The latest wrinkle is the families who have never left their FEMA trailers, and are now blaming high formaldehyde levels for all their kids’ ills. Apparently the fact that they haven’t bothered to move anywhere else and tried to do better for their families, which, to me, implies a certain attitude toward everything in life, has NOTHING to do with their childrens’ illnesses. These folks don’t have local jobs, so they’re not tied to S. Mississippi. They could move elsewhere, and likely with govt. assistance, because they’re “Katrina victims”, but they’re just plain lazy!
...and they can’t get the soybean crop planted....
Okay, I'll say this once (at least). Yes, you've got major issues out there in the midwest and yes, it is absolutely not fair that there is not more attention being placed on it. But the issue with Katrina is just not that simple.
Missisippi handled it a lot better than New Orleans. No question about it. And I suspect that's only one reason why we now have Governor Jindal in Louisiana.
But you can't place all the blame on the victims. Yes, they're angry (still), they're hurt (still), they're homeless (still), but they were also royally screwed. The entire mess was one big cluster**** from the beginning. Everybody screwed up. Bush, FEMA, Blanco, Nagin and on and on.
But even with that, when the relief came, it didn't always get to the right people. Sometimes it went to people three or four times. Sometimes it when to people from Minnesota and New York who had never lived in New Orleans, but showed up and claimed to have lost everything. They got a FEMA check.
Even this many years later, the devastation is still horrifying. Over half the city population of New Orleans didn't return. You don't see that downtown. You don't see that unless you get out into places like the 9th Ward or Gentilly.
I don't know if the FEMA trailers are making anyone sick. But they are miserable places. I've been in one. Think about the average "camper" you could pull with a pickup. They ~might~ be that large.
Yes there are whiners, and they make good TV and they give a good excuse to blame President Bush. But you can't paint with a broad brush and put everyone in that category. For the most part, New Orleans ~is~ out of the news because downtown and the French Quarter are back. But many of the residents outside those areas feel like ~they've~ been forgotten. Most aid groups have pulled out. There are still church groups and some others going down, but most of them are heading elsewhere as well.
When we were there several of our group went to the funeral of an elderly man we'd helped before. He spent 4 days in his attic because after all he'd been told that the storm had passed, the city had been spared and that the levees would never break. It was literally months before he was able to come out of his FEMA trailer and even look at his house.
I can tell you lots of those stories because I've been there. And I've met the people. Some of whom haven't even ~seen~ TV in years.
< /end of rant>