Urban exploration, as the term is used by the seekers of crumbling architecture, has a distinct appeal from the more popular and not specifically named spectacle of ancient ruins. The latter offers clues to a long-vanished world, a life so abstracted from our own that any narrative assembled from the remnant pieces is fueled by speculation. Urban exploration hits closer to our shared cultural home. It offers pieces of a familiar world and a life we know. For some an abandoned urban landscape evokes specific memories but, even for those visiting the shattered remains of a once thriving location, there are enough commonalities to imagine the place at its peak with relative accuracy. Whether or not we knew the now decaying place in person we bond over the shared history, a bond formed by remnants of a shared culture, history or routine.
There is a haunting bittersweetness, then, to most such spots not entirely different from visiting a cemetery or a memorial. Most abandoned areas tell of misfortune whether it is a favorite watering hole that went out of business or the site of a natural disaster that caused an evacuation. Indeed, the conflicting emotions conjured by ghost towns are not bound by scope or location, from the misty desolation of Centralia in central Pennsylvania to the stoic empty German mining villages of Namibia.
And yet, the resilient but nonetheless somber remains of Six Flags New Orlean have a bleak fascination of their own. In part this is because after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the park, nature has been remarkably kind to these ironically joyous pieces. It matters to that Six Flags is still very much a cultural fixture, but the real horror comes not only from the recent memories of Hurricane Katrina but at the resentment that emerged in the aftermath over political incompetence in the face of disaster that still lingers.
The final component here is New Orleans itself, a city that in the face of every tragedy that comes its way still maintains its joviality. The Big Easy acknowledges its dark secrets and its hardships with a sometimes cynical good spirit. Its festivities are often laced with frightening and often grotesque masks and ghost tours are a large part of its tourist draw.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the story of Six Flags New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina is a testament to the bureaucratic blunders that plagued the city in the years surrounding the disaster. In its first incarnation, opening in the spring of 2000, the park was called Jazzland. When Six Flags bought the land in 2002 (opening as Six Flags New Orleans the following year), the national chain themed it to the Bayou Country. Rides included Lafitte’s Pirate Ship, Ozarka Splash, The Big Easy, Jocco’s Mardi Gras Madness, Voodoo Volcano, The Jester, Gator Bait and Mardi Gras Menagerie and was divided into areas such as Main Street Square and Cajun Country.
Despite spending $20 million to refurbish the park, Six Flags soon began losing interest in its investment. By early 2005, Six Flags began closing its lower performing parks nationwide. By that summer Six Flags New Orleans was among the least profitable parks in the company’s portfolio and, though plans for a water park were in talks, it was likely that the New Orleans location was due for the axe.
The last day of operation for the park was August 21 due to the start of school with a planned weekend reopening on the 26th. With news of Katrina hitting New Orleans directly the plans were cancelled.
By the time Katrina passed the park was submerged in six feet of water, its drainage system proving no match for the storm. Six Flags reported that because it took nearly a month for the water to dry out, about eighty percent of the rides and attractions were ruined by the long-term submersion and in 2006 declared the park a total loss. Only a few rides were salvaged. F these only Bayou Blaster was unique to the New Orleans park and found a new life in Six Flags Great Escape and Hurricane Harbor (the irony is not lost) in Queensbury, New York as Sasquatch. The other salvaged rides were generic to Six Flags Warner Bros I.P.s, Batman: The Ride was moved to San Antonio’s Six Flags Fiesta Texas where it reopened as Goliath in 2008 and Road Runner Express lives on in its original name in Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California.
What happened next is typical of the finger-pointing and corporate blustering that always seems to follow catastrophe. Then-mayor Ray Nagin expected Six Flags to honor their lease and rebuild the site. Six Flags wanted nothing more to do with the area and until buyers started propping up (an agreement was not reached until 2022, by then the city of New Orleans had become property owners after having sued Six Flags) the area stood as a weed and graffiti laden wasteland. The thrills and laughter that had once sounded throughout the place were now but a distant echo, replaced with an eerie silence. Sinister looking jesters seem aware of the surrounding starkness while grinning clown busts topping dumpsters seem like a cruel joke amid the decay.
The charm of amusement parks is not without a touch of eerie or creepy. Islands of uninhibited pleasure do not come without their dangers. Abandoned, the fears are highlighted. It is no mystery then, why the park became a favorite for thrill seekers and amateur filmmakers in the years since its closure. Indeed, before razing finally began in November of 2024 the ruins of Six Flags New Orleans were both a capsule of a place frozen in time for nearly twenty years but also told a story, a story of tragedy, corruption and greed, but also of the resiliency and unfaltering spirit of New Orleans.
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