Just over a week ago Rusty was kind enough to ask after me. Right after that my server went into a huff and refused to give me any messages for several days, and it has taken me until now to catch up.
Anyhow, I am slowly recovering from the pneumonia, but it is taking a long time. The docs told me it would be eight to twelve months, but you have to add to that the fact that life is still stressful here in the (not so) Big (not so) Easy.
I am one of the ones fortunate enough to live on that narrow strip of land near the Mississippi - the "sliver by the river" - which did not flood, but it is jam-packed full with returned residents plus recovery workers - insurance adjusters, construction workers, cleanup contractors, you name it. There are still only one-third of the pre-storm restaurants open, and then only for limited hours and with limited menus; likewise very few grocery and drug stores. All of these are full all of the time, with lines for everything. Restaurant owners complain that they are working non-stop but not making any money because the shortage of labor has sent costs way up. Even fast food places which paid minimum wage are now paying $8 or $9 per hour. Grocery stores are generally open 8 a.m. until 7 p.m.
You may have seen President Bush on tv last week telling everyone that New Orleans has recovered and is a good place to bring a family. Snort! How would he know???? His handlers brought his motorcade from the airport to St. Charles Avenue in TEN Minutes!!!!! Of course, all the roads are cleared when he goes anywhere, and I am told sharpshooters are stationed on every overpass he goes under but still. Even at dawn that trip takes me half an hour!! Yes, St. Charles has been cleaned up. It is the city's showpiece boulevard!! Almost all the downed trees have been removed, as have most of the head-high piles of debris. The side streets are a different story. It would be an educational trip for older teens, but the Zoo is only open weekends, the Children's Museum and the Aquarium are closed indefinitely, as are Charity and University hospitals.
Then our illustrious mayor and his "Chocolate City" comment. Of course, he was talking to a Martin Luther King Day audience of about 75 African Americans, but he knew the cameras were there and should have had more sense. On the other hand, he has often been criticised in the past for being "too white". He also mentioned that he didn't care what "Uptown" thought. Sigh. There are a LOT of black residents Uptown.
The day the Prez was here, DH had an eye doctor appointment in the 'burbs. At first I thought we would have to cancel, as our street was blocked off by a cop car. All the side streets leading to where he was were blocked, and I was sorry for an elderly lady who had to park in front of my house and then walk three blocks to her apartment which has covered, secure parking underneath it!!
However, I managed to back out of the street, and take side streets and surface roads instead of the freeway. My way led me through the parts of Uptown which were also flooded. Shocking. There were all these $250K, $500K, $750K homes, in a lovely neighborhood, all ruined. You can see the highwater marks on the outsides. Some "only" had four feet of water inside, others had ten feet. Some of the two-story ones which took less than eight feet of water had the ground floor gutted but where the power had been restored there were a few in which the families were living on the second floor, cooking on charcoal or bottled gas barbecues in the back yard or a microwave in the bedroom and washing cooking pots in the bathroom sink. All of the ground floors and the one-story homes have been completely gutted. There are still head-high piles of debris all over the neighborhood, and in one place I had to take yet another detour because one of them was being loaded onto a big truck. On that detour into a less well-off neighborhood we came across a house which had been blown or washed off its foundation piers and was drunkenly leaning partly on a parked car in its front yard and partly on the house next door.
After the apointment, it was time to eat. Many of the eateries in the 'burbs which did not flood were destroyed by wind damage. However, I did find a Shoney's which was open (until 3 p.m.) and with a notice on the door which gave their new, limited hours and said that they could only serve from the buffet, no regular menu. We were thankful just to find food, but when we saw the President of the United States on tv later that night, telling the world that New Orleans had recovered, you could have seen the steam coming out of my ears.
It is going to take decades, not years, for the entire Gulf Coast from Florida to Texas to recover from Katrina and Rita. We cannot do it alone. If the rest of this great nation wants to keep on having seafood from our wetlands, petroleum products from our offshore wells and onshore refineries and the use of our ports to get their goods to market we need major help.
Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.