It’s the small stuff… Saturday, Mar 19 2011

I gave 5 Katrina tours this week; 4 for Parks Canada staff and one for guests of the Creole Inn. In three days. Basically the same tour each time. It allowed me to really take a look at New Orleans through fresh eyes.

I think New Orleans is really coming back as a tourism destination. The French Quarter and the CBD are back to “normal”; whatever normal is in this crazy-ass town. But just outside the Vieux Carre is the devastation of the Lower Ninth that too many tourists never take the time to see. Even most of the tour companies no longer run Katrina tours, they just incorporate them into their city tour.

So I took folks through the Upper and Lower Ninth, out to Arabi and Chalmette, and up Esplanade to City Park to show them what was and wasn’t here. They were mostly shocked. Stunned. At least one was in tears.

But I saw the small stuff. Lots of groups of youth out working; building, cutting grass, digging, creating a path along Bayou Bienvenue. I saw a house being worked on that wasn’t started a few weeks ago. A house finished. A family moving in furniture from Rooms to Go.

I went to my branch of Whitney Bank in Chalmette between tours on Thursday and it had moved from a trailer into a real building. Lots of digging is happening at the site of the new St. Bernard Parish Hospital.

There were stores open. People on the streets. A couple old guys fishing and crabbing in the bayou.

And my tour guests got the message that New Orleans is back, and it isn’t back, at the same time. A message I trust they will carry home.

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Katrina pain index (11 days) Wednesday, Aug 19 2009

How do you count the impact of a Hurricane? Bill Quigley and Davida Finger think they have a way. Davida Finger is a justice lawyer and clinical professor at Loyola University New Orleans. Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer on leave from Loyola now serving as legal director at the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Some examples:
Zero:
Number of hospitals in New Orleans providing in-patient mental health care as of September 2009 despite post-Katrina increases in suicides and mental health problems. (Source: http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=8296501&page=10)

Thirty-Three:
Percent of 134,000 FEMA trailers in which Katrina and Rita storm survivors were housed after the storms, which have had formaldehyde problems. (Source: http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/07/post-54.html)

Fifty-Two:
Percent increase in rents in New Orleans since Katrina. (Source: Greater New Orleans Community Data Center, Metro New Orleans Fair Market Rent History (2000-2009), at http://www.gnocdc.org/fair_market_rents.html)

One Hundred Sixty:
Number of units which will be public housing eligible in the new St. Bernard area after demolition and rebuilding. St. Bernard was constructed with 1400 public housing apartments. Only a small percentage of the 4000 families in public housing in New Orleans before Katrina will be allowed to live in the new housing being constructed on the site where their apartments were demolished.

MORE AT KATRINA PAIN INDEX

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Save Charity Hospital Tuesday, May 26 2009

While we were in New Orleans we went to a community protest meeting organized by ACORN and other community groups focused on saving NOAH, an adolescent mental health facility. However, the issue of Charity Hospital and other community health facilities were raised by many speakers.

A message was sent out today from Save Charity Hospital saying in part….”Because of your support, the campaign to save Charity Hospital now has more momentum than ever. There are two crucial events this week that will define the next phase of our fight — and we need your help.

In the past month, we’ve learned the details about the current proposal for the LSU Medical Complex — that it would take more money and more time than rebuilding Charity, that it unnecessarily destroys an historic neighborhood, and that the new site would abandon downtown New Orleans.”

There is a call in the message for local residents to go out to a public meeting on Thurs May 28th from 4-6pm sponsored by the City Planning Commission. Tell your NOLA friends to go out to that meeting

As well, state legislators in Baton Rouge are considering new legislation – Bill 780 – that will “prevent LSU from prematurely seizing private property in New Orleans and putting taxpayers on the hook for hundreds millions of dollars to finance LSU’s flawed plan.” A bus trip is being planned for tomorrow to help lobby Louisiana legislators. Those with a LA address can click here to lobby legislators . This site only works for those with a Louisiana address. Those outside of Louisiana can find legislators here.

You can also watch the Save Charity Hospital video to “learn why rebuilding Charity Hospital is the best option to rebuild downtown New Orleans”.

Thanks
Tanya

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