The Resurrection of Chocolate City

From the Seattle Times.

WASHINGTON — President Bush on Wednesday reassured struggling victims of Hurricane Katrina that he has not forgotten them but warned recovery will not be achieved by the storm's first anniversary.

"It's a time to remember that people suffered, and it's a time to recommit ourselves to helping them," Bush said after meeting in the Oval Office with Rockey Vaccarella, who lost his home to Katrina. "But I also want people to remember that a one-year anniversary is just that, because it's going to require a long time to help these people rebuild."

Here's my question: Recommit? When the hell did Bush ever show any commitment to helping these people? One year after Katrina New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast is still quite literally - a Disaster.

How this has been handled is a complete macrocosmic version of Conservative philosophy. The Government can't help you, the government is the enemy. You have to rely on yourself, and trust private industry. Except that private industry has no interest in helping you - only it's bottom line and shareholders, so fuck you. You are totally, literally - on your own. And if you don't happen to have a summer home in Hamptons to escape to - too fucking bad.

More from the Seattle times article.

The administration's Gulf Coast recovery coordinator, Donald Powell, said during a White House briefing Tuesday that since Katrina slammed into Louisiana and Mississippi last Aug. 29, $44 billion of the $110 billion in federal money earmarked for rebuilding the region has been spent.

Bush addressed the delay Wednesday. "To the extent that there are still bureaucratic hurdles and the need for the federal government to help eradicate those hurdles, we want to do that," he said.

The President's own mothers comments that Katrina evacuees - not refugees, evacuees - who were being housed in the Houston Astrodome now "Had it pretty good" - were telling. Very telling.

The problem isn't money, it's the lack of will. In parts III and IV of his documentary on Katrina and it's aftermath, Spike Lee takes a long hard look at the results of that willful neglect.

He shows us a New Orleans that is still largely rubble. Search, rescue and recovery teams have swept through most of the city checking for human remains and marking each building checked -- leaving and ominous marker when one, two or three bodies are found. Yet 6 months and more after the waters had receeded many residents who return to the ruins of their home are still finding the bodies of the their loved ones, parents, daughters, wives - stuffed under refrigeraters, trapped in attics. Mumified.

The bumbling incompetence and simple lack of caring that was clearly evident before and during the storm - is still there. Listening to the stories of former home-owners in NO get completely shafted by insurance companies who insist on quibbling between whether the total devestation to their house was caused by wind, rain, hurricane of flood, was heart rending. Being required to produce utility bills and sales records just to prove that you owned the house. What the fuck is that bureacratic bullshit all about anyway? I mean - Jesus - don't these people have hearts?

And no, I'm not naive - My wife worked in the insurance industry (with U.S.A.A. an insurance company originally founded by members of the military) and they wouldn't have dreamed up putting people through that kind of crap. Especially when been paying on these policies for decades. But that was years ago, before George Bush's America was upon us.

New Orleans is a town that has many different reputations. It is a city built largely by freed slaves. A french outpost which became American with the Lousiana Purchase. The city has a unique life and culture, one that is a mix of French, Native American and Black American. It is one of the first places where half-black half-white people - creoles - where able to live in peace and build a place for themselves even in the 19th Century. Even in the 21st Century you really can't say there's any other place in this coutry that has accomplished that.

It's a violent place. The Murder Capitol of the U.S. A city that has long been known for it's corruption, for a police force that is notoriously underpaid and notoriously dangerous. Over the last ten years I can think of two cases of New Orleans PD officers who have committed armed robberies, been convicted and sentenced to prison. One case was with a bank, the other with a convenience store. In one case the prepatrator was white and male, in the other black and female. One commited his crime while offduty, the other just before her shift started and in order to prevent being identified shot and killed everyone in the store - except for the young daughter of the family which owned it. When the robbery was called in to 9-11, the very same officer responded to it - and came face to face with that little girl who answered her questions about "What Happened?" with "You should know - you were there!". That Officer is now on Lousiana's Death Row.

In 1994, a third NOPD officer Len Davis was running off-duty security operation with other officers and was eventually hired by undercover FBI agents to protect their "drugs". All Davis asked for - besides payment - was a phone. One which, of course, the FBI tapped. Using their phone Davis order a "hit" on a young woman who had compained about his physical assault of her brother. How exactly he learned of information - which was only a day or so old - which had been confidentially provided to Internal Affiars, I've never discovered. The FBI was shocked, but did not act - not realizing that Davis was serious. But after the young woman Kim Groves, was found dead and Davis began to discuss killing the FBI own undercover operatives in order to grab their dope. They learned to take him seriously, fast. Davis is also on Death Row.

Spike Lee's documentary doesn't tell these particular stories - although he does focus on much of the violence and indescriminate murder which continues to plague the city- he tell a least part of the story of why these things can happen not just with street thugs, but members of the government (i.e. Police). New Orleans Police are grossly underpaid and frequently take off-duty security jobs to make ends-meet. City teachers are also underpaid and their schools ridiculously underfunded.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying tar and feather NOPD, it's clear that the vast majority of police performed well above and beyond the call of duty during and after the storm - despite the shitty pay and they should be commended, but they also should get paid more and be held accountable for their actions while on and off duty. Last I checked, NOPD were the lowest paid police in the nation, and how do you resist temptation and corruption without support?

One fact that could provide that support is the fact that there are enourmous oil and natural gas reserves just off the coast of Lousiana, nearly all of which have been placed far enough offshore to be exempted from state taxation and are owned by out-of-state companies. Various contracts and Federal regulations have allowed that revenue to escape Lousiana, but if those funds were brought home - New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast could rebuild itself instead of waiting for the Federal Government to gradually dole out the other 86 Billion that has already been allocated to Katrina recovery.

Governor Blanco has filed suit to help recover some of that revenue as well as protect the remaining wetlands - which should have been able to absorb much of the storm surge that ultimately overtopped and breached the 17th Street Levee.

Still despite all of this - or perhaps because of it - New Orleans is a place that many of it's residents hold deeply in their hearts. The culture, the cuisine and the music -oh the music- haunts them. It's the home of jazz, the home of blues, ragtime, zydeco and even rock and roll. Mardi Gras has gone on, despite the devestation, in the spared French Quarter.

New Orleans is a national treasure, it's something we should never have allowed to be mistreated this way. It's also tragic that no one, NO ONE, in the music industry save Kanye West ("George Bush doesn't care about Black People") have even attempted to make a statement about what has happened here. From Youman Wilder

I mean we need "Luda" or "Nelly" and so forth but we need to have "David Banner" and "Common" as well. My beef isn't with hip hop it's really that it has nothing to say. Dammit!!! I mean "Hurricane Katrina" comes destroys a city that is 60%

African-American and nothing in the dam music said anything or was angry. I mean these rappers are getting ready to boycott Cristal but no mention of your people, Black people in your music. No wonder the powers that be take us for idiots!

No wonder indeed. But then again, look at how America has treated the Dixie Chics for daring to speak their minds, eh?

4 to 6 months after the storm, people were finally began receiving their flimsy FEMA trailers to live in. Still without water or electricity. The Army Corp of engineers races against time to repair and reenforce the breached Levee walls before the next Hurricane Season, but there work is little more than patchwork and spittle. Actually they don't really have genuine Levee's - which are four foot wide for every one foot of height - they have "I Walls" which are just concrete slabs put in place to hold back the water, but what we've already learned from Katrina is that they haven't been place deep enough to prevent the water from slipping under and undermining the walls integrity. They need to be buried 17 feet down, yet they've only gone down ten feet. Yes, the they've been "repaired" - but will they hold against another Category 5 -- or even a Catorgory 3 Hurricane? Most are doubtful, especially former residents.

Many of these same former NO residents have begun to build new lines in Utah, Texas and elsewhere. The schools, hospitals and other infrastructure elements they need to thive simply don't exist in New Olreans anymore. Others like Fiesty Phyllis - who was prominently featured in the Lee Film, refuse to leave their home. Other films such as "Surviving Katrina" one the Discovery Channel are planned and should air near the upcoming one year anniversay, but few I suspect will show the heart of the people of New Orleans as well as Lee's film.

One solution to the levee problem which occured to me, one which was done in my former hometown of Sacramento which faced massive flood threats from two major rivers which intersect within a mile of the downtown area - is to raise the level of the city with landfill. Since most of the structures along the Levee walls have already been destroyed, one way to solve this problem is to build an actual levee and make it at least 150 - 200 feet wide, raising the level of the surrounding land by 15-20 feet in order to buttrice the "I" Wall. I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that $70 Billion or so and slice of all those oil revenues could go a long way toward accomplishing this goal and permanently protecting the city. Homes, Roads, Sewage and Electrical would have to be rebuilt along the raised wall - but then - it all has to be rebuilt anyway. Common sense would dictate that if you have to do this, you might as well do it right.

Too bad common sense isn't all that common.

These problems can be solved. This city can be returned it's former glory - resurrected from the ashes- it can become Chocolate City once again. If we can just find the will and the desire to make it so.

Vyan