Some of the big fish from Washington were in the New Orleans area early this week. That happens from time to time, although this group seemed a bit larger than previous contingents I’ve read about. Up to 14 lawmakers arrived at a downtown New Orleans hotel Sunday night.
Monday, they drove to Mississippi to tour some areas and see how the rebuilding was coming there. Tuesday, they visited the Lower 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish. I haven’t been very interested in this sort of “official” visit in the past. The cynical side in me just always seems to whisper in my head they’re here because they have to be, they’re coming because it’s a good photo op, they’re here but what are they really going to do to help? That tune changed a bit when I read about this trip in the paper last week. I’m not exactly sure why. Maybe it’s because the two-year anniversary of Katrina is approaching. Maybe it’s because there were so many U.S. Reps coming at once. For whatever reason, this time, I was curious to see what they had to say, what they thought.
I woke up Tuesday morning with a list of things to do, as I have most days, and right at the top of that list was finding the Congressional Caravan. I was “that” interested in this particular trip. Good fortune would end up being on my side.
They were scheduled to visit a health clinic in the Lower 9th Ward, followed by the St. Bernard Health Clinic, which consists of three large mobile homes residing in the parking lot of the abandoned Wal-Mart on Judge Perez Highway. The first thing I did was drive there. I also poked around in the Lower 9th Ward, which neighbors St. Bernard Parish so that was easy enough to do. No sign. Fair enough, I’ll try back. In the meantime, I headed to my first ‘other’ stop on my to-do list, at Operation Compassion. They’re downsizing and emptying out the warehouse they’ve been using. I was hoping to pick up more food and supplies to drive around and give to residents, but unfortunately Pastor Jim had given most of it all away, and not to the folks or organization I would have it go to. In fact, there was a truck there loading up the last of the ‘decent’ stuff, things that residents actually need and could use, so that sucked. I ended up scarfing two cases of Powerade, and with this heat and humidity, bottles of Powerade will be big hits in the neighborhoods where lots of rebuilding is going on. But it’s wasn’t the home run I was hoping to hit.
Pastor Jim Hudson runs Operation Compassion in St. Bernard Parish. He’s a good guy. I just recently met him, but it’s pretty easy to tell, he’s the real deal, and that he has run a good operation. That’s the thing down here; it’s not that hard to spot the good from the bad, the real from the phonies. The people who are here because they truly want to help rebuild the community and help others, they just stand out like Shaquille O’Neal in a room full of adolescents. At least for me they do. And I guess in their own way, the frauds stick out, too. Anyway, Pastor Jim means well. He just has until the end of the week to clear out the building where he’s been housing goods as well as volunteers. I asked him, their lease is $8,000 a month. $8000!!! So much for property owners believing in a good cause and cutting organizations like Operation Compassion a break. But yes, he’s doing the right thing, given that finances are tight, and he just needed to get rid of a lot of stuff. It’s just too bad it can’t go to the people who need it most. I helped with the truck some, talked to him and his wife – they’re people I’d like to work with going forward – and then took off. I went back to the Health Clinic, and still no sign. My gym is practically next door, so I decided to stay close and squeeze in a cardio workout. After the gym, it was back to the clinic, as well as another loop through part of the 9th Ward. Still no luck. I had pretty much conceded that maybe it wasn’t meant to be. I was starving, and I needed to run out to Camp Hope, which is way down the other end of the Parish.
I stopped at Le Breaux Mart – one of two grocery stores open in the Parish, not including Family Dollar Stores – to get my usual pre-made, absolutely terrible for you turkey sandwich. I grab sandwiches on the go all the time, and just eat in my car. Satellite radio and air conditioning make that a no-brainer. Le Breaux is right on that cusp in the Parish where you’re now heading down into the eastern part of it, and once I pull out of the lot and make the left, I’m done with this section, and my chances of seeing the Congressional Caravan, even if it’s on its way to or from the Health Clinic are nil. Chewing on my sandwich, something on ESPN Radio kept my attention for a moment. I think they were talking about Phil Rizzuto’s passing. Growing up in Connecticut, I used to listen to Rizzuto call Yankees games on WPIX-NY all the time. Never could I go to my grandmother’s house, April through September, without the Yankees game being on her TV, with the voices of Rizzuto and Bill White emanating from the sound panel. To this day, whenever I saw or heard Rizzuto’s name or face I’d think of watching Yankees games at my grandmother’s house. While sitting in my car, eating rubber turkey and wheat thins (the best part of my lunch every day, trust me), for some reason I said to myself I’ll drive down to one of the gas stations to get The St. Bernard News. That’s a weekly paper that comes out every Tuesday afternoon. The thing is, I could pick it up at any number of gas stations or stores on the way to Camp Hope. It’s free and stacks of them just sit on every countertop in every convenience store in the Parish. Something, though, made me drive around the back of Le Breaux and head in the opposite direction of Camp. Well, as soon as I made the left out of the Le Breaux lot and headed towards the main road, I saw them: Motorcycle cops and their flashing lights.
“Nice”, I said to myself. I stepped on the gas a bit and shot out to the main road, and sure enough, three large Passenger Buses fly by, followed by three or four government issues SUVs and more cops. I let them all go by and then I turned to follow. Of course, all the regular traffic was in near panic, driving 10 mph and slowing down, but not pulling to the side of the road. I got caught behind a bunch of these cars and almost thought I was going to lose the buses. “Typical”, was the next word out of my mouth. That, and a few choice curse words. It was going to take more than a few pathetic drivers to make me lose that caravan, though, and I managed to weave through and around most of that, I think legally.
I caught up, and now was just hoping that they were going to stop in a neighborhood. They were heading north, in the direction of Orleans East, which is almost as equally devastated as St. Bernard, so it’s made sense they might be heading up that way. Thankfully, within seconds, they all started to make a right-hand turn into residential neighborhoods.
They stopped about two blocks in. I turned a street short of them, so as not to be caught up in or around all of their vehicles, and parked a couple of streets over. I grabbed my camera and was off I went into the 97 degree sludge of humidity. State Police, local police, secret service, staffers, media, neighborhood residents and I suppose just regular people like me were everywhere. It was good, though, because I could tell right away it with all these mixes of people around that I’d be able to go right up and take part and check everything out like I wanted to. This was definitely not a “closed to the public” venture.
I think I only counted six Congress people there, who came off the buses. I overheard someone in the crowd mention that some of the others had gone to take part in different events. And that was fine, too, as the big wigs were here. Governor Blanco, U.S. Rep. William Jefferson of New Orleans, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Majority Whip James Clyburn were here. They slowly made their way into the house of resident Karen Vinsanau. She lives in a FEMA Trailer in the front yard, her house gutted and pretty much empty. Her husband passed away and, as they would describe in the press conference, she hasn’t been able to do much work on it, although she did recently close on her Road Home transaction and is getting roughly $100,000 (note: that sounds like a lot, but trust me, see these homes down here up close, and it’s not). I tried to file into the house behind them all, but a Secret Service agent stopped me. She asked me who I was, who I was with, and I told her I’m a volunteer. She didn’t care. I couldn’t go any further on that grass. I argued for a second and then said the heck with it. She was just doing her job, and besides, over her shoulders I could see the media setting up cameras and mics on the sidewalk, so I knew they’d be making some statements. I really just wanted to hear what they would say and see the expressions on their faces as they said it.
I chatted with a handful of people there that I knew already, waiting for them to finish up inside the house. Meanwhile, it’s searing outside and anyone not under cover is already pretty soaked. Every time I looked down at my shirt, a new sweat stain had appeared. So much for that shower after my run at the gym being my last one of the day. They were in there a good 10 minutes or so, as they should be. Finally, they came out, Pelosi, Jefferson, Blanco, with Vinsanau at their side and followed by a bevy of other officials. I was hoping they’d go right over to the mics and start their press conference; I think everyone was. We’d end up waiting another 10 or 15 minutes.
It was worth it, though. I went up right alongside, next to the media folks, snapped some photos and just started to listen. Majority Whip Clyburn opened things up, reading from a prepared statement. He then introduced Ms. Vinsanau. Nervous, she stepped up and thanked everyone for being there, thanked the lawmakers for caring, and after saying a few more words about her struggle, just looked into one of the cameras and said, “Don’t forget St. Bernard. Don’t forget us.” In their own way, those may have been the most appropriate and productive words I heard all day.
Everyone who spoke, though, was fine. Governor Blanco stepped up next, then Pelosi, then Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia. This was definitely a Democrat laden event, and they all took turns thanking each other. I don’t care for that. Helping out in this crisis is their job, and patting each other on the back does not solve anything down here. That said, everyone seemed genuinely affected by what they were seeing and said the right things. They spoke about helping Gov. Blanco get whatever she needed, and about the Road Home program and how they’d do everything they can to prevent a shortfall in funding. One of Clyburn’s staffers passed around a list of things they were taking back to Washington with them to work on addressing. (Of course, Congress is on recess right now, and won’t be back until after Labor Day). I do wish some Republicans were here, and that it didn’t have to be such a partisan gabfest, but it is what it is, and quite frankly, the role of Congressional Leaders in all of this has limits. They allocate funds, they write bills and legislation to release funds, to hopefully curb things like state responsibility and insurance burdens in the favor of the people. And for the most part they have done that and are in the process of doing that (bills that relate to the water and levee systems down here are a completely different matter). The problem’s not in the money being allocated, it’s what happens to it once it’s released. And Pelosi and Clyburn are not the people executing on plans and initiatives to help the people, they’re simply writing the checks. It reminds me of my former job, working for a software Co. We’d sell our product to a customer, along with a year or so of consulting services to help them implement it. At the top, you’d have executives from both sides writing a contract and them some CIO or CTO would sign off on paying my company $10 or $15 million to deliver something in nine or 12 months or whatever it was. But then that was it, they were out of it, they’re not the ones working day to day to see that that money is being put to good use, and that the expected deliverables are being planned for and developed and implemented. Sure, they do their temperature checks, sit in on status meetings, get updates and reports and threaten to lay the hammer down if dates are slipping. But their role and ability in carrying out the tasks necessary to truly deliver are limited. It’s the same with Congress. They can breeze in, see a gutted house, hear a sad story, and go home and write a check, but are they fixing the house? Opening a new school? Fixing the sewer system? Handing people food they need? Nope. Not s
aying I blame them for that, just stating the facts.
Trips like the one these folks just wrapped up certainly can’t hurt. If it spurs congressional leaders to fight for more money and to spur on more dialogue about the Gulf Coast on Capital Hill, that’s great. And, I was happy to see up close that yes, they care. Their caring has limits, but they care. I’d like to be this close for a similar trip by Washington big wigs, maybe at the end of this year, sometime next year, and see if the surroundings are still the same. It’s been two years already. How much longer are press conferences going to take place with FEMA Trailers in the background?
NOTE: to see the article in today’s Times-Picayune on yesterday’s proceedings, and to get a more “newsy” take, click on the link below:
http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/08/house_lawmakers_visit_no_evalu.html
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