Gray Line Tours is offering a new bus destination for tourists who want to go on holiday it's a little different. Surprisingly, the tours continue to sell to the tourists pay to drive by and gawk sadness and misfortune of others. The demand was so high for the new tour that the company added a third shift on the first day.
Gray Line website describes the trip as "an eyewitness of the events surrounding the most devastating natural disaster on American soil!" At the end of each journey, passengers are given a package containing images of destruction.
New Orleans residents are wondering if the visits are just morbid exploitation of people recovering from the terrible tragedy and loss, or shows that the loss is a good way to help people understand the disaster and offer their help. Even some of the people taking the first tour had mixed feelings about what they were seeing. One of the pilots, told reporters: "I felt guilty about going out to look, but it is something we had to do."
The three-hour tour is called "Hurricane Katrina, U.S. worst catastrophe, and it costs $ 35 per adult and $ 28 for children. The journey takes passengers on Canal Street, where many companies are being closed due to flooding that destroyed 80% of the city. tour guides are residents of New Orleans directly affected by the hurricane. Gendusa Guide Joe, whose childhood home in the neighborhood of Gentilly was inundated, is a retired teacher and lives in New Orleans all his life. "This is not just a journey for me," Gendusa says its passengers, "This is my home. "When he drives his bus through the devastated areas, which describes the passengers own grim experiences during the hurricane, including the waters became trapped inside a tall building where they had sought refuge. He describes the horror of seeing dead bodies floating in the water.
The route takes passengers from the Superdome, where thousands of people took shelter for days awaiting rescue. Here, tourists are taken to the Morial Convention Center, now empty, where hundreds waited and some died while awaiting rescue. Then it's off to see some of the residential neighborhoods that were most affected by the storm. In Lakeview and Gentilly, the roof high water pushed homes off their foundations, and the houses await demolition collapse, surrounded by mountains of rubble. Buses also walk through a current dam ruptures, releasing the water that destroyed the lives of so many.
There are some areas of the city that have got rid of the onlookers, including the Ninth Ward, where residents are only allowed to return. The authorities have warned that debris-laden streets in some residential areas may be so damaged that they could be dangerous travel. However, local executive Julee Pearce Gray Line, said the company expects to sell visits for some time to come. According to Pearce, your phone lines are clogged with calls wanting to know more about visitors, including investigations of school groups.
Callers to a radio program on the first day of the tours expressed a mixture of reactions. Some said the tour is clearly exploitative, and others said they hope the visit will help the rest of the country realize the extent of damage to the city. Eric Tapp, owner of a restaurant near the tour route, could do nothing but shake his head when a reporter asked if it bothered the curious bus ride through the destruction of the Gentilly neighborhood. "It's an open city," he said. "There is nothing we can do about it."
Gray Line attempt to justify a gain from the tragedy of others is that they are actually helping the city, though only a mere $ 3 from each ticket tour will be donated to charities related to recovery efforts. However, many people wonder if your call generosity is just a veiled attempt to recover some of the losses suffered damage to the tourism industry. Would have been nice would have been charitable enough before the hurricane to use their buses to get people in the area.
