Ten Months After Katrina: Gutting New Orleans

[raccoon]

“Over two hundred thousand people have not yet made it back to New Orleans. Vacant houses stretch mile after mile, neighborhood after neighborhood. Thousands of buildings remain marked with brown ribbons where floodwaters settled. Of the thousands of homes and businesses in eastern New Orleans, thirteen percent have been re-connected to electricity.

...Thousands of homes remain just as they were when the floodwaters receded - ghost-like houses with open doors, upturned furniture, and walls covered with growing mold.

Not a single dollar of federal housing repair or home reconstruction money has made it to New Orleans yet. Tens of thousands are waiting. Many wait because a full third of homeowners in the New Orleans area had no flood insurance. Others wait because the levees surrounding New Orleans are not yet as strong as they were before Katrina and fear re-building until flood protection is more likely…

We know that what is happening in New Orleans is just a more concentrated, more graphic version of what is going on all over our country. Every city in our country has some serious similarities to New Orleans. Every city has some abandoned neighborhoods. Every city in our country has abandoned some public education, public housing, public healthcare, and criminal justice. Those who do not support public education, healthcare, and housing will continue to turn all of our country into the Lower Ninth Ward unless we stop them. Why do we allow this?"

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0629-20.htm

The paragraph I bolded to me seems most chilling.

The article ends on a hopeful note, telling of "signs of hope and resistance."

The New Orleans tragedy is like some dystopian novels. Who of us would have ever thought it would have happened in the US? And I'm afraid New Orleans is a harbinger of things to come.

[partylessinOhio]

1. Thank you for posting this update on Katrina and America.

Katrina is the largest Bush failure next to his illegal war. Katrina and the disintegration of America is the direct result of his tax cuts and corruption in his administration. This impostor has bankrupted America to the point that we cannot afford the upkeep so everything is deteriorating. Most of the money that is being spent is being sucked up by the Bush/Cheney crooks like Halliburton, KBR, etc.

Americans are suffering and will continue to suffer, while many have died. The absence of help for the Katrina victims and the failure to rebuild is our national disgrace. If we don't do something to reverse the trend of our cities becoming slums it may become too late.

[uppityperson]

2. we are no better than the rest of the world.

This is all amazing. I too thought better of the USA and thank you for this article.