Editors note: Payal volunteered down in New Orleans from January 2-7. She was there to help residents with legal issues around demolitions. She emailed this update to friends and family after returning. The hearing she talks about will be this week on the 19th, so you can keep an eye on the news to see what happens.

I was in New Orleans this past week working with a grassroots organization (the Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund) on the anti-demolitions case in the Lower Ninth Ward. This ward was the section hardest hit by Katrina, due in large part to the fact that the levees were the weakest there and the area is one of the poorest in the city. The experience was, probably needless to say, incredibly intense. For those of you that don’t like to read, here are the photos:

http://flickr.com/photos/87748367@N00/sets/1786858/

(Click here to read the rest of this post)

The New Orleans Times-Picayune runs a followup on the stories of rapes and violence in the convention center and the Superdome. It’s an interesting read. The good news is that most of the stories seem exaggerated or at least the product of communications that mirrored the “telephone game” rather than first hand journalism.

MSNBC’s Brian Williams has more on his blog.