Posted on 12/02/2005 9:37:23 PM PST by Torie
This year, my Thanksgiving hosts erected their deep fryer next to a heap of bricks and shingles that had fallen from the roof near the back of their house. I had returned home to New Orleans for the first time since Hurricane Katrina decimated it three months ago, and, by Thursday, I'd seen enough of the city to regard the unsightly gash that the fallen debris had opened in their patio--juxtaposed quietly against the vat of bubbling turkey--as something of a blessing. It could have been so much worse: Their basement had flooded and their chimney had crumbled, but they still had a home and a roof. It was something to be thankful for.
...
But, traversing the debris-clad streets last week, I couldn't help but fear that these cursory signs of recovery won't propel (or reflect) the city's return to cityhood. For one, New Orleans must marshal incredible manpower--and, perhaps more importantly, tame its own worst instincts--to recover. For another, the destruction is almost apocalyptic in scale.
In neighborhoods that weren't completely obliterated, the slightest gradations in elevation made the greatest difference. In the Garden District, the lawns of Victorian mansions on one block are manicured and watered; on the next block, façades are obscured by mounds of rubble, carpeting, drywall, and furniture ruined by the flood. Brackish water stagnated long enough in Hollygrove, a neighborhood in West New Orleans, to stain empty houses at the tide level, like unwashed coffee mugs.
...
The famous stenches of New Orleans have subsided with the onset of autumn. But the worst nasal assailants--abandoned refrigerators--are still everywhere. ... ...
Since only 16 percent of New Orleanians have come home, the streets are eerily empty ...
Can New Orleans right itself? The signs aren't good. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at tnr.com ...
"Can New Orleans right itself? The signs aren't good. Last week, the state House killed a measure to consolidate levee boards. Currently, the levees are divided into tiny patronage fiefdoms (the specter of Huey Long still haunts Louisiana) that hide behind hollow locals-know-best rhetoric and persuade congressional appropriators that federal money will be wasted. Yet evacuees say they won't return until they know the levees can protect them from Category Five storms--something unlikely to happen for another decade under half a dozen autonomous boards. Still, in a few ways, New Orleans is already its old self again--impossibly slow to change, abject in its corruption. Its worst traits may hinder the revival of its beautiful historic persona. It's possible that, in the spirit of comity and collective determination, the city will heal itself. But it's just as likely that a skeletal population will learn to fry its food resignedly amid the heaps of ruin."
Much of Lakeside was under water. What happened?
They fixed it, apparently.
I'm moving back to Metairie, and after I get out of law school, I'm moving to Lafayette, probably. I will not return to New Orleans unless those levees can withstand a nuclear blast.
I've said since the storm hit that the only way NOLA can right iteself is by a Herculean effort to bring private big biz into the city again. It's going to take 10 years at least, to bring some of it back, if ever. Most people who fled have no intention of returning to...nothing. At best, it will limp along slowly for years, no matter how much federal money we dump into it.
A friend of mine from Metarie had to remove and replace his house's drywall totally. He said the worst part of this mess is realizing you live in a sort of "toxic landfill" in many neighborhoods.
Pump it out, tear out the carpet, hose it down with a little bleach in the water, dry it out, replace a little drywall, put in new carpet, and it's good to go.
Any place but New Orleans, and they would have been able to clean up the stadium in time for the Bowl games.
My wife's two cousins (who live in Jefferson), disagree with you. Certainly, Jefferson is lots better off than New Orleans proper, but back to normal it ain't.
Sorry, not true. The continuous heat and humidity make that "quick and easy" solution virtually impossible. It might work somewhere where the climate is reasonably dry---but NOT in South Louisiana. Once the mold gets started, about the only real fix is to burn it down and build new.
"Their basement had flooded"
Hmmm, I've never ever seen a home with a basement in New Orleans.
I had some kinfolks who got flooded out several times along the Amite River. Cut the wallboard above the water level, discard any insulation that got wet, the carpet, upolstered furniture, etc. Let things dry out. Patch, recarpet, buy a new sofa. Yes, its a mess. No, it didn't take months.
Of course, that was before plaintiff's attorneys discovered mold as a profitable sideline.
Seemed normal to me.
Then your kinfolks don't have mold allergies. I do, and I can guarantee you that to those of us who are sensitive, it is a very debilitating thing. I finally had to move away from South Louisiana (which I dearly love) because of it.
Yes, because mold is pretty much everywhere, whether there has been a flood or not. Sorry to hear you are sensitive to it, but I don't see what has happened as really contributing to the mold problem.
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