As mentioned in last month’s TravelTalk, the NADA Study Tour recently returned from New Orleans, and it was truly amazing to visit the city once again, only this time, after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

Bourbon Street; the hotels, the restaurants and all the other venues are definitely suffering.

I could not believe that whilst never a quiet area, the Bourbon Street and other French Quarter venues are definitely down in patronage, my guess from anywhere between 20 to 50 per cent.

The city has been ready to receive guests and entertain as they always do from only three weeks after Katrina; however the tourist market seems to have never come back, at least not in the numbers from before.  For an already poor state, this can be devastating.

I found some time on my last day to take a drive to some of the worst affected areas by Katrina.

Driving through the Seventh Ward, once an upper middle class suburb, the scars from the hurricane were readily visible on almost every street.  Damaged houses, some condemned, some simply abandoned, were everywhere.

Trailers still dotted the front of houses not yet ready to move back into despite it being three and a half years since the storm.

In all honesty it was quite surreal to see.

Over the bridge it was onto the lower Ninth Ward.  Heading over the bridge I could see the new concrete levy built after the storm.  So much damage was done after the original levy broke due to poor construction.

Here was like seeing a documentary on Chernobyl.

You stop at a red light and there is no one living on either side of the road, as streets are made up by abandoned lots, overgrown by three feet of grass or higher and nothing left to show of this once vibrant community of over 15,000 people.

It is estimated over 10 per cent of the population from this area alone perished in the storm or the subsequent flooding.

Street after street is empty; the odd brick house that survived has gaping holes for windows, staring at you like the eyes of the dead.

Only driveways and remaining concrete stumps glimpsed through over growth, showing that this was once someone's home, someone’s life, or someone’s business.  Everything for most of these people has been swept away leaving literally nothing of their life's endeavours behind.

I came across a vacant lot with a few trailers set up.  Here was a man I was introduced to as Robert.  The only permanent structure on Robert's land was a legacy to two of his family members who perished during Katrina.

Now he has become something of a local celebrity, as oddly enough, a lot of international media interview him, yet, there is a sad lack of US media presence.