Sunken+AG

Allyson Gorham

Sunken City

When I heard that we would have to begin reading some of McPhee’s environmental pieces, I groaned. Not that I hate the environment, but the topic is just so dry and sometimes McPhee seems to make the topic even dryer (if that is even possible). However, I pushed past my unwillingness and ended up reading “Sunken City”, and you know what? I actually really liked the piece.

The piece talked about the fact that New Orleans is literally sinking. We all know about hurricane Katrina and the devastation that happened during this time, however McPhee is talking about the fact that New Orleans would have gradually sunken despite that fact that it was “helped along” by hurricane Katrina.

One of the best images in the story has to be the part with the house and the carport. He explains that when you first build your house the driveway is flush with the carport until a few years later when you begin to notice a gap between the driveway and the carport. A few years after that the gap is big enough to set your car out of alignment and then all of the sudden you need to build a ramp to get the car into the carport. Finally the ground has sunk some much that the carport is useless for its intended purpose and you turn it into a porch for your house. This image stuck out to me because McPhee, as we all know could have riddled this section with lots of facts and figures, however he strayed away from that and it still gave the same effect and meaning to the reader.

Finally after dipping my toes into one of McPhee’s environmental pieces I think I am going to tackle another one. Wish me luck!