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November 2005 Katrina Fatigue - After three months so much remains to be done
to bring this city back
to life. As we move through November 2005, it seems that Washington wishes New Orleans was off its radar
scope. 1,000 people are dead and Mayor Nagin reports 4,000 are still missing.
Power is still off in most of the flooded areas including mid-city as
well as Lakeview, the East and the 9'th ward. Entergy New Orleans is
bankrupt and the feds say this time they wont provide a bailout. The
unflooded areas
including Algiers, Uptown, the CBD, Quarter and Metairie are up and running.
Over 300 restaurants are open. The twin spans are half open. Tolls are
back in force. The shopping
season is well under way. New Orleans still has a curfew even in the
unaffected areas.
Debris is everywhere. Although millions of cubic yards have
been collected, the efforts are slowing down, but there is still plenty
left. West End Blvd has been cleared of
construction debris from Vets to Harrison. There is still
plenty of vegetation debris stacked from Harrison north. We continue to
hear that the contracts are going through so many levels that $40 paid
by the feds to remove a yard of debris ends up as $6 in the hands of
the company actually doing the work.
FEMA still pays for 150,000 New Orleanians in hotels and motels around
the
country and they want them out. They have extended the deadline once
and may have to do it again as they don't know where to put them. FEMA
also extended the one way return ticket offer until Feb '07.
FEMA still hasn't been able to place many trailers although
a few are cropping up. A few more cropped up and neighbors complained
that FEMA was crowding too many in too small a space, inviting
problems. FEMA moved half.
Nobody eats MRE's anymore or even talks
about them.
The legislature held a 17 day emergency session. They balanced the
budget and took over the NO public schools but they didn't fix the
levee boards and no one mentioned the Bond Commission's approval of $45
million of pork projects. Algiers charter schools opened and the first NOPS school is open.
The Corps of Engineers is continuing with their plan to restore the
levees to their pre-Katrina state although this is obviously
inadequate. It's just a plan though as no contracts to actually move
dirt have been let. The National Science Foundation and some Dutch
engineers have
come and
gone (Mary Landrieu still has a trip to the Netherlands planned.
Perhaps she'll put her finger in a dike). The Corps pulled up
four sheet pilings and found them to be 23 feet six inches, as
specified. I thought they went to seventeen feet below sea level, 23
feet would be seventeen feet below grade, weren't those earthen berms
about seven feet tall before they added the sheet piling?
Now it's up to Congress. They
are on recess. The President has
other problems. The mayor is on vacation. There is a select committe
hearing and its time for Congress to recess again until February.
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