We Are Not Okay - 3 years later

from the New Orleans Photoblog


there are miles of neighborhoods that are abandoned 3 years later. No stores, no gas, no life. homes in good neighborhoods all empty and full of mud. X’s still on the buildings to represent finding dead or not. It is so sad to see this, and to feel like the rest of the world has moved on and just left this vast beautiful city to fade into what once was, instead of a strong city that was able to come back… because the world helped and believed it could. .. the reality that the world is so immersed in itself, is sad and I do not blame the people here for thinking the rest of the world sucks. it does… where is all the promises of help to rebuild? where is all that money and materials donated by other countries and people? why has New Orleans become a game for insurance companies and the government to toss back and forth and why are we the people not standing up and demanding that our next “president to be”, address the crisis of New Orleans, so that the once great port city can rebuild and grow again? as a nation, we have abandoned one of the greatest cities of our country. We should be ashamed.

Katrina Survival Story

When I read about this item in todays Times Picayune in Charlotte's blog all I could think was "wow".

Here's Jennifer Zdon's take on it

The Diary of Tommie Elton Mabry

from Charlotte's blog

It’s a fascinating account of Elton Mabry’s solitary days of survival during and for eight weeks after Katrina in an apartment in the B.W. Cooper public housing development. Mr. Mabry documented his days by writing a diary on the walls of the apartment with a pack of sharpies he found while scrounging for food.

What I like about this story is it tells the story of how an average New Orleanian survived in a broken and isolated city in the aftermath of a governmental disaster: the failure of the levee system AFTER a major hurricane blew through.


Check out the whole story at the TP's web page link above.

Another Scuzzbucket

From NOLA Rising

Please take a look at the sketch below. If you know the person, or think it resembles someone you might know, contact the police at the numbers on the poster. The man in the picture is wanted for questioning in the unfortunate murder of Jessica Hawk. This does not necessarily mean the person in the picture is guilty, but may have pertinent information vital to the police investigation. If you don't feel comfortable calling, you can leave an anonymous tip at Crimestoppers. Don't let this New Orleans tragedy go unsolved!

Criminals is Stupid

this pea brained fool was caught on camera climbing a ladder to disable the crime camera.


It's just too funny how stupid some folks can be.

Thanks to Prytania Waterline for the heads up on this laugh of the day.

On the Excellence in Recovery Award

Chris Rose gives this subject some badly needed levity

The New Orleans 100

"The New Orleans 100" is a worldwide initiative that will highlight and encourage discussion among millions about 100 of the most innovative and world-changing ideas to take root in the city since Katrina.

The list will be released on Monday, August 25th - the week of the Hurricane Katrina anniversary. Our goal is to reach 1,000,000 pageviews by 8/29/08. We encourage everyone to spread the word by emailing the list, blogging it, digging it, stumbling it, and yelling it out their windows.

You can sign up to receive the New Orleans 100 list via email at the title above.

Thanks to Mosquito Coast for the heads up.

Nagin's Seven Sins

Varg over at the Chicory has compiled a list of WHY Ray Nagin should never, ever be considered for any award related to Katrina recovery. You can read them here, along with links to back up the claims .

Here's a copy of the handout Varg has created

Bayou Sauvage Boardwalk

Last week I posted about the reopening of the Bayou Sauvage Refuge on Highway 90 in "da east".

Jennifer Zdon on the Times Pic has put together a nice little multi media
slideshow of the new boardwalk here.

Enjoy!

Still Making it Right

From today's Times Pic The Brad Pitt's "Make it Right Foundation" is quietly doing the work that they said they would just 8 months ago. New homes are being constructed in the Katrina-devastated Ninth Ward.

Click here to see some photos.

From the aforementioned TP article:
While complaints of bureaucratic sloth persist, Pitt's foundation instead provides a striking example of a private entity taking the simplest of plans -- build houses where the flood knocked them all down -- from idea to execution in a relatively short time. As of today, Make It Right has raised enough money to build at least 84 houses, with an ultimate goal of financing at least 150 houses in the Lower 9th Ward, said Tom Darden, the foundation's executive director.

Crews are hard at work on six homes, two of them modular designs, with hopes of finishing at least one by Aug. 29 and having the others near completion by that date, Darden said. The six houses will go to the first six families who closed on the foundation's forgivable loans; 20 other families have submitted applications, he said.

Have you made a donation? I have.

Scuzzbucket of the Week

Early in the week for this one, but around here the scuzzbuckets seem to just pop out of the soil as fast as the weeds after a good rain.



Veronica White is the head of the New Orleans Sanitation Department which supposedly oversees city-authorized teardowns.

Over the weekend, Mizz White's department totally screwed up, according to newspaper report .


The pile of rubble that a city-hired wrecking crew left at 5132 Kendall Drive in Gentilly Woods on Saturday was supposed to be the DeJan family's new home.

Erica DeJan and her husband, Brian, bought the two-story structure just around the corner from their current home in June and jumped right into rehabbing it.
So it came as a surprise Friday when Erica DeJan, who is nearly eight months pregnant with her fourth child, found a sticker on the house stating that Mayor Ray Nagin's administration had declared it a public health threat and planned to tear it down.

DeJan does not dispute that before she and her husband bought it, the property was a nuisance. "It hadn't been touched since Katrina," she said. "It had just been sitting."

The DeJans, though, had already gutted the house and replaced termite-damaged wood, she said. While the couple had enough money to remodel the existing structure, they cannot afford to rebuild from scratch. She laid blame for the improper demolition on a City Hall system ill-equipped to honor last-minute reprieves.

A spokeswoman for the company that tore down the house, Beck Disaster Recovery of Orlando, Fla., said the firm was notified that Saturday's demolition had been canceled.

DeJan said a city employee should have confirmed directly with the wrecking crew that her property had been crossed off Saturday's work order.

"It's just a lack of communication," DeJan said. "It's not being on the same wavelength."

This is not the first time old Ronnie's department has shown ineptitude. check out this from Squandered Heritage .

Excellence in Recovery List

It's been a rainy weekend, so in between rearranging my living room and trying to stay off my swollen ankle I decided to go thru the list of people who think that Ray Nagin deserves any kind of a reward in the Katrina recovery and see who they were. I left out the people that Howie has identified on his website.

For an up to date status of this fiasco, check up with Kevin Alleman here at Gambit.

And the "Excellence in Recovery" Committee Members are......

Juli Juneau Glass Artist (go to page 8 of link)

Donald G. Lambert Louisiana Licensing Board for Contractors (see page five of this link)

Richard Fiske - , owner, Bombay Club

William Goldring - Magnolia Marketing Co., one of the largest independently owned wine and spirits distributors in the country.

Father Michael Jacques - Pastor, St. Peter Claver Church

Coleman Adler II - president, Adler Jewelers

Joe Maselli - developer of the internationally famous Piazza d’Italia with the City of New Orleans

Wanda Davis - Director, Alexandria Housing Authority ???

Barbara Major - community organizer and trainer with over twenty years experience in many local, national, and international community development efforts.

Rabbi Edward P. Cohn - Temple Siani, New Orleans

Mel Lagarde - President & CEO of the head of the Delta region for the hospital company Hospital Corporation of America

Ashlyn Graves - Evans-Graves Engineers, Metairie

Arnold Baker - President and CEO of Baker Ready Mix Building Materials

Ethel Kidd - French Quarter Real Estate

Terry Williams - Managing Partner of Airware Consulting

Al Groos - New Orleans Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau Chairman

Ed Minyard - Unisys Emergency Management Practice for North America.

Effie S. Naghi - Jeweler

Reverend Cornelius Tilton - co-leader of strategic planning for the Greater New Orleans Pastor’s Coalition

William Sizeler - Sizeler Architects

Blaine Kern Sr. - Mr. Mardi Gras

Joseph Jaeger Jr. - President & CEO, MCC Group

Reverend John C. Raphael - Pastor, New Hope Baptist Church

Keil Moss - French Market Corporation

Dawn Leslie - Real Estate

Ralph Fontcuberta - BFM Corporation-Land Surveyors

Reverend Fred Luter, Jr. - recognized nationally as one of this city’s powerful man of the cloth.

Steve Dwyer - Lawyer, Dwyer & Cambre, Metairie

Lisa Roth - Architect

Raoul Chauvin - Engieering Consultants, Infinity

Reverend Willie Gable - Progressive Baptist Church

Henry DiFranco - Not sure if this is the man or not, but this Henry DiFranco is in the "recovery" bid-ness.

Angela O'Byrne - President, Perez Architecture Firm

Frank Nicoladis - N-Y Associates, Architects

Reverend Sam Johnson - New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary

Joseph Parrino - Fleur de Paris hat shop

John Schackai III - Independent Architectect

Reverend Richard Bellizan Sr. - another man of the cloth who loves Ray Ray

Prisca Weems - Environmental designer

Hans Wandfluh - General Manager of the Royal Sonesta Hotel

Reverend Reginald Nicholas Sr. - Pastor, Olive Branch Baptist Church

Ray Liuzza - Part owner Doubletree Hotel

American Zombie blogs about Bernardo , Nagin's personal "photographer" and apparent organizer to the event and his lurid past peddling cocaine to performers at House of Blues and sexually harassing the staff there.


Bernardo's the sleazy looking dude on the right

Clancy DuBos opines Nagin will never be remembered for being the beast that (Idi) Amin was, but he’s about as delusional if he thinks anybody beyond his small circle of sycophants actually deems him worthy of an award for “courage and leadership” after Katrina.
AMEN.