Today we took a tour of New Orleans with Jim as our tour guide.  The tour was so much more than any of us expected.  We made stops at the three locations where the levees broke during Katrina.  It was scary to think how devastated these places were because of the levees breaking; houses were completely washed away and water inendated the surrounding area, trapping many people and destroying many houses.  Going to the lower ninth ward was probably the most shocking.  The levee break there was tremendous and caused an unfathomable amount of damage and death.  It was so strange to see an area that was once completely inhabited be overgrown with brush and practically void of  people or homes.  I think we all agreed that it felt almost erie.  The area was like a ghost town, even three plus years after the storm.  All I could think of was that those empty plots of land used to be homes for so many people.  It was especially evident when we could see steps or foundations of homes still standing without the house.  It was interesting and also disturbing when Jim told us that people used to visit the lower ninth ward in the year after Katrina when debri had not been cleaned up yet.  He said many of the residents were terribly offended by the lack of compassion of people; for example, people picking up remains of their homes as souvenirs.  Overall, the tour was a great experience and Jim was very informative about a lot of the gaps in our previous knowledge.  It really helps us understand what a great impact our hard work can be after such a horrific tragedy.