We were planning a family trip to New Orleans for Christmas in 2011. It’s been six years since Hurricane Katrina and it’s been a little more than that since we’ve been to New Orleans.
There’s just something about the city that has us coming back. It might be the French Quarter charm. Or the Cajun cooking. Or the curse placed on all of the city’s tourists who visit that makes them want to come back (as told by the tour guide).
So with the news saying that New Orleans was almost back to normal, and that we haven’t been there in over six years, and that it was only six hours away, we opened our gifts on Christmas Eve and left Christmas morning.
And everything was right where we left it.
It was great catching up with French Quarter and seeing that it was doing well and all, but we didn’t exactly come to see French Quarter. I mean, I didn’t. I wanted to go to Six Flags. Convincing my family to go to Six Flags was another matter.
Houston used to have a Six Flags Astroworld back in the day but it was nothing like this. Astroworld was never destroyed by a hurricane and left there to rust and fall apart by the park owners and the city, it was just torn down by machines.
I showed my parents photos and videos from the abandoned park and tried telling them that the reward was worth the risk. The reward, of course, was an awesome photo shoot. The risk, however, was up to interpretation.
Part of the fun in urban exploring is documenting the places that a lot of people don’t get to see. The other part is avoiding the law. Running into gangsters shouldn’t be a concern.
We were in agreement that it could be dangerous in there but the photo opportunity was too cool to pass up. Especially since we were already in the city and it was only 15 minutes away. We just had to be careful.
I circled the park and saw an entry point. The plan was to let my parents go in first while my brother and I wait in a nearby neighborhood. Should things go awry, I’d have the car ready to pick them up.
Each minute that passed by as my brother and I were waiting in the car, was beginning to worry me. Finally, my dad called, out of breath, and told me to pull up and pick them up.
When I got to the entrance, they were already running towards the car. Then they got tired and walked a bit. Then started running again.
I asked them what happened and my mom said they were about a quarter-way through the park taking photos and heard a clanging noise and some laughter so they ran as fast as they could, for as long as they could out of the park.
“Noise” and “laughter” was still kind of open-ended, I thought. It could have been hoodlums…or ghosts…
We switched roles and my brother and I went in as my mom and dad waited in the car.
The park was dead.
There were weathered toys and broken glass on the on the ground, graffiti, unkempt weeds and weird noises throughout the park. And no one was in sight
Maybe it was instinct or from playing too many video games, but I started to crouch down a little while running through the park taking pictures like I was in Afghanistan.
My brother and I were halfway through the park when we saw two people walking our way. My heart raced but we had to maintain our pace and stand our ground.
If they were gang members, we had to play it cool. But they didn’t have that gangster swag. OK…cool. But if they were ghosts, they wouldn’t care about our confidence. But they were carrying a camera, and ghosts don’t carry cameras. OK…good. But if they were authorities, we’d be in trouble for trespassing whether we stand our ground or not, since this is their ground. But they wore normal civilian clothing. OK…?
As we got closer we noticed they were two guys sneaking around, taking pictures of the abandoned park like us. They probably thought we were ghosts, too. Maybe.
We got to chat for a bit and found out that they came from Baton Rouge just to take pictures of the park because they heard it was set to be demolished next month.
When we got back to the car, my brother and I told my parents about the guys we met and how they were probably the ones that spooked them earlier. Convinced that the coast was clear of any dangers they wanted to go back in to finish shooting.
I circled round to the employee entrance that the Baton Rougeans told us about and decided the four of us could go together since the only thing we had to worry about now was getting our car towed.
We crawled under fence, over the tall grass and entered what used to be an amusement park now naturally turned into a photographer’s play land.
Because we no longer had to worry about being mugged, caught or haunted, we spent two hours roaming the park freely, getting onto rides, into buildings and atop roller coasters.
It was a surreal sight.
The place used to be a place for kids off for the summer and now it turned into what vandals dubbed, “Roach City.” Underbrush overtook roller coaster rides that made it seem like scenes from a post-apocalyptic movie. Computer monitors stuffed to the top of a room showed signs of rushed hurricane preparation. Ceiling fans drooped like a Dalí painting. Props sat broken on the ground.
But the whole scene was creepy because everything seemed to be untouched since 2005. And because it was a zombie movie waiting to happen.
The sun was going down and we photographed everything that we could have possibly photographed.
I thought.
The next day, we decided to go Jackson Square and French Market, anything to kill time, really, because my dad wanted to go back to Six Flags for some evening shots.
Around 4:00, we went back to the employee entrance, snuck back in under the fence, through the tall grass and took more photographs.
We ran into more people checking out the park before its scheduled demolishing date in January.
And when I thought we ran out of things to photograph, we found a Looney Toons area missed the day before and spent about 20 minutes in there. As the sun was setting, we were finally done.
The family finished their first urban exploration. I’m not sure if they’re up for the New York subway tunnels yet, but New Orleans Six Flags was a pretty good start.
It was such a good start that my parents wanted to go back in January.
So we did.
We were back in New Orleans about a week into 2011 because this was the last chance to get some final shots before they tore the park down (and possibly because of that New Orleans tourist hex).
Like last time, we went round back to the employee entrance. This time, though, we were a little more adventurous. We were going into more buildings and discovering the park’s plans before the Hurricane ruined them.
I climbed more structures despite the parental warnings to get some overhead shots and split from the group for a bit to look for more stories from 2005.
Then I heard someone call my name. Multiple times.
I ran out of the clinic and saw my mom looking for me as my dad and brother were talking to a guy. An authority guy.
I got to them and heard my dad explain to him that we were just taking pictures. The authority radioed it in and noted that we were just photographers. We didn’t have spray cans or looting for Six Flags memorabilia so he told us to go and finish whatever we were doing quickly because his supervisor was on his way. My dad thanked him, wished him a happy new year and we left.
On our way out, we hastily snapped whatever we could, walked through the tall grass, over the fallen fence and back to the car.
We stopped at a restaurant before heading back to Houston and reflected on the whole experience. The gangster scare, getting caught by the law, the potential ghosts that lurked in those rooms and getting caught by gangster ghosts.
