When The Saints Go Marching In

This anniversary, I'll flit around from event to event, commemorating because it is something we must do. This is the one time a year that the nation takes notice. It is incumbent upon us to jump up and down and wave our hands.

This city of New Orleans is a city of yes and no. Yes, we want you to visit because our economy depends on it. No, we are not okay.

I spend most of my time in the city of no. I rarely encourage people to visit. According to the NOPD crime maps, there have been 24 murders within a mile radius of my abode from January until July, a slice of the 136 murders committed in New Orleans so far this year. The violence is the hardest part of living in New Orleans.

Yet, I have to shrug that off this week. Get my head in the game. Take advantage of attention and offer you a sincere and heartfelt duplicity.

Yes, the city of New Orleans will be rebuilt.

We'll drain our life savings. We'll max out our credit cards. We'll work our jobs during the week and hit Home Depot during the weekends.

We will do so despite the failure of our insurers to pay our claims, despite the delays of the Road Home Program and its promise to "make us whole," despite the four hurricane seasons between us and 100-year flood protection.

New Orleans is a culture. The people are not given to migration. They will return to New Orleans. They are not better off somewhere else.

We've been blessed with the support of thousands of our fellow Americans who've given us aid, technical assistance, and who've traveled to our city to gut homes and build homes along side us.

New Orleans is a testament to the American ideal of rugged individualism. Our neighborhoods are our frontier. Each home that we reoccupy restores the strength of our neighborhoods and bring close the inevitability of our repopulation.

Anyone who pundits away on why or whether is only displaying their inability to comprehend the complexity of a catastrophe. A catastrophe is not going to be resolved by market forces. It requires human intervention. Government is human.

The question of why or whether is a hang-up of the market force fetishist. True Americans are not such depressing fatalists. It is a question of how, not why. Which is how so many of you have come to find yourselves in our city knee deep in mold pulling down wet sheetrock.

Brave New Films, the creators of the film, When the Saints Come Marching In, ask that you support Senator Chris Dodd's Gulf Coast Recovery Act of 2007. I'll ask that you do the same. It reads like a wish list. A dream come true for those of us who have waded through the mire of policies that have held back the recovery of New Orleans.

Here are the thoughts of K.C. King, retired systems analyst for Boeing and Gentilly resident. Through The Citizen's Road Home Action Team, K.C. has lobbied for and obtains policy reforms to the Road Home Program, including a recently funded "In-Flight Review" of the program.

"The Gulf Coast Housing Act as proposed by Senator Chris Dodd and cosponsored six Senate Democrats answers virtually all of Louisiana's view of its needs for Congressional support for the state's Katrina/Rita related housing recovery needs. Most importantly it bolsters the Road Home Program's shortfall. In addition it provides needed flexibility in using the $1.2B FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant Program to rebuild safer and stronger. Finally, the bill addresses many aspects of public and rental housing that are needed to facilitate the return of Louisiana's dispersed poor.

"The only concern is that there are no minority Senate cosponsors, not even Louisiana's Republican Senator, David Vitter. This raises the question of how the sponsors intend to provide the kind of non-partisan solution needed in the evenly divided Senate and how the plan to ensure that the president won't veto any legislation that can be passed. Louisiana needs realistic and feasible solutions, not partisan posturing that, in the end, doesn't work."

Yes, I want you to get behind this bill. No, I don't think it looks promising. No, we can't wait until 2009 for this support. Yes, we probably will.

Sign the petition and take action to make this bill a reality now.

Comments

[lyonspride]

The comments from those outside of New Orleans seem to suggest that the majority of residents are just sitting around waiting for someone to rebuild their house. This is NOT the case. So many residents are making it happen. Yes, some can't because they were already poor and simply cannot afford to rebuild without assistance which is slow in coming. But many many residents are taking what funds they have and rebuilding, even physically doing the work themselves. I know folks in their 60s and 70s doing this!

We have a different culture. But please do not think of us as from a different planet, as non-Americans. We are Americans who have paid our taxes, paid for insurance, and tried to live the American dream in our homes. Please don't begrudge us that - the next federal flood could be closer to you.

[yellowdogSC]

Please DON'T TAKE THIS WRONG, but perhaps the strategy to "hit Home Depot during the weekends" could be improved upon.

Home Depot has some serious BOR issues, while Lowes specifically and deliberately DOES NOT.

(Forgive, please, if I"m one in a long list.)
Thank you.

[alangutierrez]

Bill O'Reilly?

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/07/31/home-depot-dumps-bill-oreilly/

It looks as though they are attempting to address that issue. Or is it still a problem? I do not like FOX News. The next time I quip about a big box hardware store I'll use Lowes.

If it makes you feel better, my friends gripe about "Home Depot doors". Contractors who have no idea what they are doing throw away French doors, put in plastic doors and fill the gap at the top with particle board. Hideous.

At the UNOP's Historic New Orleans Collection event, Steve Villavaso said that a Lowes will be opening up in East New Orleans. The arrival of a Lowes (or Home Depot) is the first step to resurrecting a neighborhood. People cannot live in the neighborhood, but at least when the drive in from Houston or Baton Rouge they can get more done on their homes.

[yellowdogSC]

alan,

Thank you.

I had not heard. I see that it happened just a month ago. I'm surprised and shamed to have missed anything on C&L.
I very much appreciate your time researching this.

Still caution may be advised. Since 1999 eight people have been killed (including employees) in Home Depot stores. Statistically insignificant, unless you were one of them, I suppose.
And I"d guess 50 times as many died on the way to or from. Or from a heart attack from the stop at McDonald"s on the way.

Still, my understanding is that there has never been a death in a Lowes store.

But what"s wrong with a little "x-treme shopping"?

Thanks again, and especially for your wonderful writing.

[LizM]

A quick reading of the Dodd bill found no mention of the urgent need for a comprehensive plan for the restoration of the coastal wetlands and barrier islands of southern Louisiana.

Is there anyone leading the charge on this issue which is so critical to the future survivability of NOLA?

Does it make any sense whatsoever to encourage residents to stay/return to rebuild their homes, their lives, and their city ABSENT a firm commitment from the federal government to get serious about putting a comprehensive coastal restoration plan into action?

[alangutierrez]

One bill cannot be all things to all people, but they sure do try. For Coastal Restoration you need to look at the Water Resources Development Act.

http://www.electdeborah.com/wrda.htm

This is making progress. We really want to close the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet.

[LizM]

For coastal restoration, we really just need to get serious...and the Water Resources Development Act ain't the ticket.

[Indiana]

This bill is a good start. But would you believe, Bush intends to veto it? So far, it has had massive BIPARTISAN support in both houses of Congress, but there are those who predict that now that Bush has come out against it, they doubt that Congress will vote to over-ride.

[alangutierrez]

I spoke with Senator David Vitter today (R-LA). I asked him about the Gulf Coast Recovery Act of 2007. He told me that it wasn't going to get Republican support because the public housing portion was based on a model that segregates the poor from the rest of the community.

That is his take. It occurs to me that if the Gulf Coast Recovery Act of 2007 ties the fate of homeowners to the fate of public housing residents then it is time for homeowners to take stock of the public housing situation.

[CrescentCityRay]

Federal designed and built levees fell down without being topped. The levees were engineering structures. Engineers made big mistakes - many. The negligent party should compensate the damaged party for their losses.

Otherwise, the negligent party, if they refuse to pay, should invite the damaged party to succeed from this nation and become a soverign state.

Fair is fair and vice versa. If you don't need us, cut us loose.

Otherwise, we are entitled to fair compensation for our losses so that our families (US Citizens) do not have to continue to suffer their new found homelessness, poverty, hopelessness and relentless humiliations.

[alangutierrez]

The future of New Orleans depends on levees and flood protection.

Much of New Orleans is above sea level, but that's a moot point when the Mississippi or the Gulf of Mexico wants in. The high ground flooded as well as the low ground. The levees created a bowl and Lake Pontchartrain poured into that bowl.

The Dutch can build their cities much further below sea level than New Orleans. With effective civil engineering, New Orleans will be safe from flooding withing it's existing boundaries. Without effective civil engineering, the city is not safe anywhere within it's existing boundaries. We dearly need the federal government to get serious about the levees.

http://levees.org/

It can be done. It's not that big a deal. There are levees in each of the 50 states. We depend on them everywhere.

[maddogbitesback]

It is that big a deal. Levees are part of the problem. No more levees. Stop building on swamps, floodlands, trying to contain the Mississippi and other similar idiotic stuff. Sometimes you just have to accept the fact that it is okay to swim on the beach but building a house thee is nuts. If you want to live in California be prepared to experience an earthquake. If you live on the gulf be ready for a hurricane and floods.

[alangutierrez]

Levees are a component of civil engineering. The City of New Orleans exists so that 28 other states can say that they have an ocean port. With the Mississippi the MidWest would be known as the Outback. Saying that we shouldn't build on a coast because of hurricanes is like saying we shouldn't build skyscrapers because of gravity.

[CaseyBabes]

Your endorsing "self help" is the best policy. Waiting for politicians to come forward is a fruitless effort. Use the many communities along the Mississippi coast who have taken the self help route for recovery as your guide, but also use that same state's communities who did not choose to do it themselves to see their progress.
Still, the job ahead of you is gigantic and I hope it will include little settlement below sea level and that the wetlands and barrier islands will have much attention.
I gladly sign the petition.

[Stevelagain]

I think some tough love is needed here.

Rugged individualists do not cry about big momma government not taking care of them. Rugged individualists take care of themselves and their own. So if you are going to portray yourselves as rugged individualists, then don't undue all that by begging for more and more handouts. There is no such thing as a rugged individualist big government socialist.

You choose to live in a corrupt city that is below sea water and diverts money aimed to protect the city to all sorts of cronies and handouts. A generational problem down there and well known. You elect a corrupt mayor that can't read his own cities disaster plan and left hundreds of city school buses to FLOOD while prancing in front of the cameras asking someone else to help him evacuate. Why didn't you folks bring in some buss drivers days in advance when it was safe and fill those buses up with poor and drive them out? You get untold billions in government aid, and demand we send more to support your under water life style.

MOVE ABOVE SEA LEVEL! Or, if you choose to continue to live at-risk below sea level, do not ask the rest of us to subsidize your "rugged individualist" below-sea-level live style in a very corrupt and violent little town.

Now that's tough love, I know it. But lets stop pretending that the rest of us have this never ending obligation to the people that wasted squandered so much of their federal dollars over the years and now demand we give them more and more to rebuild a city that should be left to the sea and the marshes.

[Economike]

Your all heart

[Indiana]

I'm getting sick of the well-meaning yet ignorant argument that New Orleans should move above sea level.

Out of curiosity--would you tell New Yorkers to quit working in and living in tall buildings because terrorists have shown that they can fly planes into them? Quite a lot of federal dollars went to the survivors of 9/11.

And I don't think it's "tough love" to call New Orleans a "very corrupt and violent little town"...

[AsheDambala]

I tell you what Steve, since you don't think New Orleans is worth this country's attention and support....let's start a movement to grant New Orleans sovereign status from the U.S....just spin us off. We'll take our dirty little town over from there, and here's what will happen:

1. We'll put our own tax on all the oil and natural gas which flows through Port Fourchon...about 30% of the country's supply. Your gas prices will go up by about $1.25/gallon overnight. But I'm sure you won't mind that...we are just getting a fair tax off our "neverending obligation" to supply America with the energy it depends on.

2. We'll impose our own tariff on all the goods which pass through our port. Look around the shitty townhouse your most likely sitting in right now. I would bet about 40% of the shit sitting in your house passed through our port. We'll tax you for that....I'm sure you won't mind, considering this dirty little town is so useless to this country.

3. We'll add an environmental tax to all the plastics which are created in the petrochemical plants along the Mississippi between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The same plastics which America's entire food supply is dependent upon. When you go to your hometown Wal-Mart Superstore, you'll be paying about $10 extra/per visit the rest of your boring life.

4. We'll put an added tax on all the seafood which is harvested from this "under water lifestyle". That's over 30% of the nation's fisheries. The next time you drive down to Bennigan's to eat a generic Shrimp Scampi, you'll be surprised to see the price on all seafood dishes has increased....and you're cheap ass will have to stick with the hamburger. But that will have increased as well...because the frozen burger was wrapped and shipped in plastic.

I'm sure you won't mind taking a $50/week increase in your cost of living because you're all about tough love right?

[maddogbitesback]

I'll second that. Let the land developers redevelop it or and this is iffy or consider the rising sea leveland its effect upon new Orleans. Move. Move to high ground.

[showme54]

Stevelagain, you are so off on all of your allegations. Not all of New Orleans is below sea level. As a matter of fact, many US cities are in a flood plain or prone to flood in heavy rain events or hurricanes, including NYC, Sacramento, Washington DC, Houston, Memphis, St. Louis, portions of the states of FL, TX, MS, AL, GA, N.C., S.C. on and on.

Federal funds have always provided assistance to every state in the Union as a result of a declared emergencies of hurricanes, floods, fires, ice storms, drought...why is Louisiana exempt from this assistance? Did you voice your disgust about the Federal funds that went to Florida for the 2004 hurricanes? What about the funds to Colorado for fires in the past? How about the tornados in the Midwest? Where was your outrage then? Where was the tough love suggestion for them?

Corruption is not limited to NOLA or Louisiana...just read the headlines of other states local papers or info on internet. If you check the information regarding the buses...the feds did not want to use school buses. As to the getting out days in advance...Katrina was a Cat 1 on Fri n of Miami, Sat it was a Cat 2 with projected hurricane path warnings to FL panhandle, MS, AL and LA. It became a Cat 4 at 1 am Sun and a Cat 5 at 8 am Sun and hit se La as a Cat 3 Mon at 6 am.

A couple of final notes, the levee system is federally built and federally maintained. The 'billions' of federal dollars for Katrina/Rita are disbursed between the states of LA, MS, AL, TX, FL - including rescue, recovery monies spent, flood ins. payouts, housing, etc.

[showme54]

CaseyBabes, waiting for their politicians is part of the reason many communities along the MS coast are so ahead of the game, that along with the casinos paying the way. Does anyone know who MS Gov. Barbour or Trent Lott is?? Nevermind, explaining has become a fruitless effort. Second, MS received a fraction of the damage as LA, third, they did not receive a second hurricane 3 weeks later. Fourth, they have not been exposed to the often politically and/or sensational modivated media onslaught of criticism and ridicule.

Sure, it should be a piece of cake for 500,000+ people to pick up the pieces of their lives in NOLA plus all the communities and towns surrounding the city and on the sw coast. Why should people living the ultimate nightmare 24 hrs/day, 7 days/week, by fighting to rebuild their homes and communities, who have lost nearly all personal possessions, with shattered families,with shattered homes, shattered schools, shattered jobs, shattered streets, shattered law enforcement, shattered emergency services, shattered utilities, shattered businesses, shattered colleges, shattered hospitals, enduring two years of endless red tape, changing rules & regulations, being in political crossfire, fighting insurance companies, dealing with mortgage companies, bill collectors and endless paperwork...not be a little more self sufficient, isn't that what you asked?

[Economike]

Some people thought it was a good idea to leave Germany in the thirties and did it. It might have been hard but they were probably glad in the long run.

[CaseyBabes]

Showme54: "Nevermind, explaining has become a fruitless effort."
I wish you would have tried as your point is a bit obscure. I am not saying that NOrleans can get back on its feet overninght, but to get started with self help and not be tied in knots by politicians. There is no comparison between the efficiency of Ms Gov Barbour and Senator Lott as the La Gov and NO Mayor are incompetent as Katrina clearly exemplified. I get your latter point quite clearly......obviously you did not want any of us saying "get off your duff!" We're not. We are saying don't wait for politicians who you could not trust before Katrina, don't wait for your city administration who you couldn't trust before, and on and on, just like your list of realities. If you want your city's recovery learn from Ms, and while at it, recognize that your city was failing economically, politically and criminally before Katrina. You want the National Guard out from the present patrolling of the city, it is up to all of you, including those that left and won't come back unless the work is done for them. NOrleans was destroyed, a reality of life. Recovering the city or building a new one has to be done by the ones who built it over time before and that is the only way it will happen again.