THE HANDSTAND

LATE AUTUMN2008

“Get out of the French Quarter!”

If you had to name one thing that you wanted outsiders to understand about New Orleans or the Gulf Coast, what would it be?

“Hurricane Katrina is still going on.”

In your opinion, what has been the region’s greatest contribution to the rest of the country?

“New Orleans is the great American music city, and an alternate American history all in itself.”

What is the biggest change that needs to be made in order to promote progress in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast?

“Real protection needs to be put in place. The sea comes up to the ass end of the city now. There have to be barriers to block a future storm surge, MR-GO must be shut down, and the levees have to be right.”

What is the most obvious lesson that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita should have taught us?

“That we have to take our government back from the oil companies.”

If you had to pick the best song about New Orleans or the Gulf Coast, what would it be?

“You gotta be kidding! But for an engaged take on post-flood New Orleans, Dr. John’s album City That Care Forgot.”

What is the most overlooked or underappreciated aspect of New Orleans/the Gulf?

“How fundamental it is to the United States’ claim to be a nation.”

What is one thing that every tourist to New Orleans/the Gulf Coast should avoid?

“Get out of the French Quarter.”

www.rockrap.com

POSTED AS YET ANOTHER HURRICANE APPROACHES NEW ORLEANS

Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans???

You Probably Do Since There Has Been A Corporate Media Blackout Of The Aftermath Of One Of America's Greatest Human Made Tragedies...Three Years Later It Still Seems That What Hit The Crescent City Happened Only Three Days Ago...The City Will Never Be The Same...Since This Is A Political Season The Question Remains : How Are We Going To Rebuild A Country When We Can't Rebuild A Great American City???

New Orleans Three Years Later: The Numbers Tell The Story!!!

0 The Number of renters in Louisiana who have received financial assistance from the $10 billion federal post-Katrina rebuilding program Road Home Community Development Block Grant – compared to 116,708 homeowners.

0. The Number of apartments currently being built to replace the 963 public housing apartments formerly occupied and now demolished at the St. Bernard Housing Development.

0.The Amount of data available to evaluate performance of publicly financed privately run charter schools in New Orleans in 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 school years.

.008.% Of the rental homes that were supposed to be repaired and occupied by August 2008 which were actually completed and occupied – a total of 82 finished out of 10,000 projected.

1st. Rank of New Orleans among U.S. cities in percentage of housing vacant or ruined.

1st. Rank of New Orleans among U.S. cities in murders per capita for 2006 and 2007.

4. Number of the 13 City of New Orleans Planning Districts that are at the same risk of flooding as they were before Katrina.

10. The Number of apartments being rehabbed so far to replace the 896 apartments formerly occupied and now demolished at the Lafitte Housing Development.

11% Of families who have returned to live in Lower Ninth Ward.

17% Increase in wages in the hotel and food industry since before Katrina.

20-25. Years that experts estimate it will take to rebuild the City of New Orleans at current pace.
25.% Fewer hospitals in metro New Orleans than before Katrina.

32% Of the city’s neighborhoods that have fewer than half as many households as they did before Katrina.

36% Fewer tons of cargo that move through Port of New Orleans since Katrina.

38%.Fewer hospital beds in New Orleans since Katrina.

40%.Fewer special education students attending publicly funded privately run charter schools than traditional public schools.

41. The Number of publicly funded privately run public charter schools in New Orleans out of total of 79 public schools in the city.

43%. Of child care available in New Orleans compared to before Katrina.

46%. Increase in rents in New Orleans since Katrina.

56%. Fewer inpatient psychiatric beds than before Katrina.

80%.Fewer public transportation buses now than pre-Katrina.

81%. Of homeowners in New Orleans who received insufficient funds to cover the complete costs to repair their homes.

300. Number of National Guard troops still in City of New Orleans.

1080. Days National Guard troops have remained in City of New Orleans.

1250. Number of publicly financed vouchers for children to attend private schools in New Orleans in program’s first year.

6,982. Number of families still living in FEMA trailers in metro New Orleans area.

8,000. Fewer publicly assisted rental apartments planned for New Orleans by federal government.

10,000. Houses demolished in New Orleans since Katrina.

12,000. Number of homeless in New Orleans even after camps of people living under the bridge has been resettled - double the pre-Katrina number.

14,000. Number of displaced families in New Orleans area whose hurricane rental assistance expires March 2009.

32,000. Number of children who have not returned to public school in New Orleans, leaving the public school population less than half what is was pre-Katrina.

39,000. Number of Louisiana homeowners who have applied for federal assistance in repair and rebuilding who have still not received any money.

45,000. Fewer children enrolled in Medicaid public healthcare in New Orleans than pre-Katrina.

46,000. Fewer African American voters in New Orleans in 2007 gubernatorial election than 2003 gubernatorial election.

55,000. Fewer houses receiving mail than before Katrina.

62,000. Fewer people in New Orleans enrolled in Medicaid public healthcare than pre-Katrina.

71,657. Vacant, ruined, unoccupied houses in New Orleans today.

124,000. Fewer people working in metropolitan New Orleans than pre-Katrina.

132,000. Fewer people in New Orleans than before Katrina, according to the City of New Orleans current population estimate of 321,000 in New Orleans.

214,000. Fewer people in New Orleans than before Katrina, according to the U.S. Census Bureau current population estimate of 239,000 in New Orleans.

453,726. Population of New Orleans before Katrina.

320 million. The number trees destroyed in Louisiana and Mississippi by Katrina.

368 million. Dollar losses of five major metro New Orleans hospitals from Katrina through 2007. In 2008, these hospitals expect another $103 million in losses.

1.9 Billion. FEMA dollars scheduled to be available to metro New Orleans for Katrina damages that have not yet been delivered.

2.6 Billion. FEMA dollars scheduled to be available to State of Louisiana for Katrina damages that have not yet been delivered.

Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. He can be reached at Quigley77@gmail.com

I don't think the US authorities have any choice but to do what they are doing, but the data on rainfall that I'm seeing on Gustav doesn't live up to the hysteria I see in the media.

I moved here from Aylesbury almost 10 years ago, so I was in New Orleans for Tropical Storm Cindy, Hurricane Ivan and stayed through Hurricane Katrina. I've seen it all before.

The US media is adding to this hysteria and New Orleans' mayor, Ray Nagin, has been forced (by 100,000 people in New Orleans who have no access to 'instant' transport) to echo this hype, and after his performance during Katrina, he has no choice but to stress the importance of evacuation. For him it's a case of 'damned if you do, and damned if you don't'.

I've recently driven around the city - it's deserted, apart from the usual unsavoury characters lurking in doorways who always stay behind at times like these waiting their chance for chaos and profit.

My wife Candace is a nurse and has been working round the clock preparing nursing home patients for evacuation. They have now left and she's home, finally catching up on much needed sleep.

I've taken all the necessary precautions - but my house didn't flood when then levees broke with Katrina, so I think my wife and I will be fine. We have gallons of water, food, batteries, calor gas, lamps, generator and a cook stove. And from previous experience, lots of insect repellent!

I also have a shotgun by the door and a pistol holster on my belt. The kind of characters I saw on my drive round the town wait til the hurricane hits and then go looting. I'm concerned, but I'm not taking any chances either.
BBC WORLD NEWS

4 Investigates: Floodwalls stuffed with newspaper?

11:54 PM CDT on Thursday, April 24, 2008

Lee Zurik / WWL-TV News Anchor

“It blows my mind.”

Those are the words St. Bernard parish president Craig Taffaro used to watch videotape Eyewitness News showed him, of floodwalls built to protect his parish.

“That should be criminal,” Taffaro continues.

What he's talking about was witnessed by a St. Bernard Parish resident who didn't want to be identified, but did have sharp criticism of the work done by a contractor hired by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. “It's like putting a Band-Aid on the hole of a gas tank of an airplane,” the resident said. Instead of an airplane, it's a floodwall, and instead of a Band-Aid, the witness says two years ago, he saw the contractor filling the expansion joint or opening between the floodwalls with newspaper.

“The whole length of the wall was stuffed with newspaper.”

And when he confronted the contractor, the contractor blamed Washington for the substandard work. “He basically told me when Congress sent down the money, it would be repaired the proper way.”

But during a recent trip to the area, two years later, it was apparent that didn't happen. Much of the newspaper had deteriorated or been eaten by bugs, but some still remained. In fact WWL cameras even captured the date May 21, 2006, on a page of the Parade magazine from the Times-Picayune.

Eyewitness News asked local engineer Subhash Kulkarni to investigate the findings at the floodwall.

“They should have done a better job than what you see here.”

Kulkarni is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers. The ASCE named him outstanding civil engineer in Louisiana back in 2003. “I cannot even comprehend that somebody would stuff some newspaper in there.”

Engineers tell Eyewitness News an expansion joint has three lines of defense. The first is an elastic strip that helps keep water out. In the middle is the most important part, a waterstop, which is in fact included in the St. Bernard floodwall. However what is missing is a rubber joint that goes in between and helps keep foreign objects out.

The witness who talked to Eyewitness News says the contractor used the newspaper in place of the rubber joint. Kulkarni says it's not a short term risk, but over time that missing rubber joint could weaken that waterstop. “It could be very serious,” Kulkarni said. “It doesn't take a lot of stress to cause the failure of these floodwalls. We don't know after two or three years how the main joint will perform. This is the first line of defense.”

But the Army Corps of Engineers says it is confident the floodwall will sufficiently defend residents of St. Bernard and the Ninth Ward. “If you look at the repairs we made to the joints, there's not really a safety issue with the joints at all,” said Kevin Wagner with the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps also says it’s satisfied with the quality of work done by its contractor. When asked by WWL if there was any shoddy work involved, Wagner said, “I don't think so at all.”

But days before that interview, after a request by Eyewitness News , another Corps employee e-mailed the Corps’ standards for expansion joint construction and in that e-mail, the Corps employee describes the specific materials needed as "sponge rubber" that goes next to the waterstop. That’s the same spot where a witness saw a contractor stuffing newspaper back in 2006.

When asked if the absence of material behind the waterstop was what was called for in the contract, Corps spokesman Kevin Wagner called the project an emergency repair. “If we would have built a new floodwall that would not have been the case. We would have the waterstop, some joint filler material in between and then we would put an elastic sealer over the top of it,” Wagner said. “In this case we tried to do the repairs as quick as possible to protect the water stop before the start of hurricane season.”

But according to the contract obtained by Eyewitness News, that may not be the case. The contract calls for Ercon Corporation, based in Lafayette, Louisiana, to do the almost $2 million of work to raise and repair the floodwall under the Paris Road bridge. In the contract, WWL found at least four mentions of field molded sealants. Kulkarni says that is the sponge rubber material to fill the cavity in the expansion joint. And he says the contract shows the rubber material was contractually required to be installed. “I would say they have not met their obligation to install the joint correctly. They haven't installed it at all,” Kulkarni said.

Eyewitness News contacted the president of Ercon Corporation by phone and e-mail. He didn't respond to our repeated requests for a comment on this story. Further, our investigation revealed Ercon Corporation is not even licensed by the state's board for contractors. The Corps of Engineers says as long as the federal government pays for the work, it does not prevent them from hiring an unlicensed Louisiana company. “If you're telling me this is an out of town contractor who drives back to wherever they're from and puts their head on the pillow at night, does it really matter to them that this particular part of the project fails?” St. Bernard president Craig Taffaro asks.

Taffaro calls the response from the Corps and Contractor unacceptable. “Would they let a contractor put Play-Doh in the place of mortar when they put bricks on their house? No, I don't think so,” Taffaro said. He says while newspaper doesn't define the entire levee system, it does have him concerned about the oversight of all work being done in southeast Louisiana. “It's an indictment against the quality of work being done,” Taffaro says. “Let’s hope that same standard wasn't being used in constructing the floodwall in constructing the levees.”