A Tale of Two Cities: New Orleans a Year Later
Aug. 29, 2006 — -- One year ago, Ashton O'Dwyer was a man on edge.
He was defying orders to leave his New Orleans mansion, guns at the ready to protect his home.
"They are going to have to carry me from here in a body bag," he said at the time.
State troopers came to O'Dwyer's house, but they didn't carry him out in a body bag.
"They caught me by surprise. … That's about all I can say, and thank God they did," O'Dwyer said recently, "because had i had access to my weapons, there would have been gunfire and blood on the ground."
Today, O'Dwyer lives in tony uptown New Orleans, where signs of Katrina are few.
Repairs have been made, and lives are moving on.
O'Dwyer returned home quickly, but he says he is very much a victim of Katrina -- not because of the storm but because of recovery costs.
"Don't expect me to bail out people who won't help themselves," O'Dwyer said to ABC News' Chris Cuomo. "God helps those who help themselves."
O'Dwyer makes light of his own plight, joking he's down to his last $2 million.
A few miles away, life remains desperate for other Katrina survivors.
In the La Fete housing projects, life is worse than ever, and residents say hope is in short supply.
Last year, TV cameras found people stranded there, days after everyone in the city was supposed to be evacuated.
People were simply left to fend for themselves.
Ricky Williams was suffering from a nasty-looking infection, and a 14-year-old named Chris clung to his uncle and his only possessions.
In the year that's followed, promises have been plenty about changing the situation here, about making up for the mistakes of Katrina.
Today many parts of New Orleans are boarded up and not being rebuilt.
The closest market to the La Fete projects is not set to open for a year, if ever. The few housing units open seem barely acceptable.
Many onetime residents like Reggie Lewis are scattered all over the South, and they say there is no warm welcome waiting for them back home.
"They just raised the rent, and a lot of them don't take Section 8 vouchers," Lewis said.
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