Ground zero for the London Avenue canal breach was in the back yard of the house I grew up in.  We use to play on the very levee that failed.  The metal structure in the back is the new repairs.   Here is what our house looked like in the early 60's when we still lived there   The same angle after Katrina   People in New Orleans love to decorate for Christmas and a good sense of humor helps in time of tragedy   This is the view down my street, during our first trip to New Orleans it was impossible to get down because it had 4 or 6 feet of mud on it.   All the debris was in a massive pile on Ponchatrain Blvd.  It stretched for miles and was 20-30 feet high.   Someone had marked the waterline on their house   As rescue crews searched each house, they would mark the day they went, how many people they thought lived there, how many were alive, and how many were not so lucky.   The incredible power of the storm uprooted many oak trees, some of which were hundreds of years old.