John's Observations on Chalmette's Community

Chalmette had an overwhelming sense of community before they were hit by Katrina.  When we talked to the firemen, they said that everybody knew everybody and there was a huge sense of community in the area before the storm.  However, since the storm the landscape of Chalmette has greatly changed.  The city of Chalmette still is a blue collar, lower class working community, but the landscape of the community has greatly changed since the storm.  One Firefighter estimated that only 50% of the the previous population returned home to Chalmette, and the other 50% of their population is now made up of workers from other areas that are now moving in.  Poverty seems to be a problem, and the social relationships here seem to be based on very old friendships and trust.  One relationship we observed was in a bar on a weeknight.  The bar only had 3 or 4 old men in it, and the bartender knew all of them very well.   At the other bars we went to later in the week, we noticed the same thing.  Lots of the people in the bars knew eachother and seemed to have a close bond with the people they were there with.  The relationships there all seemed to be between people who looked very similar.  The were almost all white, and some of them looked a little "raggedy" or dirty.  This could either be a sign of poor living conditions or a sign of them not caring about their appearance - since they are only around friends.  The community centers in Chalmette don't really exist - the closest thing they have to that is their bars.  Aside from Bars, the greatest concentration of people seem to hang out at nail salons, restaurants and coffee shops.  We didn't really see any Boys & Girls Clubs or areas like that for kids to hang out, but they are building a brand new Middle School which goes up to grade 9.  The school looks very nice and it plans on having lots of state of the art technology inside of it.  Hopefully that will prove to be a large center of local community.  

Katrina's effect on Chalmette - Bruce

Hurricane Katrina has affected Chalmette more than any other part of Louisiana. Chalmette was 100%, completely wiped out from the hurricane. People lost everything. Houses were knocked off the slabs, and everything was lost. Some of the firemen from the local fire station told us their stories of life after the storm, and it wasn't pretty. They were without power, and they had very limited amounts of water. Food was scarce, and they did what they had to do to survive. There wasn't much looting going on in Chalmette, because everything was underwater. They told us about how they have to bathe with bottles of water. They called it the"20 ounce shower." Many of the population did not return after the storm, actually about 50% . Most of the people who did not return had nothing to come back to, so they simply decided to start over somewhere else, where this tragedy could not happen again. The people who did come back are die-hard Chalmatians. Even if they had nothing, many of them came back because St. Bernard Parish was all that they knew. They lived and breathed Chalmette for their entire lives, and they would not let a "little water" force them to abandon their hometown forever.

Observations-Ben

Chalmette's economy depends heavily on the oil industry, specifically on the refineries that surround the town. Most residents still work in the area, but a number of those employed in Chalmette commute to work from their new post-Katrina home.
Interestingly, Chalmette is, by a far majority, a white town. There doesn't seem to be much segregation within Chalmette, but also consider the town's proximity to the 9th ward. Chalmette may have been intially created to help move New Orleans suburbanites out of the city and away from black communities.
Many have been dependent on FEMA relief checks for money, and some have trouble working their pre-Katrina jobs as they no longer exist. For the most part though, there doesn't seem to be any direct evidence to suggest there's much poverty in Chalmette. Most of the residents have jobs and/or homes in town. The poorest residents were hit hard by Katrina, most haven't moved back.

Pictures from the Chalmette parade