A Dead City:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

So a trip to New Orleans today seemed appropriate. Almost 8 months after the landfall of Katrina it seemed appropriate to see the place. I am prepared to pronounce the city dead and not recoverable in any sense of the word towards what it was before. My impressions are: miles of filthy streets still littered with storm debris in the gutters, miles of non functional traffic signals, abandoned houses with swollen walls and missing roofs , FEMA trailers on perhaps one in 50 driveways, abandoned apartment complexes, Strip malls with abandoned stores and scattered trash and debris in the parking area. Porta-Johns every half a block or so for miles on end are also de-rigueur for this place. Empty McDonalds and absence of people make the place look like video my daughter took in Yugoslavia in the early 90’s. There was a section of the elevated interstate that had storm damaged cars under it…. Miles and miles of cars… all of them stripped for parts by locals we presume.. I saw men lined up for day work on Easter Sunday …. There is great demand for labor here even semi skilled…. None of these men looked like locals.. they all appeared to be Hispanic folk and from somewhere else just here to make money. While they are fixing the roof of the superdome, they are not getting the sewers running again or the power back on. All are snapshots of a dead city that does not know it is dead. No permanent jobs, no housing, no commerce….. Ray Nagen has the audacity to run for mayor again……… hopefully the ones that left will rekindle some kind of sense of community somewhere else and not call this horrible place home ever again. 8 months….. checks from the FEDS in excess of $8 Billion dollars and you still got a dead city that looks like the storm hit last week. Mississippi has begun to rebuild.. they are complete with their debris removal…. The only difference is leadership and the heart of the people involved. They do not seem to be able to get out of their own way. I for one am sick of seeing good money go in after bad.

I got a place in the springs.. be back there on the evening of April 27th. I will be moving in that weekend , home there for a week getting settled and connected and then off to Arkansas for two weeks to finish up the end of that tornado disaster that has been going on there.. we should be closing that and then I am home for the summer. I am looking forward to a motorcycle ride and some bicycling and some food grilled on my new grille I am going to buy.. :-D see you all soon