......In the wake of Gustav, a number of buildings around town suffered severe damage and fell down. Since the middle of last week, city Code Enforcement inspectors have been surveying properties to determine if any are in Imminent Danger of Collapse (IDC). If a property is truly IDC,..... under a city law that has been on the books for years, the city can move to knock it down immediately and clear the debris, bypassing all the normal (historic value, preservation) reviews.........
image from Matternetwork dot com
What this appears to be is a naked grab at power, using Gustav’s glancing blow to Orleans Parish as an excuse. The mayor is temporarily (I hope) stamping out a committee made up mostly of citizens, a committee formed to protect citizens’ rights to not have their property arbitrarily destroyed. His aim would appear to be to accelerate demolitions resulting from Katrina, in order to look good in the eyes of Washington.
The link provides the whole sickening story. The murder of historic neighborhoods for the nightly news to make everything looks shiny and new.
Spending the better part of a week in the ICU is not my idea of R&R. Still 'incarcerated' but a little more freer and feeling better than the last few days. Got some catching up to do......
Local blogger Karen Gadbois and a group of friends visted the Houma Nation on Saturday. check out her site to see how much wetland loss has taken place down there.
Here are some links where you can get more info on how to help: Gustav Relief Blog
The United Houma Nation Relief Fund 20986 Hwy. 1 Golden Meadow, LA 70357.
All of Terrebonne parish was badly hurt, as was neighboring Lafourche parish. Assumption parish will be out of power longer than Baton Rouge. Vermilion parish, flooded and battered by Rita, was hit again, while Cameron was spared this time, but still hasn’t recovered; neither has Calcasieu parish.
pictures of the affected areas in Terrebone/LaFouche are below:
From the above link: ..... I saw about 50 people along the curb and in the parking lot just sitting next to their luggage. (By luggage I mean garbage bags) I had seen this before, I had seen these types of faces before... Katrina evacuees had the same look to them. I knew something was wrong. And it was.
These people had evacuated before Gustav and were brought back to the civic center before the parish had a shelter ready for them. I sat down with a few of them and asked what was going on. Nobody had any idea.
Who would just drop a bunch of elderly people on the side of the road, and leave them there for hours.
Finally a school bus arrived to take them to a shelter. I saw a woman whose bag was torn to shreds, I ran to my car and grabbed a roll of tape and fixed it up. I told her "It might be hard to open up later, but it's safe now." As the folks started to load onto the bus, I noticed nobody was helping. The sheriff deputies, the National Guard... nobody. These elderly people were dragging their bags by themselves and trying to load them onto the bus.
I got on the bus and helped move the bags to the seats. After everybody was crammed onto the bus, they just sat there. And they sat some more. An hour passed and finally the bus moved. Less than a mile later, they arrived at the shelter. Had I known where they were going, I could have driven people over there using my car in the amount of time it took officials to bus them over there.
To make a really long story not as long... the people arrived safely at the shelter where a few Red Cross Volunteers were waiting with cots and blankets. No water or food just yet, but they were able to kick off their shoes and relax. I helped carry bags into the shelter and set up cots. When I left, most of the people were sound asleep. They deserve a good nights rest.
During these situations, I'm a human first and a photographer second. Yes, I took some pictures, but my main goal was to help these people anyway I could. As I left the shelter I heard a man say "The took us from heaven and brought us to Hell."
written by a photographer from the LaFouche Parish Daily Comet.
From Hurricane Katrina dot org website: in places like Terrebonne, LaFourche and St. Mary’s Parishes have been trying to work through the system to find out information. When no information could be obtained, individuals made their way to Houma on Wednesday 9/3 and again on 9/4.
Animals found include the following:
A pitbull, crated in a garage, dead from lack of food and water A puppy, locked in a garage, no food or water 3 pitbulls, no food, 1 no shelter, 2 in kennels, all chained 7 cats with no food outside a house, no idea how many inside 3 Catahoula dogs, loose 2 yellow laborador dogs, loose, now tied to telephone pole
Dead dog and puppy were photographed, live animals were left food and water, and neighbors were left with more food in case residents do not come back within 2 days.
I am nauseated that people would treat their pets this way. I wish there were some way to keep these numbnuts from ever owning an animal again.
We stayed home for the storm. There were some annoyances we wanted to avoid, like trying to get back home. While escaping highway gridlock and over zealous authorities, we were held hostage by other minor irritations..
Aaron Broussard - King of Jefferson Parish What an obnoxious little gnome this guy is. Even though there were originally 20 Parishes affected by Hurricane Gustav (Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, Jefferson, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, St. Tammany, Ascension, Assumption, East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana, Iberville, Lafourche, Livingston, Pointe Coupee, St. Helena, St. James, Terrebonne, West Baton Rouge and West Feliciana) Broussard insisted on parading his little gang of minions out at least twice a day for an hour on live TV to talk about every minute happening in Jeff Parish. All other Parish Presidents passed along status of things via WWL radio or call in's to local TV, including LaFouche Parish, which saw Gustav's eyewall.
Jackie Clarkson - Brown-Nose-at-Large, City of NOLA Orleans Parish was the other entity that insisted upon having all of the elected officials appear on stage while Nagin and company blathered on about how well everything was going. Clarkson seemed to be attached to Ray-Ray's hip during every press conference. She busted a gut everytime Ray said something "humorous". Ugh.
Press Coverage I got this message from a lot of folks from out of town....all they're covering is New Orleans.
Although I will admit that the video from the Intracoastal Waterway in New Orleans WAS pretty damn dramatic footage. Thank God it didn't cause a lot of damage.
Geraldo....blech
Whiners Craig over at Metroblogging puts it well: Speaking of bite me — it’s been pretty easy to tell who stayed during the storm and who evacuated. Those who stayed have been patient and shown a good sense of humor as we’ve come back up to speed this week. They’re just glad to have someplace to go that has power and a/c and is serving a semblance of a normal menu. A lot of them don’t have power at home yet, so they’re pretty much just happy to show up. But a lot of those who bugged out are just coming back — and they expect (they sometimes DEMAND) that things be just like they were a week ago, before the storm kinda threw everything out of whack for awhile.
The whiners evacuated as they were told to by the "authorities". However, the minute the winds died down they insisted on coming home, not understanding that things were not as they left them. The minute they got to their houses, they wanted all of the comforts of daily life, not understanding that things were not as they left them. They whined on the radio, they whined on TV. They whined at everyone who would listen. Aside from those who desperately needed electricity and running water, I have no pity on these whiners. Do like the rest of us have done and PREPARE for the conditions you were told about.
