How much more for New Orleans? (Aug. 25)
By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune
Now that five years has passed since Hurricane Katrina wrecked the Gulf Coast, and especially New Orleans, people are starting to ask “where has all the money gone?”
The federal government has been castigated for not doing enough to help New Orleans, but the facts don’t seem to bear that out. The federal government — that’s you and yours truly, folks — has pumped close to $200 billion into trying to bring the Gulf Coast back. And that doesn’t include what the insurance companies spent.
In New Orleans, the Army Corps of Engineers is spending billions on huge pumps, trying to prevent another flood disaster should another Katrina come along. More billions are being spent to fix up housing. And still more billions are going toward replacing worn out infrastructure.
But when did it become the nation’s responsibility to rebuild New Orleans, to turn it into a safe and secure city?
New Orleans was a basket case even before the hurricane. Its municipal services were among the least competent in America. Its police department was among the most corrupt. A simple thing like a title search on many of the properties that were destroyed was almost impossible.
To make all that worse, much of New Orleans sits below sea level behind huge dikes. It is webbed by canals that flooded when Katrina came along, and that likely will fail again if another big storm hits. It seems insane not to move the city to higher ground and turn the low-lying areas into parks and docks.
We see pictures of the French Quarter area of bars, restaurants and tourist traps, and are told that fabled neighborhood has come back. And if it has, that’s good.
But beyond the French Quarter, much of New Orleans is a place you don’t want to be at night, or even in daylight.
I wish the citizens of New Orleans no ill, but if another Katrina hits, I hope that as a taxpayer I don’t have to shell out once more to rebuild a city that may not be worth rebuilding unless it’s relocated to higher ground.
