Canal Line: October 2005 Archives

I didn't get really good shots of Randolph. They were moving a bunch of buses around, and even though the security gate wasn't manned, I didn't want to go in without permission.

Looking in from the Bienville Street entrance. Three 2000-series and one 400-series streetcars are visible in the barn. It appears that the neighborhood got 4'-6' of water, which means all of the cars in the barn would have been flooded. Flooding to that extent means a lot of damage to the Brookville and Tatra trucks, as well as the electrical systems in general.

This PT Cruiser is parked on Bienville St., right outside the Randolph wall. The water line on the car goes up to the top of the tail lights.

Two homes across the street from Randolph on Bienville. You can see the water line on the houses, and it appears that the cars were almost completely covered. Now, visualize the streetcars sitting in that much water.

When I have time, I do a "streetcar run" where I run into town on I-10, get off at City Park Ave., and run down Canal Street to St. Charles Ave. From there I turn onto St. Charles, head uptown, then back up Carrollton Avenue to Canal Street. This is a good way for me to check out both of the "non-tourist" streetcar lines as well as the two car barns.

I did this run today, the first time since the storm hit. Here's some shots of Canal Street:

Canal at Pierce, looking lakebound. This is one block before Carrollton Avenue. This is a typical scene of Canal Street in Mid-City.

Canal at Pierce, looking riverbound. Most of the catenary wire on Canal is OK from the cemeteries to St. Charles, with just minor damage. The track has been neglected, as can be seen above, but that won't be too difficult to fix. Most of the palm trees in the neutral ground survived OK; they were anchored by wires to help them take root, and those wires held a lot of them down.

Robert's Supermarket, Canal and Carrollton. This debris pile is typical of homes and businesses from Mid-City out to Metairie. It doesn't matter if a building or home got six inches or two feet of water, they still cut the walls out to 4' up, so the frame can be treated for mold. In the businesses that flooded, a lot of the furniture and fixtures also get tossed out. Robert's obviously got some bad wind damage as well as water. I feel bad for Marc Robert; his store in Metairie got beat up by wind pretty bad, and his store in Lakeview got 8'-10' of water in it. It's a shame, they're good stores.

The smell in the neighborhood is awful. The garbage and debris has piled up so much it's really become nasty. When I got out to take these photos, the smell nearly knocked me down.