NOLA to New York

Andy Kopsa created the "Nola to New York" tumblr during Hurricane Sandy. The idea: Katrina survivors talk to New Yorkers suffering after the storm.

I am a freelance journalist and New York is my home. But New Orleans was once. I am in NOLA now, waiting to get home in the wake of Sandy. So while I am pacing, worried about my husband, friends and my city, I thought up this project. Who better than the people of New Orleans to talk to the people of NYC right now. They know, they lived through Katrina. They are still living with it seven years later.

If you are a current or former resident of New Orleans that lived through the nightmare of Katrina and want to participate in NOLA to New York please write on a piece of paper what it is you would say to the people of New York if you could. Anything: that you care, that you know what they are going through, don’t drink the water, make sure to be kind to your neighbors when times get worse before they get better - anything. Then take a picture like the ones seen here.

More info here.

Photo: Alvin came from the New Orleans West Bank, where he now lives, to participate in NOLA to New York.

Alvin had a home in Mid City. It was his mother’s place. He evacuated to Baton Rouge the day before the storm. When he finally came back, the water receded and the watermark was halfway up the first floor wall; his roof, partially torn off, had let in the rain. Alvin wishes they could have kept the property in the family but the federal program Road Home offered them less than it was worth but with his mother aging, they had to sell. He can’t watch too much of the Sandy coverage because of his memories of Katrina.

(via Tim Shey)

• [oasisob1]

  I <3 the 1 click per pic format…

• [tiredofit]

  I guess NJ is like Alabama and Mississippi, since no one seems to be sending us messages. :-(

  • [Bersl]

     Does that make Long Island like St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parishes?

  • [Mattie Kenny]

    Retracting because it sounded mean and I don’t want to be mean.

    • [tiredofit]

      I got the original in my e-mail, and I don’t think it sounded mean.  It is true that we are getting far more, far faster than folks in the Katrina disaster. 

• [Charles Lenchner]

  I’m waiting for busloads of NOLA teens and college students to arrive in Long Island an the NJ suburbs to camp out in synagogues, listen to survivor-leaders give culturally appropriate context, and then spend five days doing physical labor to help local communities.
  I mean… why should NOLA always be exploited in this way? Time for us in the Northeast to be gawked at and used as an educational backdrop for outsiders engaged in feel-good tourism and churchy bonding trips.

• [Woody Smith]

  As Bill Maher pointed out last night, at least THIS time it is CORRECT to say, “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job!” The Obama Administration knows how to respond to a crisis.

• [MortHobbs]

  This is great, and without being cynical, are the two disasters really comparable? I heard last night that the NBA was donating 1 million to the red cross for relief efforts. It just strikes me as almost mean. It’s like POWs sending messages to people being held in jail over night. Still I hope all my friends and family there are safe and out of harms way.

• [sour60]

  “I’m been there”…now I know why the Latinos were making fun of Bloomberg’s Spanish.

  • [Michele Lanan]

    I don’t know, I thought he was saying I’m “been there”, which is what you’ll be in a few years. 

    • [BunnyShank]

       I like the way you think.

• [Gwendolyn Bird]

  I’m currently in New Orleans, working with disaster survivors and I’ve been continuously touched by the sentiment I’ve been hearing from people here about Hurricane Sandy.