Tag: Louisiana

While a lot of attention is being focused on Texas, SE Louisiana–particularly bayou communities–which are still recovering from Gustav are being affected by Ike already.  This is almost a repeat of Katrina-Rita, and again, they are being ignored.  Please see the bottom of this diary for ways to help.

I wish I could say that Hurricane Gustav refocused more national attention on Louisiana’s issues including vanishing barrier reefs and wetlands as well as the following, which I learned about this morning from a fellow Kossack living in the NOLA area who had evacuated when Gustav was on the way. Maybe it did–for only a few minutes.

For to put it bluntly, even in the New Orleans area even though the MSM gave out of state observers the impression that the area had escaped unscathed or was only lightly damaged, residents still have a major mess to contend with–and FEMA still doesn’t seem to have learned from Katrina and the flood. More below the fold…..

Cross posting from Kos again…

Why hasn’t something been done sooner to protect our community? Is it because the Island is a poor Indian community so it doesn’t matter what happens to us? Brenda Dardar Robichaux, tribal leader of the United Houma Nation

Things are pretty grim in the region–literally a place and a people that America has forgotten–flood and wind damage has devastated many areas that had survived previous storms.  The anger in the tribal leaders’ words can be seen below.

See my previous diaries here, here and here.

First off, according to the Houma newspapers, power is slowly being restored to the hospitals and main services.  Many areas remain without and are running on generators if they have them.  These come with dangers as the Terrebonne Courthouse experienced a fire from a malfunctioning unit.  The region is still under a boil water order.  Most of the major roads are cleared, but many side roads are untouched.  No streetlights work.  Some grocery stores are open, but relief supplies are still being distributed at points around the region.   A lot of the schools will remain closed due to electricity and roof damage.  Looks like they are hoping to reopen sometime late next week.

and its survivors across the wide swath of Louisiana which has been tortured by the devastation he left behind. Saying in last night’s speech that she stands behind our fellow citizens in the area would only have been right–especially were she to have called upon other Americans to donate to the Red Cross as has Obama. (Link below the fold).

Now for the “meat”–following is a poem I’ve written to commemorate the third anniversary of Katrina and the federal flood. It is in the voice of the mother of 8-year-old and 9-year-old boys who have a disabled grandmother. While it is fiction, it’s based on things people actually went through during Katrina and flood and in the aftermath.

As duplicative, repetitive diaries keep being posted about Sarah Palin on other blogs, the agonizing aftermath of Gustav in Louisiana is being ignored, if it hasn’t been forgotten already.

Don’t get me wrong–but there’s plenty of time to go into Palin’s issues between now and the election (though as Obama has said, we shouldn’t go into Bristol’s pregnancy because that’s a family problem of the Palins.) And those having to do with her work as a leader are important. But we should not lose sight of what’s going on in Louisiana as we focus on them. Because the disaster and anguish continue in Gustav’s aftermath.

The bloggers I am about to quote — and there are so many more in this group equally as good — have emerged as sort of a blogging coalition since Katrina hit.  They have, working together (even when they violently disagree with each other), gotten the real story out on what’s been going on in New Orleans, from housing to the recovery to the colorful politics that they are working hard to change from within and without.  I believe they are an excellent example of citizen journalists and activists.

From Adrastos, the first NOLA blog I ever read, his post The Tiers of A Clown, on Mayor Nagin’s “return” plan:

There’s rampant confusion about re-entry. Nagin has been nattering on and on (it’s the only thing he does well) about a four tiered scheme. LINK. Supposedly, some sort of placard exists that would help people re-enter. Unfortunately, C Ray and his inept minions neglected to tell us how to obtain said placards either before Gustav or subsequently. As a business owner, I should in theory be in the third tier and be able to return tomorrow. BUT all I have is my occupational license. And I don’t feel like waving that at some burly guardsman with an automatic weapon. I suppose the info about the re-entry placards is another state secret like C Ray’s schedule.

We’re used to incompetent and high-handed government in New Orleans. Most of the time, it doesn’t effect our daily lives but right now it does. Our city is “led” by a fool who couldn’t find a bathroom without a GPS and we’re supposed to believe that he knows what’s best for ordinary citizens. This is the same mook who screwed the pooch in 2005 and has given us the glories of the Jack-o-Lantern recovery. And we’re now supposed to trust in C Ray and in a Governor who is out to make himself look good to aid and abet his ambition.

Please take a break from the psychosis-induced Palin Fever sweeping the blogosphere and take a peek at something that should worry and infuriate you.

St. Bernard Parish (an administrative division involving several counties) lies southeast of New Orleans, a troubling location as far as hurricanes are concerned.

Apparently, a couple of years ago, a St. Bernard Parish resident witnessed a contractor (hired by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) stuffing a floodwall with newspapers.

Yes, newspapers.

For anybody who thought Louisiana would get a far better deal from BushCo under GOP Gov. Bobby Jindal than she did under Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco, they’d better think again. For Bush’s pattern of abuse against Louisiana seems to transcend her politics. According to the Baton Rouge Advocate,

Bobby Jindal,  angered over the increased costs that storm-wounded Louisiana must shoulder for construction of hurricane protection levees, asked Washington for more time – and a little fairness.

Under the latest war spending bill, Louisiana must kick in $1.8 billion by 2011 in order to activate $5.8 billion in federal funding needed to strengthen the New Orleans-area levee system.

Jindal said Louisiana’s share for repairs to the 360-mile, federally maintained levee system, is higher post-Katrina, than before the storm. “It seems ridiculous,” Jindal said, tersely.

going on regarding what politicians and other people have been saying about this current flooding and what they said after the federal flood about New Orleans and those it impacted. I was cynical enough and had had my suspicions as I noticed that something was missing.

To wit: Nobody, even though some of the currently-affected communities along the Mississippi which had also been affected in the flooding of 1993 have been flooded again, has been telling the folks in these communities that they should not rebuild……