Katrina - A Second, Melancholy Anniversary

Originally posted on 8/29/2007.

I am feeling somewhat melancholy and homesick today. More so than last year. I'm not sure why. Things have gotten better in New Orleans but for some reason I am more depressed this year as the anniversary rolls around. Maybe it's because two years later and things aren't further along.

My mom is moving out of her trailer at the end of this month. Housing is outrageous. My nephews have jobs. I have two less siblings this year than I did two years ago. I didn't think it was possible for New Orleans to have fewer IT jobs than it did several years ago but that is the unfortunate truth.

So, today, I will leave you with two NPR stories. You can follow the links to hear the recordings.

The first is titled: Dear New Orleans: I'm Leaving You. This is the story of a reporter, a non-native, who had adopted New Orleans as her home. A female representative of Generation K. Eve from K-Ville. Maybe that makes her a native.

The story isn't so much about her as it is about the sadness and the crime permeating the city two years after Katrina. The big easy that is less easy. Her feelings about New Orleans seem to be a lot like mine:

They don't understand that I'm in love. I talk to friends about New Orleans like a dysfunctional romance. I gush over it one day, then call up bawling and heartbroken the next. Why can't it change? Stop being self-destructive and violent? It has so much potential.

I don't live in New Orleans anymore. I don't know if I ever will. But I am still a local. I always will be. There is something about New Orleans that forces that on you. Even through the embarrassment of re-electing Nagin, I will forever be a child born in Mercy Hospital.

The reporter, Eve, is leaving New Orleans after a friend being murdered, after friends being mugged, after being mugged herself. I wish her the best. Go to the link above and listen to the audio. It's worth a few minutes.

The next story is a little different. Another non-native but one that went the other direction. From sensing an initial futility to being hopeful. Amid Lingering Chaos, Hope for New Orleans' Future, is a story about a reporter who has been reporting on New Orleans for the last two years.

He's seen the rebuilding struggle but understands what a special place New Orleans is. What special people New Orleanians are. Even though it is special, it has always had its issues:

Because the fact is, long before Katrina, New Orleans — a unique gem, with its own architecture, food and musical styles — was in many ways a broken city.

Poverty was endemic, the schools were among the worst in the nation, public housing was a mess, streets and other infrastructure badly needed fixing, and political corruption was a fact of life that led many to believe things couldn't change for the better.

And that's all true. I can't argue with that. It's been that way as long as I can remember. I don't know what kind of ratings my schools had. When I saw the picture of my elementary school under 4 feet of water, I cried. It doesn't matter what the rest of the world thought of it, it was my school.

The first time I went back to my mom's house afterwards, and saw the walls gutted, I felt sick. I could see from one end of the house to the other. Nothing in the way except studs, pipes and wires. Most of the wires needed to be replaced. She was fortunate. She was able to sell the house and move out (and on).

The fact is, with all the corruption, with all of the broken promises (at the federal, state and local levels), with the abandonment of the insurance companies, New Orleans and the surrounding areas are moving on. It is sometimes painful and very often difficult, but New Orleans is a special place.

It's a mix that was created by Spanish, French, African-American, Creole, Italian, Irish and Cajun influences. Add to that mix the Vietnamese of the Versailles neighborhood, who have pulled together to rebuild their neighborhood without waiting for outside help. New Orleans continues to defy planners, just as it defies order. If you want nice, go to Disney World.

I second that.

LewisC

Can Nagin Just Say Thanks!

I originally wrote this on Aug 7, 2007. As we approach the second anniversary of Katrina, I know there are many things on people's minds. Thoughts about what they lost, about what they still have, family who are gone and those who remain. One thought I think we all should have is appreciation for people around the country who have helped. Many of them are still helping.

I was reading an article in the Staten Island Advance, a local news paper in Staten Island, New York. The article, printed just the other day, Aug 4, 2007, was titled: "Lending Hands, Hearts to New Orleans". This article shows that people from all over the US are still thinking, and still giving to New Orleans.

The Rev. Dave Watson said: "Last month I had the privilege of leading a team of 15 members of our church family, Calvary Chapel, to participate in rebuilding and ministering efforts in New Orleans. Two years after the disaster of Hurricane Katrina the city is still in ruins. Sadly, it looks as if the hurricane was just last week and the work of rebuilding has just started." He continued: "Over and over as we worked in the shadow of the Superdome, I shook my head in disbelief, mumbling, This! In America?"

It's true, too. Too much of New Orleans hasn't even begun rebuilding yet. Too many places are still without power or other services. I know everyone has their favorite person or persons to blame. Some blame the entire government from local to state to federal. Even so, there are many citizens who came to New Orleans and helped for no other reason than they cared about the people in New Orleans.

A group from a church, I don't remember where now, came to my Mom's house, in Metairie, a couple of months after Katrina. My brother-in-law and nephew had helped her gut the house and rip out the sheetrock. These people, whom she didn't know and had never seen before, saw her and asked what they could do to help. She showed them the trees that were down in the backyard, the destroyed fence, the garbage all over the place.

Time Magazine: The Threatening Storm

If you have not been to the Time special about the Katrina Anniversary, you should do so. It is a difficult read but an important one.

One of the biggest issues I have had with living in Florida since Katrina are the people who say things like, "Why would people live below sea level?" Or, "When you live in a bowl, you deserve what you get." Yes, I have had people who know where I am from actually say that. I can forgive those comments but the ones that are worse are the ones where the people of New Orleans are to blame for the problems. "Well, the government gave billions of dollars for the levees but the locals mis-spent it!" I have had to tell several people that is not true. The Army Corps of Engineers control the funds and choose what to work on.

This article from Time sheds light on the issue to people from around the world. To those who say New Orleanians are just having a "pity party" (yes, I was told that at a party when I said New Orleans still needed help), there is nothing that anyone can say that will open their eyes. They are, and will remain, ignorant. I move on without argument when I encounter someone like that.

However, for those who just don't know the facts, I think this article from Time will open some eyes. I wish I knew where they got their raw research. I would love to read some of these documents. Of course, the fact that Time has those documents are the reason they're Time Magazine. If everyone could write something like this it wouldn't be special.

The article starts off with:

The most important thing to remember about the drowning of New Orleans is that it wasn't a natural disaster. It was a man-made disaster, created by lousy engineering, misplaced priorities and pork-barrel politics. Katrina was not the Category 5 killer the Big Easy had always feared; it was a Category 3 storm that missed New Orleans, where it was at worst a weak 2. The city's defenses should have withstood its surges, and if they had we never would have seen the squalor in the Superdome, the desperation on the rooftops, the shocking tableau of the Mardi Gras city underwater for weeks. We never would have heard the comment "Heckuva job, Brownie." The Federal Emergency Management Agency (fema) was the scapegoat, but the real culprit was the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which bungled the levees that formed the city's man-made defenses and ravaged the wetlands that once formed its natural defenses. Americans were outraged by the government's response, but they still haven't come to grips with the government's responsibility for the catastrophe.

It gets better from there. Eight pages of intense, factual statistics and stories.

Dean's wobble a tell tale sign

Headline of the Day, Sunday, August 19, 2007

Today's headline is from NOLA.com, New Orleans Hurricane Center, Tropical Storm News, Warnings, Satellite and More. The headline is "Dean's wobble a tell tale sign" by Mark Schleifstein at Sunday August 19, 2007, 2:27 PM

Best quote: The forecast calls for Dean to hit Category 5 strength before its eye goes ashore south of the island of Cozumel and the resort city of Cancun on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. The likely target at the moment is the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve, near the Mayan Ruins of Tulum. The reserve's beaches, swamps and mangroves sit along a 70-mile stretch of barrier reef.