New Tour of Katrina-Hit Area Is Sold Out

[sabra]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060104/ap_on_re_us/katrina_disaster_tour

New Tour of Katrina-Hit Area Is Sold Out By STACEY PLAISANCE, Associated Press Writer

NEW ORLEANS - Mountains of debris, collapsing houses, a weather-ravaged stadium: It's yours for $35 a person — $28 for kids.


Gray Line New Orleans began a bus tour Wednesday of the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina, and demand was high enough that the company added a third tour on the first day.

Some New Orleans residents have questioned whether such tours are morbid exploitation, or a good way to help people grasp the enormity of the disaster. Even some of those on the first tour Wednesday morning had mixed emotions.

"I felt guilty about going out and looking, but it's something we had to do," said Toni Stone of Harrisonburg, Va., who took the tour with her husband.

[deminks]

1. This just blows.

$3.00 out of every $35.00 ticket goes to Katrina charities. How generous.

Of all the useless, insensitive, uncaring, evil things to do. I have lived in a tornado sticken area for 6 months when I was growing up. We had gawkers all hours of the day, and some of them would get out of their cars and start going through your stuff.

If you really want to do something for Katrina victims, get down there and volunteer, or give money to Habitat or some other WORTHWHILE charity, or take in a family that is being kicked out of the hotel room this month, or get FEMA to release the mobile homes, or get someone to help with bodies 'cause they are still finding the bones, or a hundred other ways. Don't become a gawker.

:rant:

[MsKandice01]

17. But the company is a Katrina victim too

This is a New Orleans-based business. 60% of this company's 65 employees have lost their homes to Katrina. Don't they need money too?

[IndyOp]

2. There will always be idiots -

Then again, the only way to get a sense of the damage, I think, is to go. Some people will come home unaffected; some will have decided that nothing should be done because the damage is too extensive; others will decide that we must help. On balance, I think it is good for them to go - the first pic on Yahoo is of a Reverend and her husband...

[noonwitch]

3. If the christian theme park on the Sea of Galilee didn't make me sick....

This certainly will. Hey, why drive all the way to the Gulf Coast? I'll give you a tour of a city of ruins that no natural disaster caused, just the neglect of those with money. I could probably make a lot of money over the Super Bowl weekend with my tours, too.

Ruins in Detroit of note:

1. Tiger Stadium. Unfortunately, the Illitch's have it all boarded up and you can't go inside, but you can drive by.

2. The Book/Cadillac building. An empty skyscraper.

3. The old UA theater-it was used as the parking garage for the rap contests in "8 Mile".

4. A whole neighborhood of ruined victorian mansions just north of Ford Field. Beautiful buildings falling apart, with a few being preserved in between.

5. Empty DPD precincts and school buildings.

6. Empty churches, some burned out.

There are whole blocks of burned-out homes. Also, if you are really into looking at human tragedy, you might get to see people smoking crack, or prostitutes walking the streets.

Okay, I'm now going to throw up the rest of my lunch.

[saigon68]

8. WOW ----People Smoking CRACK !!!! And Prostitutes

Where are the Cops?

Oh I know-- being paid to look the other way

[zalinda]

12. Where are the mansions

I grew up in Warren and don't know much about where things are in Detroit. I haven't lived in the Detroit area for about 20 years now. I was heartbroken when they tore down the Motor City Roller Rink which had been the Motor City Movie Theater.

zalinda

[kliljedahl]

13. That was my first thought

Is this the new theme park?



Keith’s Barbeque Central

[Ezlivin]

4. Sold out? Not quite. There are scalpers that can still get you good seats!

N/T

[NorthernSpy]

5. I guess the affluent find our suffering very entertaining...

So entertaining, in fact, that they'll actually pay for the chance to go and gloat over the wreckage that used to be a poor family's home.

Clearly, those people hate us.



And I hate them.

[pitohui]

15. they don't hate us

gray line tours, that's what they do, they get people on buses and have a guide that yaks at you about the sites you're seeing, it's what they do all over the usa, perhaps all over the world for all i know

it's not the way i travel but it's something they can do

we need business, they need business, we need awareness, this creates awareness

gray line tours is not going to allow people to loot or root through people's belongings

there is plenty to get stressed abt, this ain't it

[uppityperson]

6. I wish they'd take them by the MS coast too.

The company has said $3 from every Katrina tour ticket will be donated to Katrina-related charities. Passengers also get a packet with pictures of the destruction and a form letter asking them to write their congressional representatives to urge them to help the city.

If this will help people grasp the enormity of the disaster, I'm all for it. I wish they would take people along the MS coast too. Remember Mississippi? The forgotten state that was devastated by Katrina. If this will get people writing their congressional reps, if this will affect how they view the administration, if this will get them to look at their own disaster preparedness once they return home because We are On Our Own, I'm for it.

Edited to add to this last paragraph

[KamaAina]

7. You can ride around much of it (not Lower Nine) for free on RTA

through March, anyway; afterwards you just pay a bus fare or two.

http://www.norta.com

http://www.norta.com/routes/map20060101.pdf

Particularly recommended (?) would be the 94-Broad to New Orleans East, 84-Galvez through the 7th and 8th Wards, 52, 55 or 57 through Gentilly, 27-Louisiana through Broadmoor, and 16-Claiborne through Central City.

On second thought, just take the tour; I hear the locals are way tired of people standing around, gawking, and snapping pictures as though their ruined homes were the freakin' Statue of Liberty.

edit: N.O. has many unusual street names, but "thropugh" isn't one of them.

[Marie26]

9. Rubbernecking on a tour bus

That's all this is.

[Child_Of_Isis]

10. Wonder if they left a dead body or two

laying around? That would sure bring in the business.

[...of J.Temperance]

11. If they gave $20 from each ticket to a Katrina related charity then I

MIGHT possibly agree with this tour...but the miniscule amount of $3 from each ticket...no, these ghouls will be making hand over fist from peoples misery.

I've got no time for the ghouls that have bought tickets to go and stare and pick over the bones of peoples misery either.

Somebody needs to shut this "tour" down and soon.

[pitohui]

16. see my comment below

i don't think the price is out of line, they'll be making some $$$ but hand over fist, don't think so

[pitohui]

14. it doesn't go far enough

to remind people of the devastation of gentilly and lakeview is admirable, for these neighborhoods have been forgotten by the world at large, but i would have extended the tour into new orleans east

people already know what the superdome and the convention center look like, that's just filler and hardly the worst of the destruction

until you see how far the devastation goes, that it is not something that's over in a 3 hour tour, you don't really understand

but hell it's a start

there's a lot of people who need to see what we're dealing w. here

temperance, the price is actually not out of line for a grayline tour and cheaper than many of them, so i don't think $3 per person is a ridiculous donation, hell, i've paid $60 for a one day bus tour of grand isle and this with a non-profit and volunteer guides, i don't think the profit margin is as high as you think

[PurityOfEssence]

18. Bob and Ray put it best:

Americans are great. They'll line up around the block to see a dead whale on a flatcar.