Katrina Victims Take on Tour Operators [1]

Weather.com - Stacey Plaisance, 10/5/12

Bobby and Christine Norman, of Mechanicsville, Va., react as their tour van passes a blighted home in the Upper 9th Ward section of New Orleans. (Associated Press)

NEW ORLEANS  — Some New Orleans residents and city officials are pushing back against tour operators who bus out-of-towners into the city's Lower 9th Ward, where Hurricane Katrina unleashed a wall of water that pushed homes off foundations and stranded residents on rooftops when the levees failed.

About 9 million people visit New Orleans each year, mostly to see its stately homes along oak-lined avenues, dine at its renowned restaurants and take in the jazz and ribaldry of Bourbon Street. But Katrina's devastation in August 2005 unleashed an unexpected cottage tourism industry, drawing a daily parade of rubbernecking tourists for a close-up look at the city's hard-hit Lower 9th Ward.

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