Two Years After Katrina: ‘Our National Shame’

[Omaha Steve]

by James Parks, Aug 29, 2007


Michele Baker and her husband, Alex, survey the damage at their home after Hurricane Katrina.
I have the same green AFSCME as in the picture. I have kicked into the AFSCME Katrina fund several times.


In the two years since Hurricane Katrina came ashore on the Gulf Coast, the Bush administration has failed miserably to deliver on the president’s promise to rebuild the area, especially New Orleans.

Instead of acting quickly to provide the aid needed to bring the Crescent City back, the administration is using the rebuilding effort to promote its conservative agenda and to push poor people out of New Orleans, according to several experts.

Consider that two years after Katrina, 213,000 people evacuated from the city still have not been able to return home because there are no places for them to live.

The Times Picayune reported yesterday that compared with two years ago in New Orleans:

* There are 42 percent fewer hospital beds available;
* There are only 50 percent as many schools open; and
* A shocking 80 percent of the levee system is still not meeting its original authorized height.

Today, thousands of people, including leaders of the New Orleans AFL-CIO and the United Teachers of New Orleans/AFT, will march through the streets of New Orleans to demand that the federal government provide the necessary funding and leadership to bring the city back.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says the problem, which extends into the entire Gulf Coast region, is:

a lack of federal commitment at the top. In March when he visited the city, President Bush claimed $110 billion in federal funds had been sent to New Orleans. Actually, less than $59 billion had been allocated to the entire state of Louisiana, and as of this week, according to The New York Times, only $6.7 billion has been spent in the state, just $3.39 billion of that in New Orleans.

FULL story at link.

[the_monte]

1. to push poor people out of New Orleans, according to several experts.

Sorry to burst you bubble, but "poor people" cannot and do not build cities. Nor can governments. Just a fact of life