Nix Bits

This weekend was the first opportunity I had in a while to take the “devastation tour” because I had a co-worker and his wife coming from out of town this week. I decided to haul them out through Mid-City to Lakeview to New Orleans East, and then back. I explained that they were only seeing a small portion of New Orleans flood-related damage. Initially, I was pleased at the amount of progress I was seeing. But then, my view of progress is probably different from someone seeing this for the first time.

We ended up spending a little extra time in Mid-City because my friend’s wife wanted to stock up at Mona’s. Where they live, things like Basmati rice, good tea, and fresh pita are not common. She’d heard of Mona’s and wanted to know if it was near anything we’d be seeing. In fact, it was right around the corner from our previous house in Mid-City so that worked out pretty wall. How she got that sack of Basmati rice back on the plane, I do not know.

There were lots of questions about the state of things in the area. I showed where rebuilding was quite active and where more uncertainty reigned. I explained a good bit about some of the insurance problems and slowness of the flow of rebuilding dollars. My friend’s wife was suprised at my commentary about the failures resulting fromthe poor design of the levees and flood walls. She had thought it was the result of “poor maintenance”. I explained that in fact, no amount of maintenance would have made a difference and that furthermore the pressures exerted were nowhere near what the Corps claimed the design was supposed to handle. They had admitted as much. My friend commented that he had “heard this somewhere.” He probably heard it from other co-workers since a substantial portion of our company is in New Orleans. The notion that this was an engineering disaster is not common knowledge outside of New Orleans. That’s pretty distressing to me.

On the one hand, I think Americans should be made to understand us as just like them; hard-working tax payers who got cheated and continue to be cheated. But I think far too many see us as poor people, unlike them, and a picture of failure. So it’s easier to blame the victim and turn away. As Oyster points out, why would the federal government refuse so much aid from our foreign Allies?

So much help is needed and the federal government refuses aid and continues to refuse to waive the 10% match. My wife and I also went shopping around on Magazine street and had a couple of conversations with some very nice shop owners. Both thought that many, many shops and restaurants would close by summer’s end. “They help the big guy,” one said, “but there’s nothing for the small business owner. Who comes to New Orleans to shop at Bed Bath and Beyond? They come here for Magazine Street and the Quarter. The city can’t even get the street open to give us a fighting chance.” And he’s right. We see CDBG money help bail Entergy New Orleans out of bankruptcy but there’s nothing to help the small businesses that make up so much of this city.

Later in the day, I found myself utterly depressed.