Katrina Evacuees Homeless Again - God Bless the USA

[Opusnone]

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13066332.htm

Bertha Anderson watched as the water inside her New Orleans home rose more than 15 feet high in Hurricane Katrina's wake.

The first leg of Anderson's trip out of her storm-ravaged home was on an airboat. Along with her family, she slept on the median of a nearby street before taking a bus to Texas and then another bus to Florida.

Anderson and her husband, Freddie, along with their six-member family eventually made their way to the Wellesley Inn in Plantation, where they have been staying for the past month with the help of the Red Cross.

The hotel lost power after Wilma, and the evacuees had to spend another week in the dark. Wednesday, the Andersons were given a few hours' notice that they had to leave, she said.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

[EFerrari]

1. Kick

Not all of us do. :nuke:

[SammyWinstonJack]

2. Out of sight, out of mind, so to speak.

:-(

[Opusnone]

3. So that works with everything, right?

Poof! No unemployment
Poof! No earthquakes
Poof! No war dead, etc. ad nauseum...

[SammyWinstonJack]

6. Sadly it seems too.

:-(

[Iris]

4. ok. My bleeding heart bled buckets during Katrina and still

does. To the point that I have removed myself from a few email lists because I was so appalled at how cavalier people I thought were decent were about the plight of these people.

But why, oh why, did these people end up in Florida? I heard a story on This American Life that said towns in Colorada couldn't GIVE AWAY jobs and rent-free houses and apartments.

I'm not saying this is the fault of these victims. It sounds like they didn't have anyone giving them any kind of info., but if I'd survived Katrina and its aftermath, I sure as hell wouldn't have headed to Florida unless I had family there and absoultely no other recourse.

[trof]

5. A-men.

Florida would be WAAAYYYY down on my list.
It is THE most difficult state to evacuate for hurricanes.

[SoCalDem]

9. They were probably put on a bus and not even told where they were headed

That's how they did it back then.. Line up.. get on the bus.and .//"Welcome to......"

The thing that bugged the hell out of me is that NOLA is NOT the only city in LA..most of these people had relatives across the state.. All they needed was a GD cell phone that worked, and transportation to a relative's place within LA.

The powers that be did not want it that way.. Bused 40 miles up the road, they might be eager to return...but if you separate the families and send them to say... Michigan for some, Idaho for some,Florida for some and texas for the rest..they will spend MONTHS just trying to find each other, and will still be too broke to reuinte and return.. Crazy like foxes :puke:

[Jacobin]

11. You are exactly right

They just ship these folks from one destination to the next with no idea of what they are doing.

I've watched it first hand.

[Opusnone]

12. Forced Migration

[DBoon]

15. ethnic cleansing

move the "wrong people" out of NO for good

[Opusnone]

10. Evacuate? Never

Not because it's not scary, but trying to evacuate this state would be a nightmare. Many more casualties caused by the evacuation than the disaster.
To my knowledge it's not happened in modern times. But if it did, I'd have to head to the marina and take the water, or west into the Everglades. Trying to fit 15 million people onto two highways just doesn't work.

[Opusnone]

8. There's worse places to be in the winter

than Florida.

A couple we were helping from Mississippi (repukes, and we didn't care) headed here because this was where they had family.

The Days Inn kicked them out before Wilma (lucky) and I haven't heard from them since (of course we're evauees right now up in DC with family). Funny, at the time I told him that it was probably a good thing that they had to leave the hotel. I told them to go back to MS and pick up the pieces. Home is where the heart is,I guess.
I hope they're okay.

[Frustratedlady]

16. Texas and Florida got many

people, but didn't they also get paid by FEMA, so it boiled down to more than a humanitarian gesture...it was a money maker, too.

My state had housing and jobs set up and hardly any takers.

[phusion]

7. This reminds me of a song by The Boss

inspired by The Grapes of Wrath.

This is probably a common story in the South after all the devastation. :(

---
The Ghost of Tom Joad - Bruce Springsteen

Men walkin' 'long the railroad tracks
Goin' someplace there's no goin' back
Highway patrol choppers comin' up over the ridge
Hot soup on a campfire under the bridge
Shelter line stretchin' round the corner
Welcome to the new world order
Families sleepin' in their cars in the southwest
No home no job no peace no rest

The highway is alive tonight
But nobody's kiddin' nobody about where it goes
I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light
Searchin' for the ghost of Tom Joad

He pulls prayer book out of his sleeping bag
Preacher lights up a butt and takes a drag
Waitin' for when the last shall be first and the first shall be last
In a cardboard box 'neath the underpass
Got a one-way ticket to the promised land
You got a hole in your belly and gun in your hand
Sleeping on a pillow of solid rock
Bathin' in the city aqueduct

The highway is alive tonight
But where it's headed everybody knows
I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light
Waitin' on the ghost of Tom Joad

Now Tom said "Mom, wherever there's a cop beatin' a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there's a fight 'gainst the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me Mom I'll be there
Wherever there's somebody fightin' for a place to stand
Or decent job or a helpin' hand
Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free
Look in their eyes Mom you'll see me."

The highway is alive tonight
But nobody's kiddin' nobody about where it goes
I'm sittin' downhere in the campfire light
With the ghost of old Tom Joad

[Leopolds Ghost]

13. Their homes are still there...

Despite what the media (and many Dems) may have told them, it is simply false to say they have nothing to go back to. Many of these folks believe what they are being told. They interviewed a group after *'s Katrina speech who (a) agreed that * was not to blame, local officials were; and (b) all agreed that the levees have been blown up.

Anyone who thinks that there is nothing havbitable left in the
poor parts New Orleans doesn't know a thing about construction.

Anyone on the left who thinks that Katrina evacuees must be re-settled
elsewhere or their homes "re-built" is in most cases badly misinformed
about the logistics of the situation and cutting off their own throats
in terms of helping the community.

There are two types of Americas -- ones who believe in rebuilding what
was lost, and those whose only response to adversity is to pick up and
move on. The latter impulse is at the heart of conservatism
(fatalistic, religious conservatism at that.)

Rebuilding, in this case, means RENOVATION not BULLDOZING. Bulldoze
a poor person's home, and yes they have nothing to return to. Most of
those homes are owned outright. And yet they have been told (by local, white officials) fuggetaboutit, it's Chinatown. FUCK THAT!

It is so sad that so many on the left and right have embraced such an incurious viewpoint that is at odds with American tradition of being educated on matters of the building arts. Which is the only reason there's so much pressure to ship in immigrants, who actually know a thing or two about shoveling out slop from a storm-damaged house and scraping out mold. It helps that in this country, we have a magical substance called drywall which many Americans are ignorant of. It is easily replaceable. Most of the drywall installers these days speak spanish, so it's no wonder that black and white inner city residents are at a loss when they see a mess in their old homes and think "I have nothing to return to."

Helping people "re-settle" implies they have no property rights and are second class citizens...

Wards of the state who can be dispersed like Indians werein the 1800s (which is exactly how some rural conservatives want to treat inner city residents, they see this as a model for a new type of state sanctioned aparthied.)

[Opusnone]

14. It's the same in MS, too!

Family just went to Biloxi for a funeral Saturday, they said it looked like a third world country (and these people have traveled, they know what third world looks like).

When are they gonna rebuild Trent Lott's porch? Who's gonna rebuild it? How big is it gonna be? Can I help?

[Leopolds Ghost]

20. The Golden Porch Rule...

... He who has the gold, get's the porch.

Stated outright by Andres Duany, the architectural darling of the "progressive" New Urbanist movement which encourages upscale people to "embrace city living" by building sanitized versions of New Orleans in the suburbs.

Duany said, in essence, that the rich people's homes on the coasts should be rebuilt and poor people's homes in New Orleans and Mississippi should not, and that this is a GOOD THING (!) because only rich people should be able to afford to live on a floodplain, due to the cost of rebuilding.

Basically, the architectural/building establishment is devided between:

1. Modernists who want to resettle the poor, bulldoze New Orleans,
retain the unflooded historic enclaves and build hi-rises.

2. New Urbanists who want toresettle the poor, bulldoze New Orleans,
retain the unflooded historic enclaves and abandon the rest. Then
build fancy new housing for the rich on the coast in a traditional,
New Orleans "style" (like Disney's Celebration, Florida, or Seaside
Florida, where The Truman Show was set.)

[pitohui]

17. you must live a long way away from here

"their homes are still there" is the joke of all time

if their homes were in st. bernard parish, their homes are not still there, if there homes were in the lower ninth ward, their homes are not still there, if their homes are in most areas of gentilly, their homes are not still there, if their homes were in lakeview, nope, not there, if their homes were in venice, no, gone

you cannot comprehend the extent of the destruction unless you're here on the ground

if you think you can just slap some drywall and save a house that was under 15 feet of water then you're welcome to come on down and buy some of these houses, i know some people who are desperate to sell

here's some houses in the lower 9th ward, yeah, a little drywall & it'll all be papered over if you're of the slap a band-aid on cancer school of construction --



or here's venice, louisiana, wait, actually it isn't, these houses were formerly located in venice, louisiana but i'm sure a little drywall can fix them right up -- too bad abt the cars driving thru the living room but hey a little drywall is all that's needed, right?



the assumption that only hispanics can install drywall, and that blacks, whites, and vietnamese are ignorant boobs who can't help themselves is not very nice

the destruction here is huge

people have lost their homes, yes, really, it is not a gag to get your tax dollar

it's real

denial is not kind, it is hurtful & denies people the money & support they need to rebuild

we are not idiots in the south, we know all abt drywall, thank you verra much

i'm sorry to be so bitter & sarcastic but you'd be the same way if your pain was being trivialized

[Opusnone]

18. I don't think that trivializing was intentional

Did you lose your house? What are you planning to do?
BTW, you're right, we are not all idiots in the South.

[Leopolds Ghost]

22. I'm not trivializing scut-work, just pointing out Americans need to get

re-used to it and not declare things "impossible". I've been helping a community group rebuild a storefront for three years now, almost completely gutted and thruout had to listen to lay-folk, professionals, artists, creative people say this-and-that was "impossible". When an engineer or a contractor tells you that you can be sure they want more money. That is the contractor's rule of thumb.

The Engineer's motto (caveat, I am not an engineer, I'm an architecture student who works in the building trade) is "everything is feasible, the only question is price."

In America, it is ALWAYS feasible to rebuild historic neighborhoods when they are in the hands of the rich. The sticking point is ALWAYS the inistence that the poor are incapable of doing so, or that the neighborhoods will remain "uninhabitable" and declared so by the STATE until facts on the ground (wealth) dictates otherwise.

That is not how AMERICA was built, nor New Orleans the LAST two times they had a 15-foot flood. The last two times, it simply subsided over the course of a week or two instead of four, because the elevation difference was not as pronounced. The homes got slopped out and repaired. Nobody was told they couldn't, or shouldn't (by some well-meaning liberal like several 9th Ward activists) return.

If 9th Ward should not be refurbished then neither should Lakeview. If Gentilly should be condemned then so should the flooded out mansions on Canal where the lawyer owners returned before they were legally "permitted" to do so. Nobody stopped them or evicted them while others were still being shipped out at gunpoint for their own "safety" due to the government engineered lack of affordable supplies.

For more info just ask the folks who started the free clinic in Algiers during the lockdown... I almost went down with them to help out but problems at home prevented.

[Leopolds Ghost]

21. The home on the RIGHT is still there...

...That makes your photo evidence anecdotal by definition.

It is a mathematical fact that the number of houses still standing in the majority black areas of New Orleans GREATLY EXCEEDS the number of people who have the resources (or being allowed by their landlords and the city, or have sufficient understanding of property rights in flood prone areas) to return.

This might CHANGE (ability to return) if folks including yourself actually AGITATED for the poor to return to New Orleans, like John Edwards is doing.

instead, y'all declare it a "death sentence" -- and some hem and haw about the security situation to boot.

So any argment that folks have no choice but to be relocated to rural areas (forcibly, by the state) is specious.

BTW, Lakeview is already being rebuilt (thru RENOVATION no less...)
Read "A Tale of Two Neighborhoods" in the Washington Post several weeks back about the differences between Lakeview, a 99% white community, and Lower 9th, a 99% black... compared houses and families at the same elevation, different attitudes, different treatment by city officials.

And sorry to warn you, but the cancer risk in New Orleans
was there all along... That's why thy call it CANCER ALLEY.

I work in the construction trade, my mother was an immunotoxicologist, and one of my neighbors is an environmental chemical engineer. If you have any questions for them about "cancer cost of rehabbing" instead of demolishing a building and leaving its residents homeless to please your (or their) concerns that they would rather be homeless than live in New Orleans, which is the endemic source for all of the toxins in question, I will forward your questions along. In the meantime, I would like to ask you what you know about formaldehyde outgassing.

I have spent the past year rebuilding a one-story building that was essentially a shell when we got it. No utilities, nothing. If it had been filled with mud it'd be no different. I've also worked as a hauler in inner city areas. Abandoned buildings in state of absolute squalor. These buildings are gutted and rehabbed by their new owners.

Why? Because they can afford to do so. Sensitive so-called "liberals" in the area believe such buildings are irrecoverable in the hands of their prior impoverished owners, but the minute they get sold they somehow become recoverable by their new, welathier owners and EVERYONE WINS -- NOT! The poor people get to live in anonymous trailer parks in the suburbs in conditions almost as bad, albeit with no mass transit and no access to jobs.

The easiest thing to do is rip out and clean up the environmental toxins. Disposal is the only thing that makes this process expensive. And you can save money by doing it yourself. As an adult not exposed over long periods, you are in exceptional good shape to do "toxic" cleanup yourself, just like me, instead of paying some poor guy who has to expose himself every day under inadequate "professional" OSHA regulations. Ask any plumber how often he/she has to waid thru SHIT waist deeep in his or her job in a NON disaster area.

I am sorry but you are basically saying that most of these houses in gentilly, etc. that are still on their foundations are not recoverable by their prior owners. I'm here to tell you that is not correct.

[GreenPartyVoter]

19. :^( It's shameful how hard it is for families to own homes