The new New Orleans

Response slows to a crawl

In one of few recent “victories” for Katrina victims, a New Orleans judge ordered today that FEMA continue to pay hotel bills until February instead of January as they had planned. This means 42,000 families have somewhere to live for the next two months. Unfortunately, this is not a universal truth.

As reported on cnn.com today, there is a MAJOR shortage of housing for victims of Katrina. It’s three months out and people are still living in tents. Unacceptable.

FEMA reports that they have some trailers and are just waiting for spots to put them – but there are not enough trailers to fill the great housing need. The President of St. Bernard Parish says they have identified more, cheaper trailers that FEMA could buy but that St. Bernard can’t pay for them. With the Parish Board doing the work for them (by finding the buyers and locations to put them), why isn’t FEMA moving faster?

FEMA official response was made by Nicol Andrews who said:

“So far, FEMA has provided rental assistance for more than 500,000 families and housed more than 40,000 in travel trailers.”

Great Nicol, but until every family has a house your work is not done. And, this idea of the slow response seems to be a trend.

Mississippi’s governor Hailey Barbour said, "we are at a point where our recovery and renewal efforts are stalled because of inaction in Washington D.C." Barbour went on to say there was no money to rebuild highways and bridges and school districts were close to bankruptcy.

So what is the Senate doing? They are still holding hearings and working on getting aid to Louisiana and Mississippi while thousands sit homeless and hungry, without jobs, schools or hope. Most frustrating is that, as the Senate stretches out their response, $30,000,000,000 sits unused and inaccessible in a FEMA account.

But wait, steps to prevent inaction are being taken.

Hopefully, Senator Mary Landrieu’s promise to block a December recess will occur if aid is not approved before the Senate’s Christmas holiday. It sickens me to think that the Senate would allow themselves a holiday break while thousands of their citizens sit homeless in the cold. I sincerely hope they get things moving quickly.

Additionally, the Daily Kos reports that two New Orleans residents are organizing a march on Washington for tomorrow – Dec. 14th. This would be great but it has not received much hype around Louisiana so I wonder if it will really happen.

Overall, I think this article says it best:

“After the initial slow government response to the disaster, President Bush flew to the region and promised the government will "do what it takes, stay as long as it
takes, to help our citizens rebuild their communities and their lives." Well that promise is feeling increasingly hollow to many people.”

I sincerely hope that aid is delivered before the holiday season but it seems unlikely with Christmas only 12 days away. People are becoming frustrated yet again. Promises are not being filled. The Senate who criticized Bush and FEMA for being slow is being incredibly slow. And every day, residents of New Orleans get more and more settled in cities across the country.

It looks like the early prediction (see previous post) that half of the city might not return could really come true. Not a very happy holiday.

posted by Jessie Tucker @ 12/13/2005