Tolling Bells Mark Moment Deluge Began

It was a day of remembrance, sorrow and renewal Tuesday for residents of this storm-torn city as they marked the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

Bells tolled throughout the city at 9:38 a.m., the precise minute a year earlier that raging floodwaters began rupturing the city’s levee system, unleashing a catastrophic deluge.

More than 1,500 people in Louisiana died because of Katrina. At least 123,000 structures were damaged or destroyed statewide. New Orleans’ population of about 460,000 has been halved by the destruction, which forced residents from their homes and workplaces.

New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin offered words of comfort to those gathered outside City Hall for the commemorative bell-ringing. He acknowledged the emotional trauma, but urged residents not to give up hope.

“Trust me. We will get through it. We will get through it together,” Nagin said.

Later, at an interfaith prayer service at the downtown Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, Nagin said it was time for the city to take responsibility for rebuilding itself.

“If government can’t get you your check on time ... it says you need to do something,” Nagin said. “It says your neighbors need to come together and all you need to do is cook a pot of red beans and they’ll bring over the hammers and the nails.”

Remembrances -- some planned and public, others spontaneous and private -- were played out in parishes across the New Orleans metropolitan area.

In neighboring St. Bernard Parish, where all but a few dozen of 27,000 homes were destroyed and 129 residents killed, hundreds gathered to dedicate a monument.

The 13-foot steel cross, bearing an artist’s depiction of Jesus’ face, was erected near the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, where the parish initially felt Katrina’s impact.

Elsewhere, crowds joined five New Orleans City Council members to lay wreaths at landmarks associated with the disaster, including the Superdome, where hundreds were trapped without proper provisions, and the London Avenue and Industrial canals, which split apart in the storm.

Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis’ face was wracked with emotion as she stood near a granite memorial in the Lower 9th Ward -- one of the city’s hardest hit neighborhoods.

“This is a defining point,” Willard-Lewis said, shortly before addressing a group of constituents and National Guardsmen. “We will not be defeated by the tragedy of Aug. 29. We use today as a point of healing.”

The councilwoman’s family lost 11 homes to the storm.

After offering words of respect for the dead, and encouragement for the living, Willard-Lewis led a procession of her 9th Ward constituents clutching red carnations, to the center of the Claiborne Avenue Bridge over the Industrial Canal.

With some linking arms as a trumpeter played a solemn hymn, marchers followed National Guardsmen, hoisted the American flag and another bearing the words, “Union, Justice, Confidence.”

A priest blessed the gathering, and offered prayers before Willard-Lewis tossed a wreath of white carnations, adorned with black ribbons, into the canal.

“It means closure,” Lower 9th resident Priscilla Perkins, 42, said after casting a red carnation into the water. Her lips quivered as she spoke of losing five family members to the storm. “I feel I can move on now.”

A short time later and a few blocks away, the group joined others gathered at the newly rebuilt Industrial Canal levee. Against the backdrop of an area of the Lower 9th Ward where weeds, debris and wrecked homes dominate the landscape -- religious and community leaders read eulogies, sang spiritual songs, and offered libations to the deceased. Those gathered swayed to the rhythm of beating drums and the aroma of burning incense permeated the air.

Screams rang out as Ebony Traylor and Alan Mercadel spotted each other in the crowd. The friends, who hadn’t seen one other since Katrina, embraced and for several minutes wouldn’t let go.

“We’ve been looking for you for the last year,” Mercadel told Traylor. “There were rumors that you had died.”

He immediately called his wife, Traylor’s best friend.

“I’ve been wanting to cry all day,” said Traylor, her eyes welling with tears. “I’ve been holding it back. It’s like seeing family again.”

Shortly after the impromptu reunion, a jazz funeral requiem procession set off. The parade-goers walked slowly behind a funeral hearse, sporadically breaking into song, with traditional march hymns, such as “We Shall Overcome.” Many carried banners and placards with messages like “Never Forget” and “We Are Coming Home Baby.”

A similar procession, in the tradition of a jazz funeral, was held later in the day in the downtown area, to honor Katrina victims and the city’s first responders. In keeping with quintessential New Orleans spirit, the cadence of a mournful dirge was soon drowned out by a cheerful, hopping beat -- prompting marchers to jump and dance.