Hurricane Katrina

New Orleans, Louisiana

Dedicated to my grandmother

This past fall, I flew into New Orleans, a trip I had been taking all my life. The view from the plane was a sea of blue tarps. Hurricane Ida had barreled through the month before, but Louisiana is always quick to bounce back. However, the land holds some remnants of one particularly malevolent terror, Hurricane Katrina. I was about three years old when she hit land. My grandparents evacuated to Alabama and apart from not visiting New Orleans that summer, my life in Nashville went on as usual. All I knew was what I saw on the front page of the news and what I heard from my family. But there was so much more I was yet to discover. Some roofs never got blue tarps, some windows were never replaced, and some people never returned.

I had told my grandmother about what I was looking for and she knew exactly where to go. Let's walk through the old homes with the blue porches, the caved-in schools, the shipwrecked boats, and the oh so infamous "Doorway to hell".

I brought help to New Orleans because I struggled to find anyone who would come with me to something called "The Doorway to Hell". So, thank you Amy for volunteering. All behind-the-scenes shots are taken by her.

Keep an eye out for gators, Mardi Gras beads, and also, my relatives, as you follow me through the abandoned skeletons of Bayou Country.

Schools out

Ghost homes

No wake

Saint Scholastica

If you google "abandoned buildings in Covington, Louisiana," you are bound to come across something known as "The Doorway to Hell". It also just so happens that my grandmother used to go to school there.

Saint Scholastica is an operational Catholic school in Covington Louisiana. My mother and my grandmother attended. This building pictured used to be a nunnery for the Catholic school. It caught on fire and some structures burned down. When It was to be reconstructed, Hurricane Katrina canceled those plans. I found abandoned construction equipment grown over with brush. It looked as if a construction crew had suddenly vanished and never returned.

ghost stories

The legend of the SSA nunnery tells of countless teenagers disappearing when they ventured there. So, naturally, Amy and I, two teenagers, hiked to this massive building in the woods to explore, alone.

"Paranormal" encounters were kept to a minimum, however, there was one blocked-off hallway with some figure moving around inside. We took off after we saw it. It could have been a squatter, it could have been Louisiana wildlife, or it could have been something else. We may never know what lurks inside those walls, and I am in no rush to figure it out.

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