2008 Woodie Awards
Rebuilding still slow one year after Katrina
Feature Editorial
Michaelia Fosses
Issue date: 9/4/06 Section: Opinions
Last week marked the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina ravaging the Gulf Coast, leaving her mark especially on the city of New Orleans.
Levees that separated the city were destroyed and the city flooded, with 1,700 people lost to the storm. Now, fewer than half of the city's 460,000 residents have returned, and those who have returned face a lengthy trial of government ineptitude and delayed action by governing bodies.
Only $44 billion of the $110 billion allotted to help rebuild one of the world's great cities has not yet been put to use (and much of it that has been spent was spent in the few weeks following the storm), and inevitably, people are discouraged.
People are still displaced, living in subsidized FEMA trailers and around the country. Their houses are destroyed, only remnants of homes and lives still exist. Those who have moved back are discouraged by the excruciatingly slow process of governmental and bureaucratic affairs.
The city that care forgot must not become the city that everyone forgets. New Orleans has changed lives, sparked thought and changed music as we know it. Now, one year later, there is still time to help, time to make sure that the government lives up to its promises.
The government needs to make sure that the grant applications that have been filed already get approved so ordinary people can start rebuilding not only their homes, but their lives. A sense of stability and progress must be instituted in the city for change to occur.
The US government blundered time and time again in dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the most deadly hurricane on US soil since 1928. For the city to be rebuilt, there must be a sort of plan, a sense that the government actually knows what it is doing, because, inevitably, another hurricane will strike New Orleans, and the citizens of the city must be able to trust that there will not be another Katrina-esque disaster.
New Orleans will never be the same again, but it can still be a city of its own, and not a scrap of its past, ultimately, if the people create it. Jane Jacobs wrote that "Downtown is for people," and now, it holds more true than ever.
Levees that separated the city were destroyed and the city flooded, with 1,700 people lost to the storm. Now, fewer than half of the city's 460,000 residents have returned, and those who have returned face a lengthy trial of government ineptitude and delayed action by governing bodies.
Only $44 billion of the $110 billion allotted to help rebuild one of the world's great cities has not yet been put to use (and much of it that has been spent was spent in the few weeks following the storm), and inevitably, people are discouraged.
People are still displaced, living in subsidized FEMA trailers and around the country. Their houses are destroyed, only remnants of homes and lives still exist. Those who have moved back are discouraged by the excruciatingly slow process of governmental and bureaucratic affairs.
The city that care forgot must not become the city that everyone forgets. New Orleans has changed lives, sparked thought and changed music as we know it. Now, one year later, there is still time to help, time to make sure that the government lives up to its promises.
The government needs to make sure that the grant applications that have been filed already get approved so ordinary people can start rebuilding not only their homes, but their lives. A sense of stability and progress must be instituted in the city for change to occur.
The US government blundered time and time again in dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the most deadly hurricane on US soil since 1928. For the city to be rebuilt, there must be a sort of plan, a sense that the government actually knows what it is doing, because, inevitably, another hurricane will strike New Orleans, and the citizens of the city must be able to trust that there will not be another Katrina-esque disaster.
New Orleans will never be the same again, but it can still be a city of its own, and not a scrap of its past, ultimately, if the people create it. Jane Jacobs wrote that "Downtown is for people," and now, it holds more true than ever.
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