bad levee warning

from USA Today
— The Army Corps of Engineers has identified 146 levees nationwide that it says pose an unacceptable risk of failing in a major flood.

WHERE THEY ARE
The Army Corps of Engineers' most recent accounting of levees that pose an unacceptable risk of failing in a major flood:
Alaska 2
Arkansas 13
California 42
Colorado 2
Connecticut 5
D.C. 4
Georgia 1
Hawaii 3
Illinois 4
Indiana 1
Iowa 1
Kansas 1
Kentucky 4
Louisiana 6
Maryland 2
Massachusetts 5
Michigan 4
Nebraska 1
New Hampshire 1
New Mexico 5
North Dakota 1
Oregon 14
Pennsylvania 7
Puerto Rico 4
Rhode Island 2
Texas 1
Utah 2
Virginia 1
Washington 6
West Virginia 1

Thanks to EJ for the heads up.

Bush's SOTU

I haven't posted anything on Bush's speech last week because I wasn't surprised that he's washed his hands of us.


Tim covers it completely here

17 months Post-K

I did a little driving around Slidell yesterday, trying to take pictures showing the recovery from Katrina of lack of it in my general area (i.e. not New Orleans).

Due to time constraints, I can't post the pictures here, but they can be seen
at my Katrina Recovery website and my Bayou Liberty website

More to come.

Good Money @ NOLA City Hall

From Rebuilding New Orleans their take on the TP article about NOLA City Hall Payroll.

.....the average pay of the top New Orleans officials is 34 percent higher than those in Jefferson Parish which now has a population double that of New Orleans. According to the article, the highest paid city employee is the EMS director which rakes in $177,000 per year..... New Orleans firemen only start out at $26,000 and cops at a little more than $32,000.


for the anonymous commentor who didn't like me taking "snippets" for my posts, this link will take you to the full article.

St. Genevieve Church

I've lived in the Bayou Liberty section of Slidell for the past 25+ years and enjoy the way it feels like a small village. My daily commute takes me across the scenic and serene Bayou and past St. Genevieve Church.

Running chores on Friday, I was struck by the sight of the church in the first stages of being gutted (click on the pictures to view full sized versions)







I'd been wondering what was to become of the church, which sits on the banks of Bayou Liberty.

Katrina inundated it along with miles of homes that surround the bayou.

Sunday's Times Picayune carried an article about the history and future of the church. All the stained glass has been removed from the current building and used in the new church that the archdiocese is constructing.



Here is the church pre-K



I am happy for the parishoners of St. Genevieve. They are kind, gentle people.

Road Home

Seen in South Slidell

A Message to NOLA

This appeared in the January 26 '07 TP

For my poor, sweet wife, fix New Orleans
Friday, January 26, 2007
Paul Gailiunas
My wife -- my lovely wife, and the most interesting, original, beautiful, funny person I have ever known -- was murdered in New Orleans Jan. 4. A stranger invaded our home and attacked us, and in the space of a few moments, her life ended violently.

Helen Hill was a true creative genius who chose to express herself through the medium of independent filmmaking and experimental animation. She made short, intense, personal, bright, colorful films. She was the best, most loving wife anyone could imagine. And she devoted the last two years to raising our little son Francis with the greatest of love, care and creativity.

Francis is only 2 years old now, but he is coping with this inconceivable loss with a great inner strength that I know is a direct result of the deep sense of trust and self-confidence she (and I) instilled in him.

I do not know if I could ever go back to New Orleans. Even before this terrible tragedy, I lived in fear of the violence and unpredictability that has become a daily fact of life.

But Helen loved New Orleans with a great passion. She was content only when she was in New Orleans, walking among the old shotgun houses, admiring the morning glories and magnolia trees and Spanish moss, listening to WWOZ, straining to catch a Zulu coconut, marching her pot-bellied pig in the Krewe du Vieux, bringing visitors to the Mother-in-Law Lounge, and cooking vegetarian versions of famous Creole dishes.

Helen believed deeply, at the core of her being, in the equality and dignity of all people. She took part in Eracism meetings, the progressive Gillespie Community Breakfasts and political rallies to help bring back New Orleans in the most fair and inclusive way.

Together, we brought free meals to poor and homeless people with the local Food Not Bombs group. We welcomed our neighbors into our home, African-American, Honduran and white, the neighborhood kids and the elderly. Helen deeply desired to share our love and good fortune with others.

I am writing to you, all the citizens of New Orleans, to ask you two things.

First, please, if you have any knowledge of the person who killed my wife, please come forward and speak. Please be brave and tell the police or Crimestoppers what you know.

Help bring this villain to justice for filling my wife's final moments with terror and for taking her away from her baby and her family and friends.
He must not be allowed to hurt more people and destroy more lives. Please be brave and speak.

Second, please do everything you can to heal your desperately broken city.

Helen herself was an innocent victim. But her murder, like so many others, is a symptom of a sickness, a terrible sickness caused by grinding poverty, hopelessness, bad parenting, a lack of respect for human life, pre- and post-hurricane neglect and persistent racism against African-American people.

I am begging you to reach out to your neighbors, across the borders of race and class, and help them when they need you. Don't stand by while people hurt each other.

There has been an outcry against violence in New Orleans since Helen's death. Please do not stop until things improve. I am begging you to find a way to get people out of those hellish trailer parks, which are cauldrons for the kind of violence that destroyed our happiness. The people living there need decent, well-maintained, affordable housing and it needs to happen now.

No one is going to fix New Orleans for you. You need to do it yourselves. Please do these things now, for yourselves and for my poor, sweet wife. I know this is what she would want.

. . . . . . .

Paul Gailiunas is living in South Carolina.

NOFD

One Step Forward discusses the current condition of the NOFD, which is inconceivably abominable. A spokesman for Mayor Nagin blames FEMA. Fire Department Union President Nicholas Felton isn’t buying that. We’re not either, are we?

Since when is it FEMA's job to pay these firefighters the back pay promised by city hall or supply them toilet paper????

Hey Ray! You had the balls enough to set up a kickback scheme from Waste Management . Why don't you use some of that "donation" money to help your essential personnel out? Assclown.

Road Home, Blanco, etc

Kathleen Blanco seems to be whining again. I would like to know why she can't just buckle down and get to work fixing the Road Home program and get over the political posturing:

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco called on Congress Monday to create a bipartisan commission to investigate whether White House politics played a role in slowing the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

An agitated Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Wednesday it was inexplicable that President Bush failed to mention the Gulf Coast during his State of the Union address when the region is still struggling with its hurricane recovery.

Gov. Blanco is trying to blame Congress and the Bush administration for the excruciating delays in the state's Road Home program.


Nope, she's whining about Mississippi and how they are getting more than us. Waaaa! I am exhausted with her ineptitude and whiney ways. Almost 18 months after the storm a lightbulb goes on and she decides to help small businesses recover from their losses. In trying to create the illusion that her LRA program is "on track" indefensible errors have been made, causing anguish for people who lost so much from Katrina. She wants to spend the state's "surplus" like Imelda Marcos at a shoe store.
I could go on, but you get the picture.

Here's a link to the Mississippi equivalent of the Road Home program. Their facts and figures laid out and updated on a weekly basis. Compare their stats to Louisiana's program.

If Michael and Therese Homan are any examples , Louisiana's program needs to take a "working with people" course. Their experience is inexcusable.
I have to agree with CB.

Recovery numbers for you

Celcus has an interesting post today, about the Gulf Coast recovery. Here's the beginning of it:
There are people around the country who have been heard to ask why we can’t just let it go and get on with things. They regale us with stories of a terrible flood or tornado, a fire or other, and how they didn’t need help at all. Some even decide to play a numbers game, noting death totals from whatever disaster, as if this somehow “proves” we are simply a bunch of unmotivated whiners who insist that someone else clean up the mess.

Read his post for the breakdown of the numbers from this catastrophe.

Well, we're not unmotivated whiners and are doing A WHOLE LOT of cleanup ourselves and with the help of beautiful unselfish people from around the globe who are coming here to help.

Till Kingdom Comes

Many thanks to Traveling Mermaid for the heads up on this