St. Bernard Parish

A parish in Louisiana is the equivalent to a county on most other states.  St. Bernard Parish is located southeast of New Orleans.  The seat is Chalmette, the largest city in the parish. Chalmette is also where the SPG offices are located.  As of 2000, its population was 67,229. It had been ranked the fastest-growing county (parish) in the United States from 2007 to 2008 by the U.S. Census Bureau, but now it is only half as populated as it was in 2005. In 2009, because of evacuation and outmigration due to destruction by Hurricane Katrina, its population was estimated to be 33,439.  It has the lowest life expectancy of any county in the United States, 69.1 years.

St. Bernard's economy is a mix of agricultural, fishing and industrial.  The cranes we saw on our first night are from St. Bernard’s Port on the Mississippi.  We also passed by many refineries during that first night and in the following days. 
The eye of Katrina passed over the eastern portion of the parish, pushing a 25-foot storm surge into the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet ("MRGO"). Almost the entire parish was flooded, with most areas left with between 5 and 12 feet of standing water. Virtually every structure in the parish was damaged.

Prior to Katrina, the main street of St. Bernard (the city) was lined with retail and commercial development.  Nowadays, there is some new construction (McDonald’s, Walgreen’s, etc.), but the street is pockmarked with abandoned storefronts.  It’s also not unusual to see blown out signs standing sentinel over empty foundations. 

Chalmette General Hospital was devastated by Katrina and has not reopened.  (Hence, Sister Jan’s trip to Tulane University Hospital in New Orleans.)  Apparently just before we arrived, a referendum passed to pave the way for the building of a new hospital in late 2011 or early 2012.

Whenever we exited the ramp on I-10 to get to I-510, we passed the abandoned Six Flags New Orleans.  The storm surge submerged the entire park grounds in water to a depth of four to six feet that was not drained for over a month.

The skeleton-like roller coasters rising out of the darkness are very eerie.  New Orleans now owns the property and apparently there are no future development plans at this time.

Murphy Oil had a major oil spill resulting from the rupture of one of it's crude oil storage tanks, which resulted in one of the largest urban oil spills in US history.

We would drive by these tanks every day if we were traveling to either downtown St. Bernard or New Orleans.

You can still see remnants of Katrina's damage today.

Unfathomable……