New Orleans: still devastated

A good friend from the States, Tara, spent her holiday season working in a soup kitchen in New Orleans, which, several months after Katrina is still stuck in the mire.

The devastation wrecked by Katrina has faded from the news as more recent scandals and disasters have overshadowed it, but the massive destruction is still a day-to-day reality for the people of the area.

Interestingly, New Orleans has also faded off the US news radar, despite the fact that the clean up is proceeding very slowly and the poorest and most in need are still being left to fend for themselves for the most part.

Anyway, Tara took a whole bunch of sensational photos that are incredibly evocative of the destruction that happened and the fact that it seems not much has been done to sort it out.

I highly recommend taking a few minutes to watch the slide show, which you can access here.

* I have no idea why the photo has such a massive border, but that's totally beside the larger point.