Posted on 10/27/2005 8:52:14 PM PDT by caryatid
Although more than 200 people packed into a New Orleans hotel room wanted Mayor Ray Nagin to address a sheaf of topics Wednesday, he knew one question was paramount: What is going to happen to my house?
Nagin opened his remarks with a complicated answer, leaving some in the audience as confused as ever. Federal officials monitoring the proceeding said portions of Nagin's speech were incorrect. Federal and City Hall officials even disagree on the number of houses facing demolition, with the fate of thousands of residences perhaps hanging in the balance.
But Nagin did deliver the gist, unpleasant as it was, of the matter: New Orleans homeowners will be forced to make hard and sometimes costly decisions based not only on layers of local and federal rules and regulations, but also on geography.
The crux of the matter is twofold, Nagin said: whether the house lies above or below the line of the "100-year flood plain" -- the mayor's term for flood maps used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency -- and whether the homeowner had flood insurance before the city's levees buckled in the face of Hurricane Katrina.
"I know the big question a lot of people have is housing," Nagin said. " 'What do I do? How do I go about getting my life back together?' We've made some progress on this, but I must admit it's not been good enough."
The city is conducting a house-by-house survey of damaged homes, making an assessment of how each house fared in the storm and its aftermath. The survey is being done by private workers hired under contract. The inspectors slap houses with a red, yellow or green label.
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
Great title.
Muddled. Great word...
Homeowners in New Orleans have a choice -- Phillips, torx or Standard.
hmmm.
Rumors are currently circulating that entire parishes may be "condemned" due to soil contamination.
The corps will not do any work for an individual, only for a government agency, they said. What's more, FEMA can demolish a house only after an environmental and historical review, federal officials said. "
I think mental health professionals refer to this as "magical thinking." Lefties are famous for it. If it feels better, just make stuff up. If they want it to be true, it WILL be true!
... perhaps a bit of confabulation*, as well ...
*[to fill in gaps in memory by fabrication]
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