Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Waiting for Godot

Today marks the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina on the calendar. As you know, New Orleans is a city that has been woven into my life's story and held a special place in my heart. That is gone and I am angry. The Mississippi Gulf coast is the place of my birth and holds a special place in my heart. That is still there and I am thankful. The re-building of the two areas highlight a contrast of human character like no other.

Today on a morning show I heard a remarkable story that lifts me up about New Orleans and the people there. A school principal, Mardele Simmons Early of Lake Forest Elementary School in New Orleans East is a hero. Under her leadership, last November a group of teachers and she returned to New Orleans to bring back their school. Pre-Katrina, Lake Forest Elementary School was one of several elementary and middle schools in the area. It was completely destroyed in the storm. Under Ms. Early's leadership, the school received available government monies to rebuild and open on time for the new school year, August 16. It is now a charter school. It received $1.4 million in federal monies. Pre-Katrina the school population of Lake Forest Elementary consisted of 372 students. The population of the school now is 345 students. It is the only school open in her New Orleans East district. A core value she teaches to her students is self-reliance. All students are required to do community service.

Waiting for Godot is a famous play, in the category of the Theatre of the Absurd, by Samuel Beckett. The main characters are waiting for something to alleviate their boredom. The theme of waiting.

The political leadership in Louisiana and, more importantly in New Orleans, are waiting. Waiting to focus in on a clear plan for reconstruction of a unique American city. The mayor of Chocolate City hasn't cobbled together a cohesive plan for the infastructure of the city to be restored. How are people to come home if the water isn't running and the lights aren't on? How are they to bring their families back home if the schools aren't open and the neighborhood grocery stores and the hospitals aren't up and running? How are they to trust a local government that doesn't bother to follow an emergency disaster plan when one has been in place for years? How are they to trust a mayor who wouldn't evacuate his city when the president of the United States personally called him and advised him to do it and then the day before the storm hit was called by the Hurricane Center's director, Max Mayfield, who pleaded for the mayor to act? Sunday the president of the city's council missed a meeting on Hurricane Ernesto readiness because he overslept, according to his own staff. Nothing has changed.

The democrats are trying to make hay out of this anniversary. Go ahead. New Orleans is a city completely dominated by the democratic party. By deciding they were Democrats above being Americans the state and city leadership decided to ignore the federal administration's guidance and go it on their own. Until the storm hit and the city washed away, that is. Mistakes were made all around, to be sure, but to lay it all at the federal level is dishonest and absurd.

The state of Mississippi handled things a little differently. The people evacuated and then came back and rolled up their sleeves. Mississippi is the poorest of the states in this country so don't fall victim to the excuses that the poor people of New Orleans had no way to survive. Mississippi's coast was completely leveled. Parts of New Orleans remained intact and were operating in a matter of days, such as the French Quarter which is the oldest part of the city and on higher ground.

You know what destroyed New Orleans? It was the exposure of the culture of corruption and governmental dependence of the city's poor. The city has been allotted an unprecedented amount of federal funds and a large part of the funds remain in limbo, waiting for the mayor and the governor to simply do the paperwork. The paperwork involves plans and ideas, though, so there lies the problem. To continue to throw money at corrupt leadership is an excercise in futility.

The mayor of New Orleans is an idiot and the governor of Louisiana is incompetent. The fact that the mayor was recently re-elected tells me that nothing has changed. Too bad they are not wise enough to look to the state next to them and take a page from the Republican governor's book, if they just want to play politics.

"It is better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life." - Elizabeth Kenny

4 comments:

srp said...

After living in Mississippi for fifteen years I do think there are people there who have what it takes to recover and succeed... perserverence and self-sufficiency. Helping the people there is a worthwhile cause.

I wish I could say the same for New Orleans. I admire the principal of that school but how can she help but feel like she is fighting a losing battle. Nagin was re-elected. They want everything done for them or want to blame. Personally, I don't think New Orleans can afford to be rebuilt "just as it was". Not with the mayor and governor and other officers they have in there.

Frankly I agree with Nyssa, I'm sick to death of news commentators broadcasting from New Orleans.... let them do the nightly news from Waveland or Bay St. Louis. Then we would see what people can do to rebuild in addition to how much there is still left to be done.

Beverly said...

Ditto to all the SRP said.

SEAWITCH said...

thomas,

The mayors of Gulfport, Biloxi, Waveland, and other coastal Mississippi had their rebuilding plans within two months of Katrina. Some our Democrats and some are Republicans.

The party affiliation really doesn't matter. What matters is leadership. The mayor of Gulfport, as well as several others, had only been in office 2 months when Katrina struck. Brent Warr made mistakes but he buckled down and is leading the people of Gulfport in it's rebuilding efforts.

Nagin still doens't have a comprehensive plan. Federal dollars are not getting into Louisiana because the state and city officials do not have the plans to show how the money will be spent.

Mississippi is doing so well because Democrats, Republicans, and Independents are working together.

That's the key. We are all working together. We have leaders who have formulated plans and we are following them.

All of us in Gulfport realize that it will take years if not decades to replace the 30,000 homes that were lost in Harrison County.

There are over 100,000 homes in Mississippi that will have to rebuilt. The only way that it is going to get done is to work together.

There are many people in New Orleans who want to rebuild. They are anxious to rebuild but there is no real leadership and that will slow the recovery down.

Jennifer said...

There are times it seems impossible that a year has gone by, and this struck me again last night when I watched all the footage of twelve months later and it hit home how much is left to do. I look at the government beauracracy surrounding the whole affair and am poignantly reminded of the "lead, follow, or get out of the way" addage.