People who aren't here simply cannot comprehend what is going on. My daughter just visited and she had heard me talking, when I could, about it. She was stunned. Every place we went, people told her their stories. We went to a story hour at the bookstore for her Baby and the lady sitting next to her had lost everything and was staying with relatives here. She cried telling my daughter her story. We went to get our hair cut and the hairdresser told her all about her sister and brother in law and their losses.
We are drowning in sadness, loss and dislocation here. There is more loss than I can absorb. Yesterday my secretary went down to her sisters house in No, it was molded, the roof had collapsed and it was all in ruins. They were there all day and they got back with two rosaries, both had belonged to their grandmothers. She cried telling me about it but said she was so happy, that was all they wanted to get.
My hurricane refuges who stayed here for a month lost everything, wedding albums, furniture, a lifetime of scrimping to get furniture, keepsakes. Their kids are in a new school, they don't even know where their friends are. And entire family just stunned. The husband's business is in ruins, he cannot find his clients, the wife's job gone.
I hear this everyday,,it is beyond horrible.
So I have little patience for the hubris, the hatefulness, the lack of any heart of some people.
I know you don't want to hear this now, but you need to remember, and remind others, that it's just "stuff". You have the important part in your minds and in the loved ones around you. Your lives have changed dramatically, but it will be good again......soon.
The one thing I saw when I was down there years ago is that the people are STRONG, and they pull together.
I feel for the sadness but maybe when you have to climb a hill, then climb a 10 ft. wall to watch the barges go by in the canal, that ought to be a clue that your entire world is in jeopardy if you decide to stay where you are. If you're going to live below sea level grow some gills! Get a boat! Please don't send me the bill to rebuild your submersible house!
I worked in the Gulf out of Cameron with some tough, smart Cajuns. If anyone can put La. back together again, they can. This is an opportunity to wash out the old vermin, and start over. Nagin and Blanco should be the first to go. It's a shame she stole the election from Jindel, he's shown some sense and leadership throughout this ordeal. I hope this brings about the necessary change.
Like any other major city though, it had its darker side which became the focus of many after all the media lies about what went on in the convention center, etc.
I live in a rural community, and it never fails that on the rare occasion my county makes the evening news, the reporters will single out some toothless, foul-mouth crone or some nice, but very "backwoods bubba". These images paint everyone in my community with the same broad brush stroke of ignorance. The media did the same with NO.
FWIW, Al Gore was from Tennessee, but I never helped put him in office either, so it's very unfair to blame you for Blanko and Nagin.