FEMA plans to raze this house in New Orleans' Lakeview neighborhood. (Squanderedheritage.com)

Drive through some of the 80 percent of New Orleans that was inundated by flood waters after Hurricane Katrina, and you'll notice life is slowly ebbing back, one house at a time, one neighborhood at a time.

You'll also notice something else: signs advertising demolition services—across billboards, on phone poles, and along the roadways.

"You can't escape them," says Laureen Lentz, a law librarian and preservation activist. "Yesterday I was stuck behind a bus with a big 'demolition' ad plastered across the back of it."

While many of the city's homes were wrecked beyond salvation and clearly need to be demolished—Lentz's own historic house in the Tremé neighborhood was partially knocked over by Katrina winds and subsequently carted away—Lentz and others are becoming alarmed that so many of the city's homes in historic districts are being torn down, often with flood damage used as a pretext. It's as if New Orleans is now at risk of being ravaged by another flood—that of demolitions.

"New Orleans' incredible inventory of historical structures forms its single most valuable resource," says Richard Campanella, associate director of the Center for Bioenvironmental Research at Tulane University and author of a much-praised book, Geographies of New Orleans: Urban Fabrics Before the Storm. "Tearing them down when other options exist is a lazy, short-sighted decision that will be regretted by future generations."

A Mid-City house whose owner applied for a FEMA-funded demolition (Karen Gadbois)

How to combat this surge of unneeded demolitions? Activists like Lentz are turning—where else?—to the Internet.

At an Uptown coffee shop on Prytania Street, just across from one of New Orleans' famous raised cemeteries, Lentz is tapping away on a laptop computer. Across the table with another laptop is Karen Gadbois, a longtime New Orleans resident and former art gallery owner.

Gadbois and Lentz were both blogging in New Orleans after the storm, documenting the fits and starts of the recovery. That's when Gadbois noticed that some buildings in her Northwest Carrollton neighborhood were being torn down, yet had little or no visible damage.

The incentive to demolish, Gadbois found out, is strong. After all, FEMA has been picking up the tab for post-Katrina demolition. It's a much-needed service, but many homeowners have evidently been using the FEMA program to get rid of buildings they wanted to dispose of even before the flood.

"People are using Katrina as a cover to do whatever they wanted to do," Gadbois says. "There was a lot of opportunistic demolition."

Gadbois says that teardowns have been abetted by general confusion over the permitting process, a lack of transparency on the part of the city, and a sort of widespread hysteria about black mold and rot.

So Gadbois launched another Web log dedicated to drawing attention to spurious demolitions, particularly those in historic neighborhoods. Lentz, who had been raising alarums about demolitions on her blog, joined forces. The new effort, which went online last January, was named "Squandered Heritage," a nod to the Chicago Tribune's 2003 series on historic preservation in that city.

Another demo candidate, 4603 Banks St., which neighbors say is in good shape. (Karen Gadbois)

Neighbors are rarely even aware that demolition permits have been filed until they hear the bulldozers, and then it's too late, Gadbois says. Squandered Heritage set about to change this. Gadbois, Lentz, and other volunteers strive to visit and photograph notable houses that are permitted for demolition, then post it on the blog, often with commentary. Those who visit the site are invited to add their own notes.

One house slated for demolition, for instance, was at 4603 Banks Street in the Mid-City neighborhood. A handsome Greek revival-style bungalow set atop a raised basement, photos of the house show a flood line plainly visible and well below the living quarters.

"What is wrong with it?" wondered one visitor to the site. "Looks like a raised basement from the pic which means no flooding on the upper floor." Lentz chimed in: "Here's a comment, What the &*(@ ?? Some of these demo candidates are completely baffling," she wrote.

Here's how it works: Homeowners submit applications to FEMA for federally funded demolition, and the city sends out inspectors. But the process isn't always smooth.

"Everyone seems to believe that someone more informed and capable is in charge of this," Gadbois says. "They're not. Everyone in the city is overwhelmed. So we're really the site visit."

The city is listening. Last month the National Trust, Preservation Resource Center, and Squandered Heritage appeared before the city council's housing committee to call attention to problems with the demolition process. After the presentation, the committee chairman agreed to bring all of the relevant city and federal agencies together and devote the next meeting to these issues.

Campanella, the author, praises Squandered Heritage for drawing attention to this new threat to the city and has contacted Gadbois with demolitions he's noted while traveling the city.

"Imagine what New Orleans would be like today if it heeded the advice of many city leaders one hundred years ago and demolished the 'slum' that is now the French Quarter," he says.

Sidebar: Free Demolitions

FEMA's policy digest lists criteria for federally funded demolitions. The "disaster-damaged structures may be eligible for emergency work assistance if the work is necessary to:

- Eliminate an immediate threat to lives, public health, and safety

- Eliminate immediate threats of significant damage to improved public or private property

- Ensure the economic recovery of the affected community to the benefit of the community-at-large and,

- Mitigate the risk to life and property by removing substantially damaged structures and associated appurtenances as needed to convert property acquired through a FEMA hazard mitigation program to uses compatible with open space, recreation, or wetlands management practices."

Wayne Curtis, a contributing editor at Preservation magazine, recently moved from Maine to New Orleans.

Sign up for our weekly e-newsletter >>

Recent Stories