Help us find Annie
Let's quit wasting tax money in New Orleans
Having visited New Orleans, and being a jazz musician, I appreciate the unique nature of the place, and the warm spot it holds in some people's hearts.
But having said that, I am simply boggled by the inaction of so many NO residents on their own behalf. There seem to be "poor folk" there who cannot even be bothered to clear some of the rubble from their own front yards.
By comparison, back in February of 1904, most of the downtown of Baltimore was destroyed by fire. By 1907, the city had been redesigned and almost completely rebuilt. No federal funds or outside help was used, and this occurred in an era where telephones were not yet universal, there was no practical means of motive power other than steam (i.e., no gasoline or diesel engines; no hydraulics; most work was done by the muscles of men and horses), no computer-aided design.
And as far as Katrina is concerned, the Gulf coast suffered damage all the way over to Pensacola. If you visit Mobile, you wouldn't know there'd been a Katrina. The Mississippi coastal towns are being rebuilt without nearly the fuss and influx of government (OUR) money, because the casinos operating there are re-investing to build anew.
There is but one real negative in coastal Mississippi, and it's the result of federal interference. Ocean Springs is struggling in an attempt to remain a small town, not dominated by casinos. The mayor of that city commissioned an architect to design sturdy, but inexpensive replacement houses. Known as "Katrina cottages," these can be purchased in the form of blueprints-and-kit from Lowes. The problem is that FEMA will not permit its money to be spent on permanent housing, only temporary shelter. As a result, there is a financial pressure being brought to bear by casino operators, who would love to move into this virgin territory.
In Alabama, the outrage is that FEMA money seems to have been used to rebuild large, overly elaborate and expensive vacation houses on Dauphin Island, an area far more risky than even New Orleans. You can stand on the main street of Dauphin Island and see the Gulf to your south, and Mobile Bay to your north, with nary a sand dune in place, but peppered with 2-1/2 storey colonial houses built on stilts! As with all barrier islands, Dauphin is a temporary piece of land, and ought not be developed. Yet there is pressure to build even more overpriced houses to the east of the current enclave, on "land" that stands an even worse chance of destruction by the next hurricane that comes along. It's the same empty-headed thinking as what gave us all those expensive houses on risky locations along the Pacific coast. Ironically, at the opposite end of Dauphin, a federally-funded science exhibit (The Estuarium) presents all the reasons why the building should not be occurring just two miles away.