imkittymyers at hotmail dot com
Sunday, October 16, 2005
KATRINA, NAGIN & ALL THAT JAZZ
A relative's home: Bedroom Closet with bedframe --behind the blue laundry basket, there is a "pocket" door. we tore the wall out and the pocket door, so some air would hopefully come in-as well as light-to aid in the job of going through all of this wet, moldy, and just plain horrible condition.
Dana, who blogs NorthshorePolitics from Slidell, has finally begun to post again. I'm simply linking to her blog, and not to any particular post, because her last several entries are worth reading. She writes poignantly about their entire experience and has linked to an album of post-flood pictures of her cousin's grandmother's home.
8 Katrina destruction
Want to know what it is like? The thought that kept coming to me is that it was like going through a ship wreck. There was water everywhere. Sitting in bowls in the cabinet, sitting in jewelery boxes, sitting in drawers. Anything that can hold water. And, if you weren't careful, that water would come raining down on you whenever you opened something. Oh, and the fun part, was that it wasn't clean water. It was moldy, smelly, dirty, disgusting water. (Want to know what it smelled like? Have you ever been inside of a dirty port-a-potty? Imagine it 10 times worse)
8 I want my life back
I want my life to get back to normal. I want to be able to go to the grocery store after the kids go to bed. I want stores to stop closing at 6pm because they don't have workers to cover longer hours. I want to go to a restaurant without having to wait 2 hours for a table because they don't have enough people to work. I want to be able to drive 2 miles without waiting in traffic for 30 minutes.
The big surprise was her amazingly sympathetic piece on Nagin.
8 My thoughts on Mayor Nagin
He ran on a platform of cleaning up the city. He wanted to take the corruption out of New Orleans politics. Unfortunately for him, that corruption was so ingrained and so beneficial to all those in politics and in charge, that he didn't stand a fighting chance. In fact, he was doomed. Every initiative, every plan, every candidate, etc. That he supported met with defeat. He had absolutely no support. No one wanted him to reform New Orleans' government because it would lead to their loss of power.
Last year, we were faced with Hurricane Ivan. Nagin ordered the evacuation of New Orleans. Other mayors and parish presidents did the same in their areas. What a disaster that was. Since that time, an evacuation plan was developed. Unfortunately, another outcome of that disastrous evacuation for Ivan was a huge backlash for Nagin. The parish officials in Orleans parish used this to grandstand for their own benefit against Nagin. They convinced their constituents that Nagin was wrong to order an evacuation. There was no need to leave. This set the stage for Katrina.
What many people don't realize is that we didn't know Katrina was threatening Louisiana until Friday before the storm hit. Before that time, Katrina was being forecast as hitting the panhandle of Florida.
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Nagin and Bush both made amends and both said there were no hard feeling between the two men. Bush seemed to understand the circumstances surrounding Nagin's speech.
Since that time, Nagin has done everything in his power to rebuild the city. He recognizes what needs to be done, that now is the time think "outside of the box." He also realizes that he now has the time to clean up the city. He wants to rid it of corruption.
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So, what is Nagin's biggest obstacle? Not the lack of citizens, not the lack of money, not the police department, etc. His biggest obstacle is Governor Blanco. She has been the true disgrace of our state.
NorthshorePolitics is well worth your time.
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