STEAMBOAT HOUSES

 
LOWER NINTH WARD

Steamboat houses on Egania Street at the Mississippi River.

A visitor attraction long before Katrina, these over-the-top ornate Victorian wooden houses in steamboat-baroque style are on the high ground of the least affected portion of the Lower 9th, the Holy Cross neighborhood (with only a few feet of floodwater for a few days, as opposed to over the rooftops, then standing water for weeks in many sections of the Lower 9th).

Take a look at the exterior of these houses, then walk up to the top of the levee for a striking view of central New Orleans around a bend of the Mississippi.

--Wiki Travel Guide

This neighborhood of predominantly African-American working-class homeowners became tragically famous when it was devastated by floodwaters with the catastrophic failure of the federal levees during Hurricane Katrina.

Levee failures rendered 100% of residential properties uninhabitable in 2005.

Over nine years later, few businesses have reopened, only one of seven public schools has been rebuilt, and only 34% of the population has returned.

The sections of the neighborhood most affected by the Industrial Canal levee breach are still either seriously damaged or simply empty lots where rows of houses once stood.