Katrina-Battered Homes Now Going Green

Aug. 30, 2008— -- There years ago, there were no streets in the Lower Ninth Ward and few signs of life. Battered by Hurricane Katrina, there was just water -- and destruction.

Back then, 80 percent of New Orleans was underwater and the Lower Ninth Ward was Ground Zero after two major breaches in the nearby Industrial Canal sent water sweeping through streets and into homes.

One local hurricane victim summed it up then: "A lot of people died, bro."

But things are changing. Three years after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, the prodigal sons and daughters have started to move back, finally trying to put the past behind them.

"I want to come back home to the Ninth Ward," homeowner Bernice Duplessis said. "This is where I'm from. It was where I was raised."

Some 20,000 people called the Lower Ninth home before Katrina. So far, only about 1,000 have come back. Empty buildings and homes long frozen in time are now slowly being reclaimed.

"When I came back, I was the only one living in my area, and now there's 20 to 30 new houses in that area," resident Robert Green said.

But there's something a little different about the neighborhood now. A grassroots movement has started, a green revolution perhaps, to turn the once-devastated community into a sustainable one.

"I believe that it's gonna be better than it was before," Green said, "because, basically, where we lived, we had 3,000 missing houses, so those houses that are gonna come back are gonna be more modern, more energy efficient, more green."

Green said he lost his young granddaughter and mother in the floods, and now, through the grief, he's trying to move on by helping his community move forward.

Rev. Gilbert Scie said he never though he'd be talking about solar energy in his neighborhood, "especially before the flood, the concept of sustainability just didn't enter the minds of people here, especially in the Lower Ninth Ward."

For a community that lost everything and didn't have much to begin with, going green is more about saving cash than saving the planet.

Warrenetta Banks' house was badly damaged by the floods. When she rebuilt last year, she decided to be energy efficient, and it's already paying off.