Hi have to wonder about how many are really aware of this. I watch and read several news media outlets, yet I find very little about katrina reconstruction.

Where is the outrage about this?

Do you ever feel like standing on the roof tops and yelling, "Wake up"!!

I lived in N.O. 25 years and did bus.there even longer.No one forced anyone to live in the 9th ward.There are black people in every district but economics decided what you could afford.There has never been a race riot in N.O.There were no lost children swept away.there were mothers who did not know where their children were before or after the storm.

The post by Milton is oh so typical of the comments now being posted on the local Nola blogs and elsewhere by others of his ilk. As a native black female New Orleanian of 55 years, I have had enough of the stereotypes, and total ignorance of my people and my city. I come from a very large extended deeply religious Catholic family. My grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles all worked hard without ever expecting a handout from the government or anyone else. These values have been passed down through the generations. In my city there were hundreds of black families just like mine. Despite the systemic racism which forced them to live in the lower lying areas of the city, my people had such a joy of life that they gave the world a culture which made New Orleans unique among American cities.

I lived in New Orleans for 21 years (much of that time in a neighborhood that was African American, white, and Carribean), and I still live in the general area. I left because of the corruption at every level of government, the increasing crime rate, and the cronyism, but it is the people and the music and the art that I miss, and I always look forward to my visits to the city. There is no other place like New Orleans. To blame the residents for what happened to them because the Corps of Engineers was amoral and the ersatz leaders of the nation didn't give a damn is just too convenient.

The reality is that there were lost children swept away, some of whom waded in neck-high water in the hope of getting on a bus. The old and sick died deaths even worse than their caregivers might have anticipated under normal circumstances. The dogs and cats were thrown into the street like so much garbage. All of it was preventable, not by residents moving away from a place they were told was safe, but by the thoroughly corrupt and inept systems that people are told, on a daily basis, to trust.

In the past seven months, I have been bewildered to read in the media so many opinions from persons who are not residents of New Orleans concerning the poor black people here “losing everything” in New Orleans due to Hurricane Katrina. Are they just victims of repeating other people’s stories.......why not come to New Orleans and speak with some of the natives? I am a white woman who lived in the Lakeview area of New Orleans for 25 years....my home was destroyed due to the failure of a Corps of Engineers levee. There has been a lot of coverage on national media about poor black people being devastated here in New Orleans.......I haven’t heard much in the national media about the people who have lost everything in my neighborhood.....Lakeview, where the 17th Street Canal broke. Lakeview was the city’s middle class tax base (Uptown and the French Quarter did not provide as much tax revenue as Lakeview.....we even had a special tax surcharge assessed to us just for living in Lakeview) ....we were totally destroyed.......mile after mile of destroyed homes and schools.....and jobs lost due to businesses closing....and nothing is being said about us. And not much is being done for us. Most of us bought insurance, yet insurance just doesn’t cover any real rebuilding (or save us from another Corps of Engineers levee failure). We’re not really represented in the national media concerning the loss of our homes and lives.....we’re just left to twist in the wind. The city’s tax base is destroyed......and nothing is said, or done, about us. While I have real empathy and sorrow for all who have been devasted here, I can’t help but wonder.......Poor black people lose everything....Congressional investigation and media outrage....but when middle class people lose everything after paying into the system for years and years....we are supposed to just be quiet and deal with it. I know that life is not fair, but give me a break!

I lost everything, not in Katrina, but in Wilma. The storm surge from Wilma destroyed a number of mobile home parks, Gulfside in the Keys. No one has realized what's happened here, but basically it's a microcosm of New Orleans. The wealthy have taken advantage of the plight of the working class. I am currently living in a FEMA trailer, from which I am being evicted, due to a teachnicality my property manager discovered. I have 20+ EMPTY FEMA trailers around me. The property manager is harrassing the permanent residents -- coming up with all sorts of excuse for eviction -- so they can empty the park and sell it. FEMA has been good to us, relatively, but it took a lot of effort and persistence. We have tried to call the local press, to tell them about the empty FEMA trailers. No one is interested. It's quite clear that Big Money has won out here, and in New Orleans.

This is rediculous ..

I have been to the ninth ward and I will tell you why it still looks like it does 7 months later. Becasue the so called vitims of a racial hurricane , are sitting on thier asses not trimming fallen trees not picking up the smallest piece of trash. They were worthless ( most of them ) before the storm waiting on a hand out , and they are still the same after. but if you drive forty mile east , and by all news that you here the un affected mississippi coast began clean up the first day the coast was reopened , just like the people in the french quarter .
This is communisim at it's finest let the governement take care of us we will just sit here and wait. the mississippi coast where the storm actually landed took more damage , people stood up and helped each other and went to work . People in new orleans that are on TV fromteh ninth ward just bitched .

Sorry Chris but thats no the Case.
ALL of my relatives whom lived around and in NOLA, left town.
Their was nothing to stay for, no water, help or food, or electricity, nothing to come back to.
For Sale Signs dot the landscape. Whos to Blame?
Sure Chris can say they are Lazy but thats not true, they needed to live and Work so they left. I doubt many will ever return.
But Hey Chris you SHOULD be happy, the Bush Cheney Corporation of America WILL be able to use eminent domain and take whatever they want from whoever they want.
So Chris you should be happy, Your Friends get Free property, get richer, and the Poor were driven unto the Welfare roles of other States. Sounds like a Capitalists Dream to me. Screw the People and Get rich eh?

This is communisim at it's finest let the governement take care of us

Chris is wacked. Communism??? WTF? You mean Corporate Government and Capitalist Imperialism?

Have not you noticed that 'PRIVATISATION' creates a Rentier Society? Analyze DAS Kapitalism and Socialism and you WILL see they are much, if not exactly the Same, one is just more kind to its fiefdom than the other....

> And it's possible that this is deliberate policy:
> ... "mayor-appointed commissions and outside
> experts, ... [are] propos[ing] to radically shrink
> and reshape a majority-black and Democratic city."

When it comes to the Government, never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

I live in the houston area, where most of the katrina victims came after the huricane. Everyone here was helping, and sending clothes, and doing as much as we possibly could...what did we get in return? Our crime rate went WAY up...we are all scared to walk the streets at night, fights are happening in schools (between N.O. kids and houston kids), and there are many, many "katrina's" killing the same people that are trying to help them.....here is a story to back it up....there was an elderly woman who hired 3 katrina victims and they beat her to death and then robed her. Most of them still haven't gotten jobs because they say that we have to take care of them because they were "victims"...they are trying to ride the gravy train for as long as they can, and I will tell you that there are a lot of Houstonians that are getting tired of it. Are we getting tired ofall them? No! Just the ones that seem to think that everyone "owes" them something. Nobody owes anyone anything, get off your duff and start working to rebuild your life. Get off welfare, and stop asking for hand outs...it's almost been a year, you should have some sort of normalcy by now. I think that most of them need to stop being victims and start being survivors. I will say that there has been more than a few victims that have done just that....started working and rebuilding...and good for you.
If you want N.O better, make it better...stop talking about it and do it. Stop wanting everyone else to do your work and repair your homes for you...find away to do it yourself.
Also, if you want your city back....go back....start trying to find ways to visit there...houston isn't that far away...you found ways to get here after the hurricane, find ways to get back. If you plan on staying here, then start calling yourself a houstonian...this is your new home. I'm not saying to disregard your roots, or the past...but move on already. The only people that can take N.O away from you is YOU!!!

I also live in Houston and cannot believe how much a relatively small number of evacuees (compared to the overall city population) can dramatically raise the crime rate. The HPD is training five classes of cadets this year alone as opposed to the usual one class every two years. I'm sure there are a few good people, but it seems that most evacuees just wake up to commit crimes. One of my friends related an anecdote yesterday regarding the evacuees at her store. Whole Foods gave the fourteen new hired evacuees a $2000 check just as a hiring bonus to help out, and after just three months only one evacuee is left. The other thirteen spent the entire day outside bitching and whining. Our major needs to wake up and transport the evacuees out of our city. They contribute nothing in comparison to what they take from Houston.