NOLA, MARIO TAMA

New Orleans has settled into a sort of controlled chaos, National Guard soldiers patrol the streets and bang on doors as different neighborhoods open up daily due to sharply decreasing floodwaters.



What was yesterday an impassable urban swamp is today a debris filled road caked in mud.



Very few holdouts remain and those who do seem to be tiring of the isolation. David Jackson Jr., 82, is rescued by New Orleans DEA agents after being trapped in his home in the heavily damaged ninth ward

Canal Street has become a massive staging are for media and military, downtown feels occupied and soulless.

Let's hope the natives return soon.

c Mario Tama
photos by Mario Tama/ Getty Images


Holdout Kevin Hanson bathes in the murky pool of a partially destroyed gay club that now serves as the de facto community center in New Orleans. Hanson occasionally puts chlorine in the pool in an attempt to keep it clean. A group of holdouts in the community have banded together following Hurricane Katrina as they vow to remain in New Orleans despite orders to evacuate. Most in the community feel they are better off staying in their neighborhood than in a faraway shelter.


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