Two days before ribbon cutting day. Photo/Kenneth Evans

The cooler weather has brought more people to our Levee Exhibit Hall and Garden at 5000 Warrington Drive in the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans.

Recently, a long time Levees.org supporter visited the site and she wrote to me and shared her perspective. We thought it was so well written that we asked for and received her permission to reprint it here.

People who see this will go away with a better understanding for all that followed. It was the domino effect done quite literally. Maybe the best part of the exhibits is a teaching experience it nuances about human responsibility. So much information is in the hands of knowledgeable experts on whom we depend for our quality of life, which is simply the quality of community life.

It is hard to see how tough it is for families still recovering. I have friends who suffer from survivor stress. I tell them that everyone suffered by degrees because it impacted/changed all of our lives. It makes an impact if you are trying to live a normal life and you walked into one of the few drugstores that were open even weeks afterward, and heard the announcement that the store would be closing at 4:30pm, and it was only 4:00pm! It was so that the store’s employees could have a few hours of daylight to go home (or what there was of it) and try to salvage, gut, clean the house that was once a home. The telling of stories will go on until we are gone, but the record will remain.

When I left the outdoor museum, I had to look back to see how everything was situated, and it occurred to me that the structure itself against the backdrop of the levee curiously resembles the uprights that the corps had driven into the levee. That was my take, and maybe it doesn’t feel that way to anyone, but I liked it. The pavers and bricks, are a reminder of what was once there. The rain garden with its iris and all the varieties of wild flowers growing alongside the exhibits make me think about the fragility of living things and at the same time their persistence to live in the landscape. It’s really amazing, and I think you have done an amazing job.