Dispatch: New Orleans
By Gary Fabiano

    Hurricane Katrina was a direct hit on the city of New Orleans. We all watched as people were trapped on the roofs of their homes holding signs pleading for help. The dead were left on the street, in back yards or floating listlessly by in a nameless, saturated neighborhood. No food or water. No security or shelter. No plan in place to help these individuals. Chaos and anarchy took hold as people had to resort to survival instincts emptying the shelves of stores for food; which promoted the criminal element to seep in leading to looting, robbing, rapes and murders.

   I never thought I would have seen this on American soil. Overseas yes, I've seen it, but not in America. Not in a major American city. Desperation does not discriminate. I've seen the look on the faces of those caught in the cross hairs of conflicts from the Balkans, to the Middle East, and Haiti. But not here.

   A disaster this size is too big for any one photographer. What I offer here is an incomplete picture as to what happened in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. My photos are only a glimpse, if that, to the magnitude of failure that occurred. These images are just a blink of an eye. Much before and much after, took place that should be sought out by all, and viewed to make sense of the chaos that was experienced by too many. It is one huge puzzle. I offer here only twenty pieces of that puzzle to add to the visual vocabulary that makes up this tragic piece of American history.

   Being down on the streets of New Orleans was surreal. I had never been to New Orleans before, but it was on that "lifetime" list of places to visit. I had heard many great things about this city of acceptance, of music, of gluttony, of freedom, of religion, and now of the lost and the found.

   There is a hollow part of me knowing that I had to see this city in this condition. There is no going back from the present. In the future no matter how I look at this city I will never be able to lose those images that I witnessed as New Orleans lay buckled at its knees.

   A creepy, suffocating feeling took hold of my body as I approached the city for the first time. Empty streets abandoned. Cars and busses were left in the middle of lonely streets distraught and configured in an air of urgency. In my mind I could only imagine the ghosts of people running from their cars, but I couldn't imagine what made them run for their lives.

   When I reached the areas of human concentration such as the convention center, I wasn't sure where I was or what I was seeing. an empty contemporary city that went from desolation to a complete military state, complete with automatic weapons, Humvees, and looming black birds covering the sky looking for their prey. I closed my eyes as if I was moving in slow motion only to blur the lines between the streets of New Orleans and some distant war zone I had covered. But I was here in the streets of New Orleans where lost souls wandered looking for direction, but finding none.

   It was confusing and upsetting.

   People walked by the dead as if they weren't there. The sick and dying lay helpless with no medicine or doctors to help. Remnants of a broken dialysis machine lay abandoned on the sidewalk... It's patient nowhere to be found. A thick carpet of trash covered the ground and makeshift homes bordered off by blankets and sheets flowed from the sidewalks into the streets. People were tired, resigned and walked aimlessly.

   For a country that throws itself into the top of "civilized" societies, I am not sure what went wrong. Civilized societies do not wait to evacuate people who are on a crash course with disaster, nor do they allow"looting" food for survival as the only option. They do not allow their dead to lay on the streets day after day after day. They do not allow the law of the land to practically disappear allowing chaos and anarchy to take hold and terrorize the innocent. In one of the most technologically-medically advanced countries in the world they do not abandon seasoned doctors and nurses in hospitals to be reduced to helplessly pleading for anyone listening on the airwaves to save their patients.only to have some of them die right in front of them for no other reason except incompetence.

   I write this over a month later trying hard to rationalize what I saw in my country.I am still in a state of disbelief. ( Photos and Essay Copyright © Gary Fabiano 2005 )