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PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE: Big Easy still singing the blues
By JOANN FITZPATRICK
The Patriot Ledger
I have been in New Orleans for two hours. I am having a welcome gin and
tonic in a neighborhood pub, soaking in the atmosphere, waiting for the
right moment to ask questions about the disaster that was Katrina and
its aftermath.
Even though this is the Garden District and well-known as a tourist
haven, the patrons are locals. The bartender converses easily. A young
man plops a plastic bag on the counter and says to the bartender,
ëëHappy Birthday.’’
As soon as the man leaves, the barkeep is a 6-year-old again, peeking
at his bounty. He pulls out a strip of rifle bullets and shows a couple
of men sitting at the bar, who admire the stash. ëëNothing like ammo
and a Playboy magazine for a birthday present,’’ he exults.
Welcome to the Big Easy.
Nothing here is easy now - except the camaraderie of people who’ve seen
a version of hell in their own back yard and just keep going on.
Gabe the bartender has his story and a picture to prove it. The Avenue
Pub was the only building in this neighborhood not looted because he
stood his ground in this 24-hour-a-day place with a rifle across his
arms.
Dennis Hilton, who owns the guesthouse where I stayed, has a gentler
tale. He was in Massachusetts, delivering his daughter to college, when
Katrina struck. He had severe roof damage and his safe was looted, but
the worst came later. Without a convention center, New Orleans hasn’t
had a convention since last summer. And each convention can bring
30,000 visitors. Hilton has been working without a break for six months
and it shows. The pool out back is inviting, but the guests are few and
it’s hard to get help, so he works day and night.
An everyday nightmare
The stories Americans see on television and read about focus on the
250,000 who fled New Orleans and have not yet returned. They are the
ones who suffered the most; they lost everything and the majority don’t
yet know what the future holds.
But for those who stayed or returned, the daily struggle is a mountain
few of us will ever face. Finding a dentist or doctor is not easy; the
hurricanes swept a lot of professionals out of town. Shopkeepers smile
broadly because they are thrilled to see anyone who might spend a few
dollars. If asked, they are quick to tell you how tough it is. Just
2,000 of 22,000 businesses have reopened and small stores are hanging
on by their fingernails.
Help Wanted signs are everywhere, which is deceptive. It looks positive
but the trouble is, those who could work have no place to live.
This is the Catch-22 of New Orleans recovery: Businesses cannot get
back on their feet without workers and workers need a roof over their
heads. But 80 percent of the city, outside the downtown business
district and upscale residential neighborhoods near the Mississippi,
remains a disaster. Driving in from the airport, the streets of
everyday neighborhoods look OK. Then one realizes that while there are
cars on the street, none are moving. And there are no children playing
on these quiet streets. There is no one at home.
The Lower Ninth Ward and St. Bernard Parish, which became household
names across America, are ground zero. This is where people stood on
rooftops begging for rescue, where crews searched and re-searched,
first for survivors and then for the dead - human and animal. Every
house has a mark for the day or days it was searched. So many have
signs that a pet was inside waiting to be rescued. Others have
telephone numbers scrawled in big numbers, for those who come now to
look for friends or family and wonder where they could be.
One says, ëëMoved to Utah,’’ another, ëëWill be back this is God’s country.’’
Unprecedented scope
The scale of the devastation is impossible to capture on television; it
stretches for miles, the equivalent of seven Manhattans. Nine months
after, it appears that barely a stick has been moved from the
neighborhoods where houses were ripped apart, pushed into the road or
across the street, or collapsed.
Electric light poles bend every which way. Cars and trucks sometimes
lean against homes, pushed by the storm force that swept these
neighborhoods when the levees broke. On most streets, no FEMA trailers
are visible; the work has not yet begun. But occasionally the gleam of
a shiny white trailer indicates that a family with enough brawn, and
maybe an insurance settlement, has begun anew.
Beyond the human toll - and each house has a personal artifact that
speaks of its owners - is the scope of the debris. It amounts to 34
years worth of trash.
Here is where public and private converge at the most basic. The
Louisiana Recovery Authority has a plan to use federal money to give a
grant of up to $150,000 for every homeowner who lost property. But even
if owners had checks in their hands today, there is little they could
do. Vast areas chock full of debris need to be cleared first.
But where to begin?
This past week Mayor Ray Nagin began his second term. For months the
campaign for mayor - an accident of bad timing - distracted from the
business at hand: rebuilding New Orleans. But the city has not stood
still; concrete plans have been made.
The country reads about political squabbling and bureaucratic delays.
But those charged with the unimaginable task of figuring out how to
clear the rubble and bring people back have been hard at work. Among
them are business and civic leaders who aren’t elected or in the
national spotlight, people whose past and future are tied to the Gulf
Coast and who are committed to a safer, better New Orleans.
Delays the main worry
If there is an overarching theme that runs through conversations with
people in New Orleans it is that the city has been forgotten by the
country and by Congress.
The fear is understandable. We are a nation notorious for a short
attention span, and the enormity of what happened along the Gulf Coast
does not guarantee that it will hold public attention - or sympathy.
Shopkeepers in the famous French Quarter are stunned and furious when
tourists casually tell them New Orleans shouldn’t be rebuilt because
it’s below sea level. Translation: We taxpayers from Des Moines don’t
want to help rebuild your city.
ëëIt’s my home!’’ they protest. And who can blame them? Federal and
private disaster relief is handed out by the billions each year, and
rarely do outsiders say it’s the residents’ fault and the solution is
for them to move. In a report issued Thursday, the Army Corps of
Engineers accepted responsibility for the failure of the levees that
caused the massive flooding.
New Orleans is not a Cajun Disneyland. It is a major port city, a prime
agricultural region and, not so incidentally, the transit point for 30
percent of the country’s oil and gas. The people of New Orleans believe
they are being deserted by those who have forgotten, or never knew,
that much of the energy that heats their homes and gets them to work
and play comes from the Gulf.
The facts justify their indignation.
What now?
Most mortals would blanch at having to decide what needs fixing first.
But the Louisiana Recovery Authority, the body through which federal
aid money is funneled, has its priorities: the levees, housing,
infrastructure and economic development.
The Corps of Engineers met a June 1 deadline to rebuild the levees that
were supposed to protect New Orleans, but it is acknowledged that these
are a stopgap measure. With more severe hurricanes predicted this
season, a quick fix was essential.
Housing is the most critical and most contentious subject because it
involves the question of which neighborhoods should and will be
rebuilt. No official will say publicly that some neighborhoods simply
cannot be rehabilitated, but that day will come. It is generally
accepted that the city will be smaller than the 475,000-person center
it was before Katrina and Rita struck.
At a meeting last month, I heard New Orleans business leaders stress
that accountability will be the watchword in planning New Orleans’
future. Louisianians are acutely aware of the state’s well-deserved
reputation for political corruption - something opponents of federal
aid don’t hesitate to raise at every opportunity. ëëAccountability is
the No. 1 issue,’’ said King Milling, president of the Whitney Bank,
the city’s oldest, and a noted conservationist who is deeply involved
in recovery efforts.
Natural disasters change cultures as well as people and landscapes. As
Louisiana faces the state’s worst crisis - and feels the survival of
its main city threatened - it is possible to believe that destructive
political habits can be buried with the debris.
New Orleans was far from perfect before it was hit by the worst natural
disaster in our modern history. Its schools have long been in wretched
condition and much of the housing stock was substandard. But every
major urban area has gone through periods of decline.
The city is an important piece of America. Its history and culture are
unique, one reason it is a favorite destination for visiting foreigners.
An important economic center as well as a cultural mecca, New Orleans
cannot be written off. If ëëThe Big One’’ hit San Francisco next week,
it would be rebuilt, just as it was a hundred years ago.
At this point New Orleans is a gigantic challenge for civil engineers
and social planners. And this is a country that relishes big challenges
- is it not?
WOMEN OF THE STORM - Come on down, the ladies say: They want all of Congress to see New Orleans
The ëëWomen of the Storm’’ may not be as fierce as Scarlett O’Hara
protecting Tara, but they are a powerful force to reckon with.
A group of civic-minded New Orleans women watched what happened, or
failed to happen, in the months after Hurricane Katrina bashed their
city and region, and decided they had a job to do. Their mission is
clear-cut: to make certain every one of the 535 members of Congress
visits New Orleans to see what happened there. They reasoned that only
when senators and House members see the facts on the ground can they
understand how extensive the devastation is.
So they became lobbyists - not paid lobbyists, just determined
lobbyists. They have urged Louisianians to call and write members of
Congress. They flew to Washington to educate members. When congressmen
come to town, the women will meet planes and arrange hotel rooms. They
make sure the members talk to the right person to get the answers they
need and that they meet ordinary people, too.
So far 47 senators and 88 representatives have visited the devastated
region. Massachusetts is among 19 states from which no representative
has traveled to Louisiana. Senators Kerry and Kennedy have.
Women from across the country have joined to help Women of the Storm. For more information, visit womenofthestorm.net.
New Orleans after Katrina
1,300 is the death toll
2,000 of 22,000 businesses are operating
900,000 insurance claims
28,000 state workers displaced
$1.2 billion impact on state revenue
100 square miles of marshland destroyed
JoAnn Fitzpatrick may be reached at jfitzpatrick@ledger.com .
Copyright 2006 The Patriot Ledger
Transmitted Saturday, June 03, 2006
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