BS: Predictions for New Orleans

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 10:25 PM

When they set up underground Atlanta as an attraction, some un-needed old beams and other materials were removed. They were reused by a friend in a large country place. He operated construction machinery so he was able to salvage and re-use. Otherwise the fine old wood would have been sent to the dump.

I would expect much in N. O. that can be salvaged wil be re-used.

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 09:51 PM

I'm wid mg on this one... Hey, I love old buildings... I love old glass doorknobs and doors that been cut a dozen times to keep 'um shuttin'... That's called character... Like the lines in an ol' person's face that is like roadmaps to what they been thru...

Yeah, rehab it... Don't gentrify it...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 09:37 PM

Bulldoe the whole thing and let the anthropologists sort it out in about 500 years. If they are still above water, that is.

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 02:37 PM

I am thinking more of the old planks in floors, walls, rafters etc..not used for strucutral but perhaps cleaned up???? and used again. I know if they were pristine there is some fantastic lumber there but I don't know how or if they could be reclaimed once they are sitting in the toxic soup. Anyone know? Also, there is old glass, old brass doorknobs...things of great historical and emotional value to people who otherwise have lost it all.   mg

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 07:36 AM

Actually, Richard, we are vastly under-regulated and vastly over-"ruled"...

The current social climate in the United States is quite uncomfy in many opf our neigborhoods... Especially in our suburbs where everywhere you look there are little power hungry people who seize control of their local home ownersassociations or board of supervisotrs and ram lots of dumbass stuff down their neighbors throats...

On the other hand, when it comes to some real common sense things where regulation is needed, these same folks have a wild west mentality... Think utilities, 'er health care here...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 03:54 AM

"It is illegal to wash your car in your driveway in many cities, including the Canadian city "

I am gobsmacked! And you people in the new world call us in England over-regulated!

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 13 Sep 05 - 01:31 AM

From mg'a post above: ...they will try to reclaim a lot of the old wood in the houses that have to be torn down...

Not unless Louisiana's building codes are a lot different from Florida's. Those rebuilding or making major repairs after Ivan paid his little visit to us a year ago had to use all new materials. Non-structural materials like windows and doors can be recycled, but not the actual framing lumber.

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 10:12 PM

I wouldn't want no contract in NO, Q, since I know perfectly well where the money is comin' from... Bunch of gentrifyin' white guys...

Have to take a pass...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 08:43 PM

What? You didn't get a contract, Bobert?

(It is illegal to wash your car in your driveway in many cities, including the Canadian city where I live)

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 08:28 PM

I have to agree with the original GUEST...

Yeah, I can envision just about everything that GUEST says will happen as happenin'...

NO will be safer fronm storm because there is a wave of PR and ther Repubs will use NO as their club against the Dems as they rebuild, and rebuild and rebuild... And who will get the contracts??? Hahahaha.....

We know who will get 'um... The Fat Cat Repub donors...

And what will NO look like when they are done? It will be so squeaky clean and gentrified that you'll need prior apporabval to wash yer car in yer own driveway...

And every will live in pink houses and there will be video camera's in every bedroom wired directly to the morality cops to be sure that no-one has too much fun...

Yeah, and you won't no poor Niggra widin' a hunner miles...

But, you'll have Trent Jones golf courses and tannnin spas on every corner... An' big country clubs...

But no poor assed Niggra's seein' as them folks can't afford to live in no area where so much has been invested...

Yeah, that's the way I see it... I hope Iz wrong but over the last few decades Iz seen just 'nuff of what white *men* do... They is one trick ponies...

Yeah, tehy'll rebuild NO but they'll re*develope* it while they are in there...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 08:15 PM

New Orleans will be back, in the same place, faster than the most optomistic predict. In six weeks, 40% not only will be free of water, but will be on the way to recovery.

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 06:28 PM

"The dispossesed of New Orleans deserve to have their lives returned to them as completely as possible"

no doubt they do....I guess the citizens of Pompeii, those few who survived, also should have been allowed to return and rebuild.

No matter what "should have been done", we must start with where we are now, and there is MUCH doubt that the city of New Orleans can be returned to its former configuration. Even if the multi-billions of dollars necessary to make it safe against similar storms and floods were made available, the process would take years and would be subject to more damage while that doubtful process was proceeding.

   It is simple...New Orleans is the only major US city which is below sea level! This is not a good situation. Nature may give them 100 years...or it may do it again next year. It is just plain foolish to tempt fate under the current conditions.

Yeah, the people SHOULD be helped to re-build their lives....but maybe in a bit safer environment.

Lets see in 6-8 months if more people, including the experts, aren't saying the same thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: pdq
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 05:10 PM

49ers 17, New Orleans 10, in overtime

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: Coyote Breath
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 04:35 PM

Suppose there HADN'T been a Katrina?

and...

What if someone in "the government" (any level) had suggested removing the marginalized population out of NO and dispersing them throughout contiguous states which had the capacity to absorb the dispossesed poor without much obvious ill effect?

Then what if that same "government" suggested that NO could be 'transformed' into a more attractive venue for the rich cajun/creole cultural hertitage, thereby generating generous income from 'tourism'? And could then provide tens of thousands of 'entry level' jobs to aid contribut to the economic well being of a large 'flexible' workforce?

I doubt that anyone but the most socially dense amongst us would tolerate such a "Modest Proposal". We would be outraged!!

But I suggest that what will happen will be what I outlined above, in one form or another.

And I'm outraged.

The dispossesed of New Orleans deserve to have their lives returned to them as completely as possible. Although they lived in a city that was assuredly built in the wrong place: even though they "should have known" to have left New Orleans at the first opportunity; they stayed, in good part because those who were well aware of the drawbacks to living in the Big Easy were loathe to encourage a migration of so large a low-wage work force. The displaced poor of New Orleans were not dealt with honestly. A situation NOT of their making and one that has been in place for a very long time.

The disaster of Katrina illuminates what some have suspected and many have been burdened with: America is an imperial power exploiting an internal "third world".

CB

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 03:35 PM

today's Washington Post

if you can't get in, here is the main thrust:

A Sad Truth: Cities Aren't Forever
Who, What, When, Where, Why?

By Joel Garreau

Sunday, September 11, 2005; Page B01

The city of New Orleans is not going to be rebuilt.

The tourist neighborhoods? The ancient parts from the French Quarter to the Garden District on that slim crescent of relatively high ground near the river? Yes, they will be restored. The airport and the convention center? Yes, those, too.
Hurricane Katrina: The Aftermath
The Great Unknowns
Of all the countless questions that will have to be asked when investigations into the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina get underway, perhaps the first should be this: "How many local, state and federal administrators in charge of disaster management have actually been through a hurricane?

But the far larger swath -- the real New Orleans where the tourists don't go, the part that Katrina turned into a toxic soup bowl, its population of 400,000 scattered to the waves? Not so much.

When Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert said that it makes no sense to spend billions of federal dollars to rebuild a city that's below sea level, he added, "It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed." In the face of criticism, he hurried to "clarify" his remarks. But according to Washington lore, such a flap occurs when someone inadvertently tells the truth. New Orleans has had a good run for 287 years, but even before Katrina hit, the city was on the wane, as its steadily dropping population figures for decades have shown."



He then goes into some arguments and details, using history, statistics...etc...

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: Azizi
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 11:34 AM

Here's excerpts from an article on re-building New Orleans:

Let the People Rebuild New Orleans
Naomi Klein
[posted September 8, 2005;September 26, 2005 issue of
The Nation]


"...When I was in Sri Lanka six months after the tsunami, many survivors told me that the reconstruction was victimizing them all over again. A council of the country's most prominent businesspeople had been put in charge of the process, and they were handing the coast over to tourist developers at a frantic pace. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of poor fishing people were still stuck in sweltering inland camps, patrolled by soldiers with machine guns and entirely dependent on relief agencies for food and water. They called reconstruction "the second tsunami."

There are already signs that New Orleans evacuees could face a similarly brutal second storm. Jimmy Reiss, chairman of the New Orleans Business Council, told Newsweek that he has been brainstorming about how "to use this catastrophe as a once-in-an-eon opportunity to change the dynamic." The Business Council's wish list is well-known: low wages, low taxes, more luxury condos and hotels. Before the flood, this highly profitable vision was already displacing thousands of poor African-Americans: While their music and culture was for sale in an increasingly corporatized French Quarter (where only 4.3 percent of residents are black), their housing developments were being torn down. "For white tourists and businesspeople, New Orleans' reputation is 'a great place to have a vacation but don't leave the French Quarter or you'll get shot,'" Jordan Flaherty, a New Orleans-based labor organizer told me the day after he left the city by boat. "Now the developers have their big chance to disperse the obstacle to gentrification--poor people."

Here's a better idea: New Orleans could be reconstructed by and for the very people most victimized by the flood. Schools and hospitals that were falling apart before could finally have adequate resources; the rebuilding could create thousands of local jobs and provide massive skills training in decent paying industries. Rather than handing over the reconstruction to the same corrupt elite that failed the city so spectacularly, the effort could be led by groups like Douglass Community Coalition. Before the hurricane this remarkable assembly of parents, teachers, students and artists was trying to reconstruct the city from the ravages of poverty by transforming Frederick Douglass Senior High School into a model of community learning. They have already done the painstaking work of building consensus around education reform. Now that the funds are flowing, shouldn't they have the tools to rebuild every ailing public school in the city?

For a people's reconstruction process to become a reality (and to keep more contracts from going to Halliburton), the evacuees must be at the center of all decision-making. According to Curtis Muhammad of Community Labor United, the disaster's starkest lesson is that African-Americans cannot count on any level of government to protect them. "We had no caretakers," he says. That means the community groups that do represent African-Americans in Louisiana and Mississippi -- many of which lost staff, office space and equipment in the flood -- need our support now. Only a massive injection of cash and volunteers will enable them to do the crucial work of organizing evacuees -- currently scattered through forty-one states--into a powerful political constituency. The most pressing question is where evacuees will live over the next few months. A dangerous consensus is building that they should collect a little charity, apply for a job at the Houston Wal-Mart and move on. Muhammad and CLU, however, are calling for the right to return: they know that if evacuees are going to have houses and schools to come back to, many will need to return to their home states and fight for them"....

-snip-

To read the complete article, click The Nation

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 11:01 AM

Yes Peter, you are missing something. Conservatives are putting up smokescreens like your note instead of dealing with the issues. Hardcore liberals are waving their fingers saying "I told you so". Neither side is getting anything done, which is why places like Mudcat are great for whiners.

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 10:43 AM

UK papers today are reporting on the 'mercy killings' that the doctors undertook in the New Orleans hospitals. The wards were being rampaged by 'rapists and looters', so they had to take the heartbreaking decision to overdose terminally ill patients on morphine. Those responsible are technically guilty of murder in a round about way. I predict they will never be held to account for their crimes.

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: Midchuck
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 09:53 AM

There's a disconnect in the first post above:

3. The Republicans will float suggestions that perhaps New Orleans is just unsafe and shouldnt be rebuilt.

It is a given among the liberals that global warming is real and is a serious threat. (I'm not saying it isn't, I'm just saying that the liberals generally consider it to be beyond debate.)

One of the necessary consequences of global warming appears to be the melting of the polar ice. There's a good deal of evidence that this is in fact happening.

If the polar ice melts, sea levels will rise.

If sea levels rise, the probability of the same thing happening again if NO is rebuilt rises as well.

So, logically, shouldn't the Democrats be the ones to argue that New Orleans is unsafe and shouldn't be rebuilt?

Or am I missing something?

Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 09:45 AM

The BBC showed footage of the 'toxic sludge' that has been left on the streets where the waters are subsiding. And the bodies that are only now coming to light. It looks like a mammoth clean up operation will be needed. They reported that the city won't be fit for people to return to for months. One resident said he is still missing 8 family members, but is still waiting to be allowed to go into the morgues to look for them. I think and hope it will recover, but will never be the same. I hope the victims don't end up footing the bill or even part of it, but fear they will.

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: SINSULL
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 09:29 AM

There will be a Mardi Gras celebration to end all next year. New Orleans in ten years will have only vague memories of the disaster. Stronger levees, better built homes (at least on the law books)will create a false sense of security. And it will of course happen again.

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: Bo Vandenberg
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 08:25 AM

To Guest,W

Who held the loan?

I assume the US GOV????

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: GUEST,W
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 08:17 AM

Guest @12:56 AM;

I don't know if what you say is true or not but remember one thing - as far back as I can remember, the winner gets the largest trophy.
(and don't go to election crap)

And Sigurd, your first paragraph is pretty much on - they arrange for replacements, grants or low interest loans for repair.
Been on both sides of FEMA - was a volunteer info gatherer for a second situation. Received a low interest loan for the first. (flood)

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: Bo Vandenberg
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 08:08 AM

It begins

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/09/10/katrina_fema_must_te.html

I had a fairly thorough look through the FEMA website, and no where could I find any mention of any plans to tell people FEMA's intentions for their homes. There are instructions for registering a claim with FEMA, but it is not clear to me what FEMA does for you once your claim is registered. Is this simply a mechanism for receiving aid money? Or does their attention to your claim involve keeping you updated on whether they plan to tear down your neighborhood? Anyone know?

...

The question is this: How much of New Orleans does FEMA plan to restore, and how much does it plan to simply replace. And if the houses are replaced with something else, are they to be replaced for their original owners? Or will the land be taken by eminent domain and redistributed?

...

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: akenaton
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 04:17 AM

Thanks John...I've been looking for your poets name...
Sorry to butt in...Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: John O'L
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 03:38 AM

I posted this poem to another thread recently but here is where it probably belongs. I hope not.

The Awfulisers

Every night and every day
The awfulisers work away,
Awfulising public places,
Favourite things and little graces;
Awfulising lovely treasures,
Common joys and simple pleasures;
Awfulising far and near
The parts of life we held so dear:
Democratic, clean and lawful,
Awful, afwul, awful, awful

Michael Leunig

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: mg
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 03:10 AM

I predict they will shore up the levies...is it true they are just made out of dirt/?/ tell me no...they will build higher and out of more cement above 20 feet or so..lots of new housing codes..they will try to reclaim a lot of the old wood in the houses that have to be torn down...some people will never come back...they will change some things and the french quarter will be spruced up..they will be having all sorts of tourists come in both for support and to see the damage...they will rebuild somewhat whether they should or not..it might be more of a destination than a place to live..like Disneyland.....mg

Subject: RE: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: Sorcha
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 01:19 AM

I wish I knew who you are Guest....as it is, I will not respond to your comments....

Subject: BS: Predictions for New Orleans
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 12:56 AM

1. The government (both state * fed) will push survivors from the land.

2. The white house will minimize the human loss and publicise how much work has to be done to make New Orleans Safe.

3. The Republicans will float suggestions that perhaps New Orleans is just unsafe and shouldnt be rebuilt.

4. Much of the work will be done enriching Haliburton and White House lobbiests.

5. Residents will be asked to pay the bill for the clean up. A minority group (eg veterens) will get a publicised discount / repreave from these fees. Much of poorer New Orleans will default on this fee, surrendering their land to Bush flunkies.

6. Flunkies will remodel and rebuild New Orleans with trendy and expensive homes where the poor used to live before they were pushed out by lack of work and clean up fees.

7. New Orleans of the past will be demonized as lawless and lude. Flunkies will celebrate their new New Orleans and the news will never carry the stories of the displaced & poor.



Thats not what I think should happen but what I think will happen.