Hurricane Katrina: 2 Years Later.?

Question

Its been 2 years since the tragedy that has befallen the Gulf Coast. The rebuilding process has been slow from Washington due to both red tape and its focus on Iraq. I want to hear your opinons and comments from residents of the areas hit by Katrina and those who are angry with the response from Washington.

Answer 1

What about the response from Ray Nagin and the gov of LA???

Nothing about the sweet contracts given to his buddies??What about the gov giving contracts to her buddies?

Please provide links to stories that prove Iraq has taken anything away from the rebuilding.

Answer 2

Red tape, red tape, red tape. That's what everyone is dealing with. The citizens are running into issues, the local governments are running into issues, and the contractors are running into issues. It is not just the irresponsible Orleans Parish government having issues, St. Tammany Parish, St. Bernard Parish, Jefferson Parish (local governments that are just as responsible as any poster's respective local government) are all having issues getting reimbursed. Contractors from dear, dear, can-do-nothing-wrong Texas can't seem to get paid by the Feds either.

If I'm ticked off by anything its the slow pace at which the levees are being repaired. We had screamed for years that the FEDERAL levees needed to be strengthened. Bills went to Congress almost every year but funding was rejected. And, as the people of Minnesota found out, there is only so much maintenance can do when something is "structurally deficient". What is unbelievable is that they still cannot get adequate funding to protect the area. Just give us levees and the market will take care of housing, jobs, etc.

To correct some misconceptions: 1) all levees in New Orleans are designed, constructed, and structurally-maintained by the Corp of Engineers (the local levee boards' maintenance responsibility is primarily cutting the grass); 2) Katrina was not thought to be heading anywhere near New Orleans until 10:00 am on Saturday morning, which gave the city one day to evacuate (substantially less than the 3 days experts always said would be the minimum time to allow complete evacuation).

Answer 3

As a lifelong resident of the region the rebuilding of the Gulf coast does not surprise me but race and class are not factors. For one thing the area of destruction is vast. Large areas of Eastern New Orleans including an entire Six Flags theme park are abandoned and the raccoons are taking over. This area is so low lying and the prone to flooding that it is likely that vast areas will be bulldozed and turned into parkland of some type The federal government has never been known to be quick at doing anything except wasting money. New Orleans was considered to be a poor city before the storm. I don't think race or class are factors in the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast The average income of it's residence was low and the city was in bad shape financially like most inner cities. Even before the hurricane the school system was probably the worst in the country and millions of dollars were missing. Janitors were putting alleged overtime and were collecting paycheck larger than the school principals. Many of the neighborhoods effected were ,to be kind, on the borderline of being called slums. Few in these neighborhoods had any kind of homeowners insurance and are now waiting for the federal government to hand them the money for their loses. The majority of public housing were fetid pits of drugs and crime. High crime and iron bars on the windows were a fact of life there. In many of the more middle class neighborhoods progress is also slow and many are still fighting insurance companies. The insurance companies are saying they don't cover floods but it's the hurricane that caused the flood. So it's the what came first the chicken or the egg question. New Orleans was in bad shape even before Katrina and will problably take another 20 years to get back up to bad shape

Answer 4

I live on the Gulf Coast, MS. The things that bother me the most are the fact that the first things rebuilt were the casino's on the coast, and that the wrong people are getting better help. Almost all the casino's are back up and running, and a couple new ones have been built. That's basically all we have on the beach now...On hwy. 90 we barely have any gas stations, souvenir shops, or food places anymore, because no one has been able to help them rebuild, cause the casino's were more important. I've noticed FEMA will give you more help the more you lie your butt off. Some of the case workers will even encourage you to lie so that you can get help. Its not right. Some people that really needed help have yet to get it (disabled elderly who lost his/her home and family), and some crack head down the street got a beautiful 16X76 FEMA trailer when before the storm she had nothing, she was just shacking up with who ever she could get dope from, and yet she ends up getting help from FEMA. That is what aggravates me. And you see recently all the cases of FEMA fraud? That's because the FEMA workers didn't do their job right in the first place, and they've finally got people who are doing their research now.

Answer 5

The money was authorized to be spent by the Congress. It was sent to Baton Rouge for the state government to disburse to Orleans Parish and the other parishes. So, my question would be, what did the local officials do with that money. We know what the New Orleans Sewage and Water Board did with the hundreds of millions of Federal funds sent for maintenace of the levees and dikes around the canal system. The levees failed and they tried to blame the Feds! None of the levee failures were on the river, where the Army Corps of Engineers takes care of things.
Sorry, I'm not angry about the response from Washington. I'm angry with a mayor who had over 400 transit busses available to him before the storm hit and only one NORTA bus was used to transport police families out of the area. I'm angry with the unaccountability of hundreds of millions of dollars sent toward the Queen City only to disappear without being used for the purposes intended. If Huey Long were alive today he'd have some people horse whipped!

Answer 6

i don't live on the gulf coast but i've seen the lack of rebuilding being done where katrina had hit and it is pretty much the same as when katrina hit. i think that they should get a move on and start to actually do something..... even though brad pitt is going to help it is only one person so i think that people should start putting money in the relief fund and help rebuild the lives of the people who lost their homes in the hurricane!!!!

Answer 7

It's amazing that everything from the embezzled money for the levees to the lack of protection for the people was all due to a corrupt Democrat government in New Orleans.

What makes it even worse is that many of the victims' houses are being foreclosed on by a company John Edwards is heavily invested in.

What a slap in the face to New Orleans people who thought that John Edwards wanted to help poor people instead of take their homes away from them.

The truth hurts, but it's good they found out in time.

Answer 8

As a former resident of the great city of Houston Texas and have grown up in Southeast Louisiana; I can give an honest interpretaion of Katrina. First; they know days in advance it was coming, yet noone did anything: from the acres of buses that were just sitting in the field to excesive warnings from the NWC to get out. Second; the federal government's lazidaical approach to the levies ( oh nothing will never happen there to cause them to break). Next and let us not forget about good for nothing nagal: when katrina was catagoriesed he was given every avenue of support he needed and he waited for the last second to act: by bringing people to the damm near oldest building downtown, the superdome. And as a former citizen of Pasadena Texas; right outside Houston; I saw first hand the bs that it caused. Let me just say this and I'll get off my soap box. While the refugees were at the Astrodome; local resteraunts would supply dinners. I heard from a number of neighbors and volunteers that alot of statements from the refugees were "if you ain't got drugs or beer I don't want it". So in my opinion yes it was a travasty and forgive me for my forked tongue; but you hit a nerve and I had to let it bleed. By the way if anyone wants to know I grew up right off of Florida Ave Baton Rouge La. I was in Pasadena Texas from May 04 to Feb 06.

Answer 9

I've been ranting and raving about Iraq since the beginning. Then came the tragedy in La, Miss and Ala. I keep seeing pictures of the devastation and then get even angrier when I find out a lot of it has never been touched. Meanwhile,billions have been spent because of one man's obsession. Just sitting here and thinking about makes my blood boil.

Answer 10

I wasn't hit by Katrina, but I was hit by Francis and Ivan a year earlier in NC. My home was destroyed to the point that FEMA bought it and demolished it.

In short, due to the way this was all handled by the government, how slow they were, how inefficient they were, and how stupid the guidelines are, I have become VERY anti- government in my views. I now want less government in as much of my life as possible.

Now since FEMA "loaned" me money to pay for the difference between my old house and a comparable one to now live in, I have to have flood insurance on my current dwelling, which is in no way even close to being in a flood zone!!! It's high up on a ridge with no way of any flooding of any kind to occur. But FEMA says that in order to get that measley loan of 7800 dollars to cover the difference, I have to pay for flood insurance of around 249 dollars a year. It just doesn't make sense, but it's policy.

On the other hand, I take complete responsibility for living in a flood zone and if I had not allowed my desire to live on a river, where there was a possibility of flooding, I wouldn't have had to deal with this crap. The same is true for anyone else who lives in a flood zone, including New Orleans.

So, when we make decisions to live in dangerous places, it's really up to us to realize the situation we are putting ourselves in. I don't think the government should be involved in bailing out people who get flooded in the first place. I just wish my house had not been "insured" by the government flood policy, and that I would have had to get it insured via private means. The insurance premiums would have been so high as to alert me to the real dangers in living where I did. (one note: the flood zone map incorrectly showed my house to not be in a flood zone!)