Schwarz
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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 demolitio