By the time I hit the save button and publish this post, it should just about be August 29. That date's a significant one around here, as it was on August 29th of 2005 that Hurricane Katrina roared through the Gulf Coast. Of course, a lot of the destruction and death occurred in the days that followed thanks to the levee breaches and water that just kept rising. Still, it's this date, 8/29, that symbolizes the start of something very horrible.It's 8/29/07 now, two years later. Driving through many neighborhoods, you'd think it was two weeks later, but no, it's two years now. And there's no question lots of things have gotten better. Parts of the city of New Orleans look just like they did, and in some cases better, than before Katrina. Some homes and buildings that have been rebuilt have the shine we love and new car smell we can't get enough of. Most importantly, more people have come back. Different figures from different sources show up almost weekly down here, be it in the newspaper or some other medium, indicating that population levels are creeping upwards, even if just ever so slowly. And it's absolutely critical that the positives and the improvements are recognized.
But, make no mistake, two years might have passed but a lot of work that should have been done in that time has not. No one with an ounce of sense can pass through the greater New Orleans area yesterday, today or tomorrow and think for a second that this place is normal, that things are O.K. And no, it's not just about the poverty, and crime infested neighborhoods. Forget all that for a minute. It's about people still living in trailers, who have exhausted their savings and who look at gutted and empty homes, often their own. It's about condemned commercial buildings that haven't been cleaned up, schools that haven't re-opened, jobs that haven't come back, roads that haven't been fixed, street lights that haven't been turned on. The list goes on.
I'll wake up Wednesday, and I plan on approaching August 29, 2007 just like any other of the hundred and some odd days I've been here. This place needs to keep surging forward, working to make things better, helping people to get back on their feet. There are lots of ceremonies scheduled, in New Orleans and in every surrounding Parish. President Bush is here, the media has converged. CNN will be live from Camp Hope again. In one very important respect, that's good. The attention on a national level is a positive, as it will help remind people from all over the country that there is still a "world of hurt" down here. I'm just a volunteer who didn't go through and isn't going through the hell that many of the residents here did and are, but I'm going to wake up Wednesday and look forward, not back. As a resident named Daniel I met in the Lower Ninth Ward told me today, "we've got to stay strong, stay positive" -- these, by the way, were his words to me as we stood in his driveway, in the rain, outside his house, a house that's been rehabbed but that has just one small twin mattress on the floor in one of the bedrooms. He shares it with his wife. He's looking forward, too.
GOOD PIECES: I’ve come across a few articles among the dozens of stories running daily leading up to the two-year anniversary of Katrina that I thought captured the “realities” of life in the New Orleans area. The story titled “Keeping Up Is Costing More”, which ran the other day in the Times-Picayune, really resonates because this is an aspect of the Katrina fallout that I think gets lost in the shuffle sometimes. It might be two years later, but in many respects people are much worse off than they were just after the storm.
http://blog.nola.com/updates/2007/08/keeping_up_is_costing_more.html
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-9/1188284521298400.xml&coll=1
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