Working and waiting
While New Orleans remains in a state of suspended animation, two Delgado faculty do their best to move on

By Craig Berthold

The slope of the levee actually makes up our backyard. The watermarks on our house document the nine feet of Lake Ponchartrain that slowly subsided during September and October. There are still dead crabs and fish clinging to the bricks, melded by heat and the residue of lake water, sewage and chemicals.

Standing in the way of the city’s comeback is a void in leadership and a devastating breakdown in government at every level: local, state and federal. No decisions have been made as to what portions of the approximately 80 percent of New Orleans that flooded will be green space or will be approved for rebuilding. No decisions have been made on the confiscation of property that may be needed to rebuild and strengthen the existing levees (this could include our property). No decisions have been made or implemented by Louisiana on demolition, buyout or rebuilding for homeowners. No decisions have been made by FEMA on a new flood elevation plan allowing the residents of New Orleans to rebuild their homes to safe and insurable heights.

Cindy and I just wait in limbo for FEMA to put up the long-promised group trailer site on the Delgado Community College campus, eight months after the disaster. We have to call FEMA every two weeks for extensions on our hotel room on Rampart Street in the city while we try to help Delgado rebuild. Cindy is working on vital faculty development programs that center around a new focus of distance learning. An increase of online courses offered during the fall, when most of New Orleans was still under mandatory evacuation, allowed our students to continue their education even while scattered across the country in states as far away as California and Alaska.

I am teaching four studio courses in Visual Communications and Fine Arts this semester. Since the building that housed the visual communications department was severely damaged, the art faculty had to find space and move the digital and photographic labs to another building. We broke down a state-of-the-art Mac lab in a moldy building without power or elevators, carried heavy equipment down two flights of stairs, and reconstructed the lab in one of four buildings out of about 20 that were not substantially damaged. Then we adjusted course offerings to a predominantly evening/night schedule because of limited room availability.

By the time Cindy and I leave campus between 6:30 and 9 p.m. and head back to our hotel room, most of the grocery stores and drugstores are closed due to lack of employees. There is simply nowhere for them to live in the city, and the few available places have had exorbitant rent increases.

Since we lost about everything in the flood, including almost all of my body of artwork completed over the last 20 years, we are grateful that the AFT has been generous with its disaster relief checks to members. It is a definite comfort to receive support while we work, wait and hope for the situation to improve for the students, staff and faculty at the college, as well as the citizens of New Orleans.