Thursday

Thursday was my first time on the ground in the Lower Ninth in a few months. Because I'll be mapping there in the morning, I'm looking at everything now with a different eye.

The photo above shows what the NENA office looked like early this year. Today, there are more desks, and it feels more crowded. Will there be enough space for a lot of volunteers here?

Nilima the community liason showed me an area to use as an office. I didn't recall that space being there before. Guess the wall wasn't finished being put yet.

The Claiborne bridge, one of the most travelled routes to the Lower Ninth, is out. Not good. That means only one bridge goes over the Industrial Street Canal and connects the Lower Ninth to other areas of the city. That means heavy traffic. Sure enough, it was stop and go trying to get over the St. Claude Avenue bridge.

Patricia Jones, NENA's director, was on TV earlier this week, talking about the Friday and Saturday mapping. Nilima was filmed this afternoon for the local 10 o'clock news.

We were initially expecting 8 volunteers tomorrow (Friday). It appeared that we'd get another 15 on Friday afternoon. And we are now expecting as many as 40 volunteers on Sunday.

We're expecting enough volunteers for me to start thinking about organization. I don't think we can do this unless we have more office volunteers -- those who can help with finalizing and printing the mapping assignments, as well as keep track of what we have done (and haven't done) and handle the data entry process.

In fact, I could use those office volunteers tonight. I expect a late preparing...