Suburban Goddess

The trip home this weekend was a mixed-emotional affair. We were there for a wedding (Yea S. for making through the Q-Tips!), and we stayed at a hotel down on Bourbon Street. It appears to have recovered nicely; the old familiar stench of pee & beer is just as I remembered. But the drive in was downright eerie.

When you drive from the Northshore of Lake Pontchartrain to get downtown, you have to pass through several lower & middle class neighborhoods in New Orleans East. These neighborhoods are predominately black. But what was eerie is that even in the nicer neighborhoods, there is a deadly silence that lines the street much like the trash & debris that remains. There’s no evidence of rebuilding, or even repairing. Entire shopping centers are boarded up on both sides of I-10. It reminded me of the villages of Chernobyl; empty shells of a once-thriving community now haunted by the ghosts of a disaster. There are no signs of life, and no signs of hope. Where is the “Rebirth of New Orleans” that everyone’s been preaching about? Where did the millions & millions of relief dollars go? Because I can tell you first hand, I do not see it. The numbers aren’t adding up.

I’ve begged my parents to pack up & leave it all. My father is playing Russian Roulette with his property value; how do you know if your property will ever be worth anything again when it is surrounded by empty shells of homes with doors missing, windows smashed out, and trash lining the streets? Where is all the AID that was promised? I know that cleanup of a disater of this magnitude has an astronomical price tag, but as I look at deserted storefronts, I have to wonder, what are the people doing who used to care for this property? Where did they go? Did they pack up & say “SCREW LOUISIANA,” or are they sitting back & waiting for the government handout?

And what about those who are sitting back? Life is not fair; you chose to live there, this is the consequence. Get outside & clean up the mess! If you’re so damn proud to be a New Orleanian, then ACT like it. Don’t wait for FEMA to come sweep up the mess for you; you already know that’s NOT going to happen. You’ve had an entire year to feel sorry for yourself, it’s time to clean up! If they haven’t tuned on your electricity yet, or the insurance man hasn’t been to your property, shouldn’t you be knocking on your city official’s doors? They’re easy enough to find… follow the sound of the air conditioning unit & look for the lights.

Ugh, it makes me so mad. Crooked Louisiana politics have their tentacles in all that aid money, and the truly needy will never see it. If you want to make a difference there, go to the ATM, get cash, drive to New Orleans, and go to the harder-hit neighborhoods. Find the people who are standing out front with the rake & trashbag, ask them what they need, and GO GET IT for them. That’s what the government should have done to begin with. Why is that so f#$*ing hard?

All those Louisiana politicians are sitting back salivating, rubbing their greedy little hands together as their pointed little noses are glued to The Weather Channel. Get ready for Hurricane Season 2006! PAYDAY!!!

This entry was posted on May 24, 2006 at 9:05 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.