Sunday, March 4, 2007
Katrina tour
It was an amazing experience to travel through New Orleans post-Katrina. I had a mixed bevy of emotions: frustration, discomfort, hope, fascination, sadness, empathy, and concern. It is difficult to undrerstand how the city, state, and local government can seemingly sit idly by while the sits the city wastes away. When is the city going to make the city suitable and inhabitable for the residents to return? When will the schools reopen? When will the public housing projects be available for those who can't afford anywhere else to live? The city is attempting to rebuild its greatness, even on a grander level, but what will truly be the cost? It seems as though those who are less fortunate will remain unlucky...if the city continues this "progress" and intends to go on without them.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
To add to my colleague’s comments, about the Katrina tour, I was astounded to see the vastness of the devastation still eighteen months after the disaster. The numbers reported in the media did not register to me. To me a neighborhood is a small portion of a city consisting of only a few city streets, not miles upon miles. This is a much larger city than I thought and I do not understand why parts of it still look worse than a third world county. The reality is that while it is supposed to take time to recover from a disaster of this magnitude, it is clear that our system has failed and is continuing to fail the people of New Orleans.
Most of the debris has been cleared, although nothing that resembled the previously vibrant neighborhoods has returned. There are thousands of homes that have been gutted that stand in rows with no cars in the driveways, no children in the streets, and no life to speak of. They are virtually ghost towns, and few if any people have returned. However, if I were one of the displaced persons I would not return to this either.
When I say this, it is not to say that the displaced should not return to the city, I mean more specifically that they should not return to the flooded neighborhoods. In fact, I think that I personally would never return to a neighborhood that is so vulnerable to disaster after I had lost everything once already.
Although I understand I am simply pointing out a problem that I have no real solution for because the fact remains that space and property in this region are not plentiful. Yet, there has to be a way to bring home the people to a “safe” New Orleans. I say “safe” because the forces of nature will without fail always prevail over the best efforts of man, and those levees will be breached again. It is only a matter of time, and the fact is that if we spend billions of dollars rebuilding the vulnerable neighborhoods instead of creating new ones in safer areas, then we have learned nothing from our mistakes.
Post a Comment