New Orleans in a stranglehold

0 Comments | USA TODAY, November, 2007 | by Ben Harder

It's not the mists of time that lay claim to abandoned cities. It's the undergrowth.

Fast-spreading vines and other weeds are among the first tentacles Mother Nature sends up to grip a deserted city. So it was that Troy, Chichen Itza, Angkor and other metropolises of antiquity vanished and were forgotten. Other classical cities, including Rome, once became partially lost to greenery and decay.

Now, in hurricane-ravaged and largely abandoned parts of New Orleans, the timeless process is being replayed. In swathes of the once-submerged Lower Ninth Ward, for example, houses, trailers and sidewalks lie neglected and disappearing. The weeds appear to be taking over.

The rapidity of nature's resurgence in the fertile Crescent City is no surprise to...