New Orleans East update

One of the hardest hit areas by Katrina, New Orleans East is very slowly coming back to life. It's evident from I-1O going into and out of New Orleans.

Building Better Communities, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the rebuilding of homes and lives in the devastated city of New Orleans, will host its grand opening in eastern New Orleans May 17 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 10555 Deer Park, Building 9, near Lake Forest Boulevard.


New Orleans East residents will once again have access to a community health clinic
Operation Blessing operated the clinic from April '06 thru December '07.


Operation Blessing, an international, faith-based group, had operated the clinic from April 3, 2006 through Dec. 21, 2007. The Charity Hospital system began operating the clinic April 28, said Dr. Cassandra Youmans, the system's medical director for outpatient clinics and services.
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"We will be able to see all patients regardless of their ability to pay," she said. "Some will be sent bills based on ability to pay. Others will qualify for free care."

The clinic will be staffed with two full-time physicians, one nurse practitioner, one medical assistant, a certified wound-care specialist and one hospital admission technician.

The staff ought to be able to see more than 70 patients a day, Youmans said.

The clinic will provide preventive care, acute primary care, prenatal care and link patients to mental-health care, including counseling and affordable medications, she said.

Walk-ins will be accommodated, but the clinic prefers patients to make an appointment by calling 245-7951.

Operation Blessing is providing modular buildings for the clinic and the Greater St. Stephens Full Gospel Baptist Church is providing the land. The clinic is being financed by patient fees, federal grants and state money, Youmans said.

Levee Stories

From MSNBC dot com, May 2008
Army Corps says condition of levees unknown
Agency that oversees nation's levees lacks inventory of thousands of them.

The Army Corps of Engineers made a startling revelation in the light of recent storms in the US which have seen numerous people killed saying they have no inventory of the country's levees and no idea of their condition.

Recent wet weather in the US is creating concern within the Corp which oversees levees. A University of California at Berkeley levee expert said when an inventory is finally produced "I think we're not going to like what we find."

Last year, the National Levee Safety Act was passed in the US congress which so far has failed to provided funding for the inventory of levees the act promised and isn’t likely to do so until 2009.

Today, about 2,000 levees are either operated by the corps or by local entities in partnership with the corps, generally protecting major population areas such as St. Louis and New Orleans.

Thousands of others _ no one is sure how many _ are privately owned, operated and maintained. The majority of those are "farm" levees keeping water out of fields, but some protect populated areas, industries and businesses.

Here's a pdf list of "levees of maintenance concerns" compiled in February 2007. This list accompanied a blog post I did last May about the fact that substandard levees - the cause for New Orleans' flooding after Katrina - are not just located in the deep south.

Couldn't have said it better....

Michael Homan discusses the hypocracy of the Bush administration regarding their recent comments on the Myanmar and China disasters.

I couldn't've said it better. Thanks, Michael

Scuzzbuckets of the Week

Reggie and Kimberly Colliers of Haughton, Louisiana
HUD has charged them with housing discrimination.

The are former owners of
"Camp Joy Marina" in Haughton which is in north Louisiana. In September 2004, Reggie Collier observed an African-American woman and a white couple viewing a property for sale in the development. Believing the African-American sales agent to be the potential homebuyer, Collier allegedly called the office of the real estate firm listing the property and stated that he did not want "those kinds of people" moving into the development. In addition, Collier allegedly threatened to disconnect water and sewer service to the home if the firm sold the home to African-Americans.

The HUD charge now goes before an administrative law judge who may award damages to each complainant for actual loss as a result of the alleged discrimination, as well as damages for emotional distress, humiliation, and loss of civil rights. The judge may also order injunctive and other equitable relief to deter further discrimination. Additionally, the judge may impose a maximum civil penalty of $16,000 for each violation for the first offense, in addition to actual damages for each complainant and order payment of attorneys' fees. Sanctions can be more severe if a respondent has a history of housing discrimination.

We Can Feel & Understand Their Pain

Formerly known as Burma, the country of Myanmar is reeling from a Cyclone Nargis, which wielded maximum sustained winds around 130 mph with gusts ranging from 150-160 mph. This made it a strong Category 3 or minimal Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.

Many people were killed in a 12-foot tidal wave.

The cyclone pummeled Yangon for more than 10 hours from Friday night into Saturday, with 20 inches of rain. Reminiscent of claims immediately following Katrina, there are news reports of up to 40,000 killed.

Myanmar


Louisiana


Video from the scene showed residents in some areas hacking their way through downed trees and trudging through knee-deep, swirling brown water. Thousands of tropical trees had been ripped up and thrown down, some into roadways.

Myanmar


Louisiana


Myanmar


New Orleans


Even without the destruction from the cyclone, travel and communications can be difficult in the country because of its weak infrastructure, said David Mathieson, an expert on Myanmar with Human Rights Watch, a private organization.

In Yangon, he said, people usually get only five or six hours of electricity a day, and some remote areas have no access to electricity. “So the fact that electricity is down is not really that important,” he said.

While Myanmar's ruling military junta has been accused of not warning the public about the approaching cyclone, witnesses say state media did report the storm -- it just came too late.

Officials said they would open the doors of their closed and tightly controlled nation to international relief groups. So far, most foreigners and all foreign journalists have been barred from entering the country.


Witnesses and residents said the military had been slow to respond to the devastation of the cyclone, and some suggested that the government’s performance could affect the vote in an upcoming election for a new consititution.
Residents of the country, formerly known as Burma, said that they were being pressured to vote “yes” and that riot police officers had been patrolling the streets before the cyclone in a show of force that was more visible than their relief efforts afterward.

Here's a link for organizations accepting donations to help.

• International Committee of the Red Cross
• World Food Programme
• Save the Children
• World Vision
• UNICEF
• International Rescue Committee

Finally Home

Head on over to Tim's Nameless Blog and wish him congratulations for finally moving
into a place he and his family can call home.

Jazz Fest 08

Sunday had the perfect weather for Jazz Fest. Incredible. Lots of people, but everyone was peaceful.



Keb Mo. His music soothes.




Sonny Landreth was electric

Terance Blanchard @ Jazz Fest

Read the well written experience of watching Terance Blanchard at Jazz Fest today.


Mark Folse's usual eloquence retells the experience of hearing Blanchard's A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina), accompanied by the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra.



You can buy the album here

Listen to samples from the album here

I don't think so!

from NOLA dot com:
The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana has asked a federal judge to award the organization more than $65,000 in attorneys fees and court costs, stemming from a ruling earlier this month that said Slidell officials broke the law by hanging a portrait of Jesus on the wall at Slidell City Court.

Who asked these ass hats to come in and cause a ruckus? Everyone is entitled to their opinion of this organization and mine is that they should just go away.

The ACLU said plaintiff "John Doe" and others "have suffered, or shall suffer, damages, including mental anguish and emotional distress" from viewing the image.


the picture is still on display, joined now by more than a dozen other images of historic lawmaking figures, and there are no plans to remove the image.

"This is the first case I know of that upholds a display of a picture of Jesus," Douglas Laycock, professor of constitutional law at the University of Michigan Law School, told Cybercast News Service. "It is significant."

Spillway imagery

Schroeder has a post including incredible satellite photos of the lost sediment that could have been used to restore Louisiana’s dying wetlands and disappearing coastline is falling off the continental shelf.

Why New Orleans rules

Check out the Lady of Perpetual Crawfish grotto.