Posted on 01/06/2006 6:23:30 PM PST by blam
Tourists queue for disaster trips in the ruins of New Orleans
By Alec Russell
(Filed: 07/01/2006)
Every morning Isabelle Cossart sets off in her white minibus to pick up tourists from their hotels to take them on a tour of the Big Easy and its swampy surroundings.
She has followed the same routine for 27 years. But in recent weeks her guests have headed into more controversial territory as they bump around an area that is not mentioned on any of the city's tourist maps: the Lower 9th Ward, the mainly black and poor neighbourhood that was all but levelled by Hurricane Katrina.
A tour bus in a hurricane-hit part of the city
Mrs Cossart's Open City Disaster Tour has caused controversy that goes to the heart of the debate over the future of New Orleans. For some Americans it stirs memories of the outcry in New York when soon after the September 11 attacks vendors set up their stalls near the debris of the World Trade Centre's Twin Towers to sell video footage and photographs of their collapse.
It also rekindles the debate over other disaster zones and battlefields, such as Soweto and Dubrovnik, which went swiftly from being headline news to essential destinations on the discerning traveller's itinerary. With emotions running high over the city's plans to demolish thousands of houses in the Lower 9th, some hurricane survivors raking through the ruins of their homes have bridled as the minibuses drive by.
However, Mrs Cossart defends her tour as a way of projecting the awfulness of what happened and keeping the needs of New Orleans in the public eye. For $49 (£27), clients are given a three-hour tour starting in the relatively unscathed French Quarter and ending at one of the breaches in the levee system that allowed the waters to flood in.
"I am accused of voyeurism and taking advantage of victims' misery," she said. "But this is the largest natural disaster in American history. People want to see what is left. It is not voyeurism; it's human nature."
She describes the reaction of Robert Green, who had just found his mother's body in the rubble of their home. When he saw the minibus, he asked if they were touring, she said.
"He said, 'Good. I want people to know what happened'."
Mrs Cossart added: "I share with people what has happened to us all. I want people to go back home to Wyoming, Colorado, Connecticut and tell their congressmen, 'Please don't forget New Orleans. Please vote for enough funds so it cannot happen again.' "
With a larger company, Gray Line, starting a three-hour, $35 (£19) Hurricane Katrina - America's Worst Catastrophe tour last Wednesday, Katrina tours have become a national talking point.
Barrett Stephens, 24, a law student at Loyola University, in New Orleans, saw as much as anyone of the horror of Katrina and he backs the tours. He helped his father, the sheriff of St Bernard Parish, rescue scores of people when the storm struck.
"You hear the occasional person saying it is inappropriate," he said. "We want people to appreciate how bad things are."
When Soweto began its first "struggle" tours at the end of white rule, there were some complaints that they had turned the giant, bustling township into a zoo. New Orleans officials concede the parallel.
"The tours make everyone a little uncomfortable," Steven Perry, the head of the city's visitors bureau, told the Wall Street Journal.
To head off criticism, Gray Line is giving $3 per ticket to charity. "Some are going to perceive it as gawking, but frankly with everything that's been going on here, it seems absolutely normal."
Mrs Cossart says it would be different if outsiders were running the tours. The developers who are swarming in from the rest of America are seen as the descendants of the carpetbaggers who arrived in the South after the Civil War to make a quick buck. But she points out that she and her workers all suffered.
"We have started to rebuild our house," she said. "We lost a third of its value.
"I used to have 22 employees. I have had zero since the storm until yesterday when I hired back two. I used to see a thousand tourists a month. Now I see about 40. I want to be a little spark that reignites the tourist flame."
New Orleans has thrived on tourism for as long as any living person can remember. This is nothing new. "Voyeurism," as this reporter put it, is not what is happening here, nor can I imagine any New Orleanians being offended by it.
And hell, our local businesses need the money that this activity will generate. I advise Mr. Russell to quit whining.
These folks will be wanting a tour of DNC headquarters in November.
Damn Rubberneckers. They always get off on seeing other people's misery.
Who would want to see a big, ugly mess?
Bingo! They should dial 1-800-SHEEHAN.
Pathetic.
/rant
I was in NO last June, pre Katrina and I thought it was a disaster before Katrina hit. There were large parts of the city that just weren't a good idea to go to. NO was way overated as far as I was concerned.
I agree. I would never voluntarily go to NO, before or after Katrina.
This is not about voyeurism and a commercial/showbiz kind of taking in another's misfortune; it IS about seeing what can happen when Nature comes visiting and knocks down your door and you think you are living Armageddon. . .
Think it is the force of the destruction that people want to understand and connect with. . .
These survivor citizens want to ressurect New Orleans so that this city becomes a tourist mecca again. What better way to appreciate the challenge and the success. . .than for people to see where that future begins, today.
This is not about voyeurism and a commercial/showbiz kind of taking in another's misfortune; it IS about seeing what can happen when Nature comes visiting and knocks down your door and you think you are living Armageddon. . .
Think it is the force of the destruction that people want to understand and connect with. . .
These survivor citizens want to ressurect New Orleans so that this city becomes a tourist mecca again. What better way to appreciate the challenge and the success. . .than for people to see where that future begins, today.
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