Louisiana State museum displays Katrina's wrath
The room is lit by flashlights, an escape hole chopped in the roof with an ax lying nearby. Steps away, rising floodwaters seep down a levee wall; across the way, a storm diary written in black felt marker on a housing project wall bears testimony to the hellish days after Hurricane Katrina hit.
Those items and more from the monster storm that battered New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, killing more than 1,600 people, are part of "Living With Hurricanes, Katrina & Beyond," a stunning new exhibit that recently opened at the Louisiana State Museum.
ABOUT THE SHOW The $7.5-million exhibit at The Presbytere museum in New Orleans' French Quarter recounts tales of the 2005 hurricane, its chaotic aftermath and recovery. It also explores lessons Katrina taught.
"We see this as a game-changer for the museum," says director Sam Rykels. Galleries and connecting areas move visitors through four presentations: New Orleans' relationship to storms; firsthand accounts of people and predicaments of survival they found themselves in; a forensics gallery exploring the paths Katrina and Hurricane Rita took and the science of how the levees failed; and a section on recovery and technologies emerging since to combat the destructive forces of nature.
WHAT YOU'LL SEE Museum officials returned days after Hurricane Katrina and began salvaging many of the items found throughout the exhibits. The collection ranges from a ruined baby grand piano dragged from the flooded home of rhythm and blues legend Fats Domino to a muddy teddy bear and the blue jeans that survivor Claudio Hemb wore the day after the storm. The jeans are inscribed with Hemb's name, his wife's name and a telephone number at the Houston hotel she was evacuated to, in the event he was killed.
Then there's the exhibit of the ax in the attic. The new-looking ax was bought by a woman living near New Orleans in case she and her daughter should need escape from their attic because of rising floodwaters - exactly the fate that befell them.
Video exhibits display footage of the storm, oral histories and the work residents and a huge group of volunteers have done assisting with recovery.
IF YOU GO The Louisiana State Museum's Presbytere is open 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. Admission is $6 (free ages 12 and younger). Details at 504-568-6968, lastatemuseum.com.
