After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, thousands of people in the jazz capital of America are still homeless
When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans on August 29, 2005, Michael Harris was on tour in Brazil. The house of the black bass guitarist in the lower 9th Ward was shredded to pieces by the raging floods. About 80,000 houses were damaged or destroyed and 1,300 people died in the Big Easy that day during America's biggest natural disaster.
When Mr Harris returned two days later, even his music notes were gone. 'The destruction was complete, the silence was deafening: no cars, no music, no children playing,' he said.
One-and-a-half years later, Mr Harris is standing in front of his new home, a tiny 800 square feet wooden frame house with only one floor. The house will be part of the Musicians Village that Habitat for Humanity is building here for those musicians who cannot afford to buy new homes.
'If there is anything that's gonna save this city, it's the music,' Mr Harris said.
Not everybody in New Orleans is as lucky as Mr Harris. In this mecca of jazz that stands for legends like Louis Armstrong and Fats Domino, slightly less than half of the original population of almost 500,000 people remain. Half of the current population is displaced and lives in one of the 40,000 trailers that are spread all over town. To these people the biggest concern is not the crime spree that started the year with 12 homicides in 15 days, almost triggering a curfew.
