slideshow below.