A Cameraman's Impressions Of New Orleans As It Recovers And Prepares

[struggle4progress]

September 24, 2005

<snip> The French Quarter is a beer bottle throw away, and it’s never been cleaner. It’s teeming with National Guard from all over, feds from agencies you know and have never heard of (like the Dept. of Agriculture’s Forest Police), Navy, Coast Guard, and the 82nd Airborne. They mostly wander around, taking pictures, re-parking their cars, and doing some light sweeping. There are clothes to give away, and there’s plenty of MRE’s to hand out, but there’s no one left in the Big Easy. They’ve been scattered to the winds.

These new tourists are already scoping out the bars, and all three of Larry Flynt’s “Hustler” clubs have power - they should be open soon, and there will be no shortage of customers. Many have beads. Not all of them are loafing around: the cleanup workers, mold specialists, power linemen, tree clearers and local business people are all working inhuman hours in the brutal heat. The visiting firemen are working overtime to get NOFD back in business. The MPs and the search and rescue specialists are still going through buildings and making grisly discoveries. Some have told me they don’t think they will ever know where all the bodies are. The teams working in St. Bernard Parish, which is now an enormous toxic waste dump, are waking up with sore throats and other respiratory ailments. Privately, the EPA testers have told them that all the pollutants and environmental toxins are way off the scale. No one is looking to stay there long.

The former residents fall into two categories: the hyperactive and the walking wounded. The hyperactive are trying to work as much as they can to get their lives going in some kind of direction, and make the best of the new realities. The walking wounded are just that. The people left in the shelters are fragile, beaten down, and bewildered. They are in no shape to deal with the bureaucratic nightmares of FEMA and the Red Cross.

They are also angry. Both groups rage against federal, state and local governments, President Bush, FEMA, Governor Blanco, and all the profiteers who have come to make their quick buck at the taxpayers’ expense. Blackwater, Dyncorp, Fluor, Bechtel and Halliburton have all arrived like vultures at a fresh kill. Many people we’ve met feel deeply betrayed by their elected representatives. <snip>

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2005/09/23/publiceye/entry880650.shtml

[KoKo]

1. Looks like this reporter could use a few positive comments about his

post on the new CBS blog. A couple of freeper comments sort of dominate.

I'm so glad to see CBS doing this. Getting comments from those outside the Beltway and New York...the average person is what news organizations used to do..in the days of "investigative reporting."

Maybe the blogs will bring us back to more freedom of the press. :shrug: