Closed For Storm
New Orleans, LA 2011
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Closed For Storm
April 1st, 2017
Years before moving to the city, Celeste and I made a multi-day stop in New Orleans on a road trip around the Gulf of Mexico. A good friend from New Jersey, Mr. Michael Solksy, had taken up residency there and generously put us up and showed us around for a couple of days. One of the sites he suggested for us to see on our final day in town was the abandoned Six Flags in New Orleans East.
This once bustling amusement park was seriously damaged by the flooding of Hurricane Katrina and at the time of our visit had been in a state of deterioration for over five years. It sat off the interstate, with the giant decaying rides standing as a prominent reminder of the devastation suffered by the storm and the lack of reinvestment in this part of the city since. Although, in the immediate area, it was hard to tell sometimes what was destroyed by the storm and what was the result of economic neglect prior to Katrina.
When we arrived, we rolled in through the missing gates, passing no signs to keep out, both likely pilfered for scrap, and parked out of view behind a roller coaster. The place was post-apocalyptic in appearance. What the storm didn’t destroy, visitors following did a pretty good job of finishing off. It was a scant 150 acres of wasteland theme park, with just the three of us in admission. All of us armed with cameras, we spread out among the deserted rides and shops and took in the unfortunate and bizarre setting; though we didn’t stray too far from one another, because the place was admittedly, a little terrifying.
At some point, we decided to scale the service stairs to the top of one of the rollercoaster peaks to get a bird’s eye view of the place. While scanning the park from the elevated lookout point, we eventually noticed two other people walking around. Upon descent, our groups cautiously crossed paths with each other and soon struck up conversation. It would turn out that the only other weirdos walking around this abandoned theme park in Louisiana that day were also from New Jersey, of course. After chumming it up a little, all while in collective bewilderment of our surroundings, we went our separate ways in the wasteland and continued exploring. Maybe a half-hour later, while poking around in the reminiscence of a theater of some sort, we heard footsteps outside rustle past. As we waited in silence, we heard these footsteps accompanied by the noise of police chatter on a walkie-talkie.
After waiting for the coast to be clear, we ducked out and attempted to stealthily make our way back to our car for a hasty exit, but not before a squad car rolled up on us. The officers escorted us to where another squad car had already apprehended our newfound friends from New Jersey, who apparently had not hidden their vehicle as well. An extensive song and dance routine then commenced, in the hopes of getting ourselves out of being arrested for trespassing. The officers found it unconvincing that we didn’t all know each other prior to the day, the coincidence that we were all from Jersey and just happened to meet there seemed unlikely. We assured them, if you were familiar with the people of our state, this was less unlikely than they would believe. They proceeded to reprimand us for being idiots by endangering ourselves, not only by being in the toxic theme park, but in New Orleans East in general; “Ya’ll could have been murdered or kidnapped!” We were certainly not the first trespassers they were tasked with chasing around that creepy setting for a George Romero film. Maybe they were just trying to scare us out-of-state folk from ever coming back. Maybe we truly were ignorant idiots to the dangers that existed. Probably somewhere in the middle.
For whatever reason, maybe being that we weren’t there to further destroy the place and just photographing, or, being in New Orleans East, they likely had more pressing matters, or that they did not want to have to deal with us, seemingly eccentric imbeciles, any longer, they decided not to arrest us. The only hang up was one of our new friends from Jersey had an expired driver’s license and his partner was unlicensed, putting them in the position of having to have their mini-van towed out. I then decided to push our luck further and asked the officers if it would be OK for me to drive their vehicle out to avoid it having to be towed. They looked at me in response as if they, in that moment, had changed their mind about not arresting me, but again, for some reason, agreed.
I then drove them in their mini-van out of the park to the next exit down the highway, with Celeste and Mike following behind in our rental car. We all got out of the vehicles and took a big collective exhale, especially after learning from our new friends that there would have potentially been much more concerning ramifications for them than trespassing charges if things had proceeded further. We laughed about the events and said our goodbyes and good lucks to our adventuring New Jersey compatriots.
About ten minutes down the road, in a panic I realized I had left my camera in our new friends’ vehicle when I had driven them out of the dilapidated Six Flags. Mr. Solsky then remembered that while chatting it up earlier, he had gotten one of their business cards. So once more, we were all reunited and so was I with my camera. If it wasn’t for that stroke of luck, many of these photos would have been lost. Though, in my opinion, Celeste and Mike both took superior photos anyway that peculiar day.
Update: In December of 2020, the city of New Orleans announced it is actively exploring demolition and redevelopment of the Six Flags site in New Orleans East, with the goals of creating an economic anchor that will act to spur reinvestment in the area. It has now sat abandoned for 15 years.
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