The Third Battle of New Orleans March 2006 Flickr Photostream

As Lake Pontchartrain began to recede from it's storm surged height (and therefore the lakewater trapped within the failed levee protection system of the City of New Orleans as well), a new problem arose: fires. What's that adage about "water, water everywhere?" Well, in this case, it wasn't needed to drink but to put out fires by a stretched-thin, exhausted New Orleans Fire Department. Getting the equipment to the site of the fire was the first challenge. The second one: fighting a fire with little or no water pressure. One NOFD firefighter told me back in January that there were a couple of times in the post-KTMB "Brownie" days firefighters were down to throwing rocks and bricks at the burning buildings to try to get certain walls or beams to fall a certain way because fighting the fire with water wasn't an option. My greatest fear was that the portions of New Orleans that actually survived the flooding--the areas with the greatest historical value and importance--were then going to burn down to the ground. Luckily, in the weeks following the storm my worse-case scenario did not unfold, but a fair amount of houses and buildings were destroyed from fire in the weeks following 29 August 2005.

The picture above taken yesterday shows an area overcome by fire on South Carrollton and Pritchard Place where six (or seven) houses, including the one above which was the former home of the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, have been reduced to charred rubble. The black lines on the base of the Pritchard Place lions statue continue to serve as proof of the two to three foot floodwater along this portion of South Carrollton Avenue.

More pictures of these houses, along with a variety of shots taken around New Orleans over the past month can be seen here:

The Third Battle of New Orleans March 2006 Flickr Photostream