New Orleans-Has Its History Ended?

New Orleans-Has Its History Ended?


Watching the pictures from New Orleans after Katrina, broke my heart. I have had a love affair with that city for 45 years. My husband and I dated there. My first trip was as a 15 year old teenager who flew into New Orleans to meet her parents and spend a week. Few years in the past 45 have not included some time in this city, be it only maybe a few days. It was love at first site. In fact, I loved New Orleans even before I visited. If reincarnation is the law of the universe, I surely have lived a life in pre civil war Louisiana. Preferably a beautiful octoroon slave rather than a plantation owner.

Being a history enthusiast, New Orleans seeps history. I never make a visit there that I don’t mix the past with the present. It is hard not to be absorbed by the history of this city. Even the French Quarter is full of buildings dating back to the 18th century. It exudes its French, Creole and slave history. Over the years many accounts from far better informed writers have told New Orleans’ story. Thousands of volumes have been written both fictional and non fictional in the past three centuries. It’s only now when it seems that she is a lost city, a need to revisit her history and contemplate her future, becomes important.

New Orleans is a timeless city and has survived great tragedies in the past. Like the Phoenix, perhaps she will rise from the ashes. Hopefully what happened will make it a better city. I just don’t see how it can ever be the city it was the day before Katrina or should it. New Orleans has flirted with this disaster for years now. The fight between the city and nature has been going on since earliest settlers chopped through the swamp land to create this plot of land on the edge of the Mississippi river where it runs east-west. In fact if nature had its way, New Orleans would no longer be on the banks of the great Mississippi River, only the back waters. 20th Century engineers & congress in 1954 kept the river from shortening its trek to the Gulf through the Atchafalaya river and swamp.

New Orleans, much like earlier centuries has had some rough times in the 20th century. It is a large and an important port but also a very corrupt city. Businesses come and go in New Orleans and with great regularity. No one reason but the corruption & its public education has to be in the top five. Before Katrina it had slums that would rival 3rd world ghettos. Drugs and violence are a way of life in this city. New Orleans main source of income is tourism where they can conveniently hide their dirty laundry from short term visitors. Not so with big commercial investors who can bring a higher standard of living for the workers of this city and a more diverse tax base. But they seldom stay for the long term.

The police of Louisiana have perfectly portrayed themselves during the early days. Desertion of duty, looting of the local businesses they were suppose to be protecting. We watched them beat the man on Bourbon Street. Then there was the Gretna Police chief who turned the walking victims back to New Orleans in those early days after Katrina. If anything he should have offered any assistance he could. How did he presume he had authority on a federal highway on a federal bridge.

Some ironic facts around the New Orleans Katrina disaster include but are not limited too.

1. Pumping stations that had non automated electric pumps, close to sea level or below, which flooded in the past under normal heavy rainfall. This means if operators could not get to the pumping station to start the generators, no pumping takes place if the power goes down. Rumor says that many of these pumping stations did not have back up generators. These rumors need further investigation on my part. Rumors of pumping station problems were talked about among our friends in the Chalmette section of New Orleans after their brush with Isidore in 2002.

2.With the exception of Oschners why were hospitals not better prepared to deal with a long siege after a major hurricane.

3. Why did the levee board purchase a plane and a casino in the past ten years when the levees were known to be insufficient for a substantial hurricane. They were receiving federal funds for the supposed improvement of those levees?

4. Why was the Cadillac dealership looted with many of the vehicles showing up being used by police or former police? One ended up in Texas in the position of a deserting policeman.

5. The New Orleans police force is probably one of the worst paid of any major American city, which invites corruption.

6. Check into the black/white ratio of city officials in the city of New Orleans and check out racism (in reverse).

7. Why is New Orleans one of the highest automobile insurance rates in the country? We had an insurance claim against one of our drivers, by the police who claimed he hit a women’s car. He was traveling with my husband and the incident NEVER HAPPENED but it was our word against the police and this women.

Unfortunately those who truly suffer the most, are those who can do the least. The predominantly black establishment in New Orleans have forsaken their own. Those who were victims of Katrina that are now living in safe, clean, well governed areas outside New Orleans are winners. They have a new shot at the American dream which would never have happened had they remained in the lower 9th ward. Katrina might have been Gods answer to many a struggling ghetto mother’s prayer.

As a tax paying American, what are my hopes for New Orleans. I don’t want to see it die but I also don’t want to see the New Orleans of 2004. I don’t want the federal government to pour in billions of dollars to the salivating, corrupt politicians. If its actual cost would be 10 billion to fortify the city and its levies, in New Orleans you would need an extra 10 or 20 billion to buy off those in power. I am not naive enough to think corruption doesn’t exist in other states and cities across the country including Washington DC, but New Orleans and much of Louisiana has made it a fine art.

Check out my information and verify. Then write your Senators and Representatives. Keep in mind that the same is not true of the gulf coast of Mississippi and Alabama to the best of my knowledge and don’t loose sight that the suffering have no control over these issues.

Some Reference Sites

1. MSNBC Article by Lisa Myers & the NBC Investigative Unit at http//www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9342186/from/RL.4/print/1/displaymode/1098/


2. Christopher Tidmore article at http://www.itsonlypolitics.com/archives/2003_02.html

3. “New Orleans may Seize Gambling Boat” article in Times-Picayune. January 18th, 2006 by Stephanie Showalter.

4. “The Board of Commissioner of the Orleans Levee District” web site in their own words tell you how they are spending their money. Only two related to their supposed purpose of the care and development of levee system.
http://www.orleanslevee.com/Bids%20and%20Proposals%20-%20Engineering.htm

5. Average Acts scores in 2005 only Mississippi and Washington DC had lower scores than Louisiana. http://www.act.org/news/data/05/states.html