Stuck on Stupid: More Katrina Funds Being Wrongly Diverted

Wind or Water?
Image from Mississippi Insurance Forum

by Ana Maria

Are you kidding me?! Taking $3.5 million of Katrina money that the elected representatives of the good people of America stipulated for law enforcement and spend it on the state's capitol, a full three hour plus ride from the Katrina-ravaged Mississippi Gulf Coast? Good grief!!!?!?!?! What is wrong with these priorities?

Recently, I took a trip to Jackson, Mississippi, where the governor intends to spend the money. Everything looked . . . normal. What a joy to ride around and see the area's bright neon lights of area's businesses. Gas stations everywhere. Shopping malls, car dealerships, the works. I even stopped a cop to ask for directions.

Yeah, I still take it for granted that the cop is there to help. I'm from a small town where hearing sirens gives me thrills, not chills. See, police sirens remind me of . . . Mardi Gras! That glorious season from January until the day before the Catholic season of Lent begins. To this day, when I hear sirens, I think of that first. What can I say, childhood socialization is very powerful. ;)

I know, I know. You may be thinking to yourself, "Uh, yeah, honey. What else do you see in a city except those disgusting neon signs trying to grab our attention and blurring the beauty of the skyline? Where in the world has this woman been living?!" And the answer is . . . inside the Katrina-ravaged region, my friend. For ten months now, I've been living in the Katrina-ravaged region, and it is NOT Fun City, USA, either.

Our cities have had to battle with the Republican White House to waive the 10% matching funds requirement usually accompanying federal grants to municipalities. The compassionless ones sitting in the White House and their counterparts in the previously Republican-controlled Congress didn't see fit to use the brains God gave them to waive the requirement automatically--as had been done in other disasters such as 9/11. No ma'am, the American people had to elect a Democratically-controlled Congress for this kind of compassion and common sense to be implemented.

When Hurricane Katrina devastated, demolished, and destroyed homes and businesses throughout the Mississippi Gulf Coast, our tax base was blown away with 175 mile-per-hour winds. Indeed, Hurricane Katrina blew away our home, places of worship, businesses, community centers, schools, businesses, and government buildings (jails, court house, police stations, fire stations, libraries, etc. and so forth).

Then, the Republican-lovin' insurance industry decided to have its way with us as well. Insurance companies like State Farm, Allstate, and Nationwide deliberately failed to pay on wind-related damages to our homes and businesses. Since May 2007, off course, I have written extensively on how the insurance industry purposefully betrayed its customers with abandon denying their wind damage claims and the devastating financial impact this betrayal has had on the every day lives of those of us living with decisions of those corporate greedy gutted goons. [See my diaries at Daily Kos for a quick read through my writings.]

Months ago, Barbour was trying to divert $600 million of low income housing monies to refurbish the Port of Gulfport. Now, the port needs financial help, that is certain. However, the elected representatives of the American people had appropriated for low income housing. Take a drive from one end of the Mississippi coast line to the other and you'll see a whole lot of nothing going on—to paraphrase the infamous words of Jerry Lee Lewis.

The photo from Coastal Cowboy's Mississippi Insurance forum? TODAY, you can go up and down plenty of streets of any city along the Mississippi Gulf Coast to see lots that remain looking just as the picture looks. Images like this could reflect the remains of what is left of someone's beautiful middle class home or a booming business.

See, businesses can't get up and running without two things. First, all things insurance from being paid for the wind damage to their businesses to purchasing affordable and available insurance on their buildings, goods, and business income. Second, they need employees to staff their businesses.

However, without housing for their employees and employees' families, the businesses are up the creek without a paddle. Can't build affordable housing when insurance is unaffordable or unavailable. Watch the short video of Tish Haas Williams, Hancock County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director, to get the message that businesses the insurance barriers removed and need it to thrive. Tish expresses this sentiment in no uncertain terms, and yes, that means passing Congressman Gene Taylor's multiple peril insurance legislation which now requires action from the U.S. Senate.

We need financial assistance just to get to our knees, as Waveland Mayor Tommy Longo says. Help us to our knees, and we'll get to our feet, Longo told the crowd at an early morning Katrina memorial this past August, the second anniversary of the storm.

So, this becomes our dilemma. We need the money for plenty of things, Congress appropriates it, and Republican Haley Barbour tries to squirrel away some of it for other purposes. This is crazy, particularly since the rest of the country thinks the Gulf Coast is back up and running as if Katrina were but a nightmare many years ago. Heck even folks here in the state of Mississippi think we're back up and running. With the governor himself acting as if we're so up-and-running that he can divert money for other needs, how else are the folks suppose to think? Short of coming down here and driving the beach road or through any of the beach towns where lot after lot after lot remains empty, who is going to drive home the point that we're all still working on making our vibrant recovery dream come true? Clearly, the most logical one for that important job is our very own Governor Haley Barbour. He should be the PR ambassador of our plight, our needs, and the torch bearer of our vibrant recovery dreams.

When it comes to this latest financial diversion, I completely agree with state representative Diane Peranich in her assessment of this disturbing new development in the way that the Governor is handling Katrina monies.

Rep. Diane Peranich, D-Pass Christian, who had not heard about the grant to the city of Jackson, said Thursday that South Mississippi should get all of the money, which the governor controls, because the federal government gave it for Katrina recovery.

"If he has given $40 million, it is still not enough, and the money was allocated from the federal government for that purpose," Peranich said. "I would hope that any of the monies were given for law enforcement on the Coast would go to the Coast.

"We're very grateful for the support and help that we have gotten, but we are not whole." Peranich said she hoped the remaining $3.5 million would be spent in South Mississippi. There are still many problems at the Harrison County jail, and many departments along the Coast need to replace their equipment, she said.

I am certain that there are plenty of unmet needs outside of what the Congress has addressed. I am equally certain that Governor Barbour's expert lobbying skills and connections can easily be put to great use to go to his buddies in the White House to obtain the needed funding without this shell game that is hurtful.

More than that, though, I know that down here inside Katrina Land, we are weary. We've been beaten up by Katrina, betrayed by our insurance companies, abandoned by FEMA, and neglected by the White House except at photo op time. We're tired and exhausted just putting one foot in front of the other. My very first blog entry was titled "Like Walking Through Glue." Those sentiments remains true today.

I just wish that when Governor Barbour tries to run off with money that should go to the Gulf Coast, his feet were glued in place. Perhaps then we could see all the money already given for our needs flow more quickly to the Mississippi Gulf Coast rather than stuck inside the Governor's hands.

With so many unmet needs for which these funds can legitimately address, we deserve an intelligent use of these funds as had been intended when Congress gave us the money with the flexibility to address our needs based on our own priorities. When it comes to setting those priorities, the White House and Mississippi's governor's mansion continue to exhibit their gears are purposefully stuck on stupid.


© 2008 Ana Maria Rosato. All rights reserved.
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The Best of A.M. in the Morning! August 13-17

by Ana Maria

Katrina-Land: A Lesson in Crossing the Political Divide 8.13.07
Katrina Town Hall Reflected Selflessness of Gulf Coast 8.14.07
FEMA, how would you like your eggs? 8.15.07
Young Mother in FEMA Trailer Yearns for Home 8.16.07
Growing Up After Camille, Reflections on Katrina 8.17.07


Broadening Katrina’s Lens: A Five-Part Series
Part 1: Broadening Katrina's Lens
Part 2: Recovery’s Two Major Impediments: $$$ and the "F" word
Part 3: The "F" Word: FEMA
Part 4: Katrina’s Bigger Picture
Part 5: Katrina’s Karmic Payback: Insurance Reform

Growing Up After Camille, Reflections on Katrina
8.17.07

Thirty-eight years ago today Hurricane Camille hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I was but a child of ten. Our family home had been built on the highest land in Hancock County. We slept in the hall. One of the families in the neighborhood stayed with us bringing their grandkids with them. Great! More people to play with my younger brother and me.

I remember the eye of Hurricane Camille when the storm got deadly silent, truly the calm before the hurricane kicked up all over again but from the opposite direction. Someone opened the door and one of my older brothers had a rope around his waist as he ventured outside to check on the family dog in the shed. Peering out the door, all I could see were trees that Camille had knocked down making the outside appear as though we were inside Sherwood Forest. Read More......

Young Mother in FEMA Trailer Yearns for Home
8.16.07

Through stinging, burning eyes I listened as WLOX-TV 13 filmed a conversation between a young single mother of two living in a FEMA trailer and John Eaves, Mississippi’s Democratic Gubernatorial Nominee. Rare is the interview with FEMA residents. Read More . . . .


FEMA, how would you like your eggs?
8.15.07

Clearly the first meaning for the initials A.M. in my blog’s name, A.M. in the meaning is my own name—Ana Maria. However, the other meaning of AM is Adult Maturity.

"What being an adult means is knowing what you have to do and doing it, even though you may not feel like doing it."

Robert T. Kiyosaki
Rich Dad’s Cashflow Quadrant

Since publishing my first blog entry on May 1st of this year—Like Walking Through Glue—I have learned that Katrina was a great equalizer bringing out the real character in plenty of folks, bringing out shared core values, and waking up people—myself included—in new ways. Read More . . . .

Katrina Town Hall Reflected Selflessness of Gulf Coast
8.14.07

With standing room only in the large parish hall on top of a massive bluff overlooking the Bay which feeds into the Gulf of Mexico, Gulf Coast Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS) hosted the second town hall meeting with a delegation of plenty of congressional leadership from across the country.

From as far west as California to the northeast of New Hampshire, Democratic Congressional representatives gave up time with their families and their constituents to revisit the Katrina-ravaged area. We were honored to have the high-ranking leadership of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Democratic Majority Whip Jim Clyburn from South Carolina. Read More . . . .


Katrina-Land: A Lesson in Crossing the Political Divide
8.13.07

Today is the day I’ve been looking forward to for quite sometime. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) leads a delegation to New Orleans and over to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to see the state of post-Katrina living. Last year I was living in San Jose, Calif., which is about an hour’s south of San Francisco—the district that Pelosi represents. I wasn’t here for Katrina, though plenty of my family members were. I remember when I read that Pelosi had led a delegation of Democrats to this area last year. I was thrilled! Read More . . . .

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FEMA, how would you like your eggs?

by Ana Maria

Clearly the first meaning for the initials A.M. in my blog’s name, A.M. in the Morning! is my own name—Ana Maria. However, the other meaning of AM is Adult Maturity.

“What being an adult means is knowing what you have to do and doing it, even though you may not feel like doing it.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki
Rich Dad’s Cashflow Quadrant

Since publishing my first blog entry on May 1st of this year—Like Walking Through Glue—I have learned that Katrina was a great equalizer bringing out the real character in plenty of folks, bringing out shared core values, and waking up people—myself included—in new ways.

For those that have heard the cries of the hundreds of thousands and are helping through volunteering time, goods, services and money, I say thank you. For those that have contracted their congressional representatives and U.S. Senators to pass the critical pieces of legislation to bring down insurance rates and to bring that industry in alignment with the same rules by which every other industry must abide, I say thank you.

Doing what needs doing because it needs to be done is the mature, adult thing to do. Again, thanks to everyone.

Plenty of church folks have come here doing a ton of hard, dirty work. No fanfare. No banners. No press releases. Just showing up--even today after almost two years. Lots of other, non-affiliated folks have spent plenty of time down here.

Yesterday, two friends told me about another group: the Rainbow people, the hippie tent as locals called it. One friend is a democrat and the other, a Republican. Both were elated with all the volunteer help, but the hippie group was a high point.

Apparently this group got down here within a few days of Katrina, set up shop, and began serving free hot, delicious food. “How would you like your eggs?” Rainbow hippies would ask the beat-all-to-hell-and-back Katrina survivors. They got here before Bush's FEMA.

Yet, when Bush’s FEMA finally got some boots here at ground zero in Waveland, Miss., Bush’s agency tried to get the group thrown out of town.

“WHAT?! Why?” I asked excitedly, and not in a good way.

My friends told me that the hippies were showing up FEMA, and FEMA didn't like it.

Huh? I didn’t quite get it. In an emergency, all hands on deck. Every volunteer embraced. Each new available resource much appreciated.

Uh, no. Not with FEMA.

My friends told me that Bush’s FEMA officials asked Waveland Mayor Tommy Longo to throw the Rainbow hippies off the public land. Longo apparently said that if he was going to throw anybody off the land it would be FEMA. It wasn't FEMA setting up three hot meals a day asking folks how they wanted their eggs cooked. But, it should have been.

When the Rainbow hippies left area, the folks here honored them with a parade. Given how Bush’s FEMA has treated everyone, it would be hell bent to get such treatment. At times, I'm sure folks would rather have run them out of town.

See down here, particularly on the western part of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, we’ll give you the shirt off of our backs, feed you the best tasting meals you have ever put into your mouths, and dance your feet off under the stars just for the sheer joy of it. It’s in our blood, our collective DNA.

BUT! You mess with us, our baseline survival especially after any kind of disaster like Camille in ’69 or Katrina in ’05, and well, we’re like the best combo of redneck and the Bronx—and our accents often reflect the enormous diversity of those geographical regions.

I believe this story about Mayor Longo, because I recall as a 10 year old girl hearing the story of my own father and a few other men from our neighborhood going to get the rationed gallons of milk after Hurricane Camille devastated the Mississippi Gulf Coast. A couple of truckers were sitting in their cabs when one turned to the other and mentioned something about taking off, that these people didn’t need the milk.

Apparently this was within earshot of my dad and the other men. From what I recall, the men—including my dad—threatened the truckers within an inch of their lives. Commodities were scarce. They had families and neighbors to take care of.

My own family didn’t need the milk. My dad went to get our family’s ration so that we could hand the milk to a neighbor who had toddlers.

We can be a generous lot down here. Just don’t mess with us, particularly when it comes to baseline survival. We will do what needs doing, and if you are in the way, well, at the very least you may experience our own version of verbal jiu jitsu. The skill comes in handy.

Today, we can all use a little practice in the verbal jiu jitsu arena. As I’m writing this, insurance lobbyists are out talking with our congressional representative and two U.S. Senators whispering their corporate propaganda. Fine, let them. This is America. That is their right.

As is often the case, the outcome doesn’t rely on watching them, getting aggravated at what they are doing, examining them under a microscope to talk expertly about their every move. The outcome doesn’t rely on that.

The outcome relies on us. What we do. How well we perform our collective role in this grand experiment in American democracy. Think of it as being one of many thousands of ants at a picnic.

Everyone of those often too numerable to count at a picnic can ruin the most festive of occasions. Well, the insurance industry has picnicked off of us for far too long. This may not be the most appetizing of analogies, but we all get the point.

We have a role to play in the political arena, and playing it faithfully is our right, our responsibility, and, quite frankly, our duty.

We all know what that means. It’s political hell raising time! Yoohooo! What fun! Look for some, exercising our 1st Amendment rights may be the only real exercising we get today. So, let’s do it with gusto!

Today’s fun-filled political hell raising activities
First, we’ll contact our own congressional representatives and tell them that we need one policy for both wind and water. Call and email using these phone scripts and email letters as is a way to easily look up the phone numbers and email addresses for congressional representatives. Or course, edit as you desire. Yes, all of this is provided courtesy of yours truly. The eloquence of our call or email is unimportant to achieving the goal. We need only be certain to make contact.

Secondly we’re going to build the big MO—political momentum. It’s like those tiny ants at the picnic. To ruin a picnic, they seem to automatically multiply all over the place, don’t they? That’s us. We’re going to multiply our efforts through the second of today’s political hell raising activities.

How? We’re going to contact friends, family members, and colleagues to ask them to join us in these at-our-fingertips political hell-raising activities. One way to encourage them is by clicking on the tiny envelop at the end of the full article (online). Type in the email address of a friend, relative, or colleague. Type in a message and click “send email.” A link to this post will be delivered with the charming, encouraging, magnetic email note you’ve written.

With everyone doing just a little bit, we can make this political load light as a feather! A few phone calls here and emails there from all of us around the country will help create the big Mo! We may feel like tiny ants in the big world of politics. However, all we have to remember is how many picnics we’ve attended where ants ruined it for us while having a field day. There’s a picnic before us, and it has our name on it. Eggs anyone?
________________


Broadening Katrina’s Lens: A five Part Series
Part 1: Broadening Katrina's Lens
Part 2: Recovery’s Two Major Impediments: $$$ and the "F" word
Part 3: The "F" Word: FEMA
Part 4: Katrina’s Bigger Picture
Part 5: Katrina’s Karmic Payback: Insurance Reform

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Post-Katrina Living: Making Do and Good Enough

by Ana Maria

It’s finally here! We have the date on which the contractor will arrive and do the next set of renovations to my mom’s home.

He’ll sand and seal the wood that hasn’t been touched in that way since my parents had the house built 45 years ago. Hang the doors to the bedrooms. Rework the closet doors. Create new doors for the utility room. Put up the crown molding on the ceiling and the floors. I think that about covers this next leg of returning to life BK—before Katrina.

When I arrived back in March, I was shocked at everything. From the total disappearance of so much of my home town here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast through the evaporation of nearly every home and business along the 40-50 miles of beach going east to Biloxi, which is as far as I’ve traveled that way. Then going west to see family in New Orleans was more of the same: destruction, devastation, disappearance, and evaporation.

Clearly, the PR campaign that the Bush Administration has going along with its counterpart in the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion via Haley Barbour doesn’t hold any water. Barbour is the former head of the national Republican Party and good friends with Bush. Naturally, they would support each other’s BS, I mean PR, campaign.

I’ve been here now five months. I have acclimated to a great deal and in ways no one could have convinced me that I would ever acclimate myself. Not that long ago, I was living in the lap of comparative luxury over there in San Jose, Calif.

I lived in a beautiful apartment inside a complex with three “sparkling pools” as its brochures like to brag, two tennis courts, two workout rooms, free tennis and yoga classes, and a sauna—actually two: one for women and one for men. Everything was convenient to my locale. Within a matter of minutes, I could be at any number of malls and full-sized grocery stores. Real grocery stores!

Safeway, Albertson’s, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, PW, Ranch 99—the large Asian food store chain. Plus there were a myriad of farm stands and plenty of smaller ethnic grocery stores. What joy! What bliss! Especially for someone like me that loves to cook and is damned good at it, too.

Today, I have Wal-Mart. In California, I protested with my union friends the atrocious employee policies that Wal-Mart uses. Today, it’s the only grocery around, and I’ve tempered my political preference for the reality life is currently presenting to my family, friends, and neighbors. Today, I go to Wal-Mart to get groceries and rarely think more than twice about it.

In my very first blog entry on the first of May, I wrote, “The best I’ve come up with is that many of life’s routine activities is like walking through glue . . . for miles on end.” That remains the best way I’ve come up with for describing post-Katrina life. As a current example, let’s talk about moving out of the house so the contractor can come in and work on it.

I called around to locate a hotel. Well, there aren’t that many. The one I wanted to book is literally 5 blocks from the house and would be great. It’s booked solid. Oh. We FINALLY get a contractor and his schedule and ours is permitting him to come fix up the house . . . and we can’t find a hotel nearby? I panicked.

Next, I called Hollywood Casino Hotel. It’s almost twice as expensive, and we would not have all the nights we would need. That won’t do. If I’m having to interrupt the routine for an elderly mother who is not in her prime physical condition--though she's sharp as a tack mentally, I want to get somewhere and stay put until we can come home. Nevertheless, I took the rooms I could.

Then, I called the lesser motel down the road a bit. Rooms are plentiful. Great! I booked them and then, I canceled the other reservations. My younger brother recommended that I actually look at the rooms., which I did. He was right. Not good enough.

My hotel hunting began all over again. There are limitations to what has been rebuilt and open for business. Finally, I settled at another casino hotel which is about 25 minutes from the house. There some interruption in our stay, but it is doable. It’s more than good enough for now. It has to be.

The story of post-Katrina life. Making do and good enough.

Personally, I am elated to be going to a hotel with extremely comfortable beds. Little furniture is in the house today. I’ve been sleeping on a twin-sized air mattress. A month ago, it sprung a leak. I repaired it . . . so I thought. I repaired it again. Better.

It would go like this for a few weeks toward the end of which I would find myself in the middle of the air mattress, squarely with my butt and back up against the wood floor. Finally, I gave up. If I’m going to end up on the floor anyway, I may as well just put myself there to begin with and quit waking up oddly contorted.

Believe me, in other circumstances, I would have gone out and bought another air mattress. Heck, in other circumstances, I would have gone out and bought the replacement mattress, set up the bed, and had myself some terrific sleep. If anything, however, these are extra-ordinary circumstances even some two years after the storm.

Back in April when I met the woman who turned me on to her contractor husband, I had thought everything would work out so he could get in here at the end of May at the latest. Then, I kept thinking a few more weeks, a few more weeks.

The whole time, I was slowly being baptized in the post-Katrina way things are. When I’d become agitated at something, I would think to myself, “This is only temporary. This, too, shall pass—quickly. I can handle anything for a little while.”

Or I would think, “I’ve only been at this since March. I can NOT imagine how it has been for those who’ve been back a year or those who actually went through the storm!”

So, when I found myself waking up in the middle of the night in contorted positions due to the deflation of my air mattress, I pulled out one of my old stand-bys and thought, “This is only temporary.” Of course, there is another part of me that says that things like this are part of my post-Katrina experience. My dues, as it were.

Going to a hotel room for a while will be a welcomed reprieve with its wonderful bed that will be heavenly to sleep on, I’m sure. (I’ve actually gone to the hotel and looked at the rooms. Gorgeous! A fabulous bed to sleep on--a new found luxury.)

See, there is no use in buying mattresses to replace the ones that had to be gotten rid of after Katrina had her way with the house. Why buy them and put them up only to have to move ‘em when the contractor gets here? It’s going to be harried enough with all the moving parts to prepping the house for the contractor without adding to the workload.

And so this is how I imagine many others from every walk of life have coped with the dysfunction that has characterized post-Katrina living. Whether finding the courage to go up against the insurance industry or dealing with a contractor that has taken money and failed to show up (a horror story that is far too common) or dealing with not finding a contractor to do the work in the first place, folks around here have more than perfected the art of making do.

Whether sleeping on the floor or putting up with the contamination that is inside the formaldehyde-filled, Barbie doll-sized FEMA trailers or dealing with insurance companies trying to rip off consumers by hiding behind false claims that the 135 plus mile-per-hour winds created not a smidgen of damage to a home or business, folks throughout the Katrina-ravaged region have invented new ways of defining good enough.

But these persistent conditions are not good enough. No one here should have to make do for two long years. It’s not right. As always, the question is how do we improve the situation? What can we do? What kind of political hell can we raise to shake things up and make things better?

Today’s Political Hell Raising Activity

''Fighting an insurance company is like staring down the wrong end of a cannon,'' Dr. Bennett said after fighting his insurance company in New Hampshire.

Dr. Bennett is so very right. We can change this and have the insurance industry itself staring down the wrong end of a cannon when it does its policyholders wrong. We have a great opportunity to impact insurance reform efforts this very month.

During August, our federal legislators are in their home districts. We can contact our Congressional representative and two U.S. Senators by phone or email and ask them to support two pieces of legislation to fix the problem going forward. Many lawmakers will be holding town hall meetings. Going to one and asking for their support is another option.

1. One policy: Wind and Water Insurance Coverage
At the same time, let’s continue to contact our federal legislators to support expanding the Federal Flood Insurance Program to include wind. Remember that the insurance industry begged off of its legal obligation to pay if so much as a smidgen of water came onto a property regardless of the damage that wind had caused. This is wrong.

We can make it so the post-Katrina experience doesn’t happen to other Americans. Informing our federal lawmakers that we support having one policy for both flood and wind coverage is how we remedy the situation for the future. That way future American families and businesses will not be required to make do unnecessarily.

2. The Insurance Industry Must Play By the Same Rules
Robbing us blindly with premiums for policies that they deliberately fail to make good on is, well, NOT good enough. So, let’s contact our federal lawmakers to ask for their support on the proposed legislation that would require the insurance industry to operate under the same rules as every other business in America. End its accidental 60-year exemption from laws governing price fixing and collusion.

That proposed legislation is S. 618 (in the Senate) and H.R. (in the House of Representatives). We must make the insurance industry play by the same rules as other businesses in the United States. This is fair.

Together, we can redefine what is good enough.



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Beyond the 9th Ward

As I sit here in the town of Bay St. Louis, Miss., one of several tiny coastal beach towns that comprise ground zero for the worst part of the worst natural disaster in the nation, I feel conflicted. The New York Times has published a lengthy article titled Road to New Life After Katrina Is Closed to Many. The article zeroed in on the difficulty of returning home after Katrina. Again, as has been the modus operandi from the beginning, the focus is on New Orleans alone and specifically on residents in the 9th Ward. This is an important heart breaking story. And herein lies my conflict.

The road home after Katrina is equally difficult for those who don’t live in the lower 9th Ward. A few weeks ago, I attended my niece’s 13th birthday party held at Rock ‘n Bowl in New Orleans. How wonderful to see a bunch of 13 year girls so confident, delightful, and vibrant. Their parents dropped them off, stuck around a while and chatted, then left and returned to pick them up when the party ended. One of the mother’s I met was yakking with me about having to go to the laundry mat. In New Orleans, “to yak” means “to talk.” Let’s get some cross cultural adaptation going here, ok? ;) Back to the yakking itself, she was so lovely. She and her husband’s home in Lakeview had many feet of water in it after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ levees broke. Fortunately, they were able to buy a home a few blocks away that was untouched by the water.

Anyway, she was saying how awful it was for her because since the storm, she’s been having to go to the laundry mat to do the clothes. “At THIS age? Girl, you know, I didn’t work all my life to be going to a laundry mat to do my families clothes.” Oooooo. I told her that when I moved back to San Jose, California in 2002, one of my main criteria for renting was having a washer and dryer in my apartment. Period. I was not going to drag my clothes over to a laundry mat and sit there for hours waiting for a dryer, getting stuck using a dryer that hardly dried the clothes and ate up my coins like mad. And I’m only one person. I couldn’t imagine doing it for a family—mom, dad, and kids.

Now what does any of this have to do with a New York Times story about the 9th Ward and going home to New Orleans? My recent five part series focused on broadening the Katrina lens beyond it. The woman with whom I was speaking—I wish I could remember her name. It’s a terrible thing, I know, to not recall someone’s name. But, down here in the greater New Orleans area, which includes the very western part of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and in particular the towns of Waveland and Bay St. Louis (my home town, remember), we don’t remember names that well. Often, we’ll say something along these lines. “You remember the son of Ms Josie who is married to that beautiful woman whose sister works at the bank? Well her mamma’s good looking brother . . .” Not recalling people’s names may be the reason everyone calls everyone honey, baby, dahlin’, shuga, and sweetie.

A few years back, Bob, a boss of mine was going to New Orleans for some kind of work thing. I told him of this delightful cultural verbal habit of ours. Bob came back complaining that I had forgotten to tell him about the mosquitoes and gnats. Poor thing, his neck was raw from the bites. But, he perked up when he said that I was right. Even the big burly man behind the counter of a sandwich shop where Bob had gone for lunch called him “hon.” That’s part of the charm of the area. We don’t care if you really are good looking or ugly, fat or thin, old or young, or your race, ethnicity, or religion. If you talk with the locals, you’ll be called one of the terms named above.

Now where was I on that laundry mat story. Oh yeah. So, the woman with whom I was speaking? She and her husband live in Lakeview, which is the affluent neighborhood that is on the exact opposite economic spectrum of the 9th Ward. One other thing. She and her family are African American.

The media has not sufficiently told the story of the incredible hardships of the road home for New Orleans residents outside of the 9th Ward. And their hardships and stories are also important to know to understand the barriers to a full, vibrant and quick recovery.

Residential Contractors, a Scarce Commodity
Contractors are very, very difficult to come by. Finding a Contractor Like California Dreamin’ tells my mom’s story of looking for contractors to repair her home. The Times-Picayune, the daily paper in New Orleans, ran a story titled A Clog in the Line which told of the incredible hardship in finding a plumber in New Orleans. Over 18 months ago, my own brother bought a brand new hot water heater that he needed to install in his home. He has paid plumbers to come out to do the work, they didn’t show. He has asked others for quotes and they tell him, “We don’t give quotes, we give bills.” What?!

Clearly, the terse delivery of the message is rude and carries an arrogance that is unhelpful in this Katrina area where doing everyday normal things—such as getting a quote for installing a hot water heater—is like walking through glue. Only after many, many months of enduring this ridiculous lack of business etiquette did he learn that what plumbers are finding is that when they go into do a simple, routine job, one pipe after the other begins to crumble and fall apart. And so giving an accurate quote becomes incredibly difficult for the plumbers.

If I recall correctly, and I’m not sure that I do, the reason for the pipes crumbling is because the salt in the water that flooded the homes corroded the pipes. Something like that. It’s all Katrina related. That’s no excuse for the rudeness. Since the licensing process takes a few years to obtain in Louisiana, plumbers from other parts of the country who would love to donate their talent are prohibited from doing so.

The courts, jails, and child support
Recently, a friend of mine was telling me that she finally hauled her ex into court for his failure to pay child support. Life is tough anyway here in Katrina Land. Raising kids without the financial assistance of their dad makes life tougher. So what happened once they got to court? Well, under pre-Katrina days, he would have been put in jail. However, we don’t have a jail to put him in. He got a free pass for a few months. Without the leverage of jail time, this takes the teeth out of child support enforcement for those situations that require it.

So what’s my point?
The ravages of post-Katrina life in New Orleans and here on the Gulf Coast are difficult to manage. The impact is broad, wide, and deep. The impact of insurance companies like State Farm, Allstate, and Nationwide that apparently deliberately fail to live up to their financial contract on the wind policies of their homeowner customers is keeping money out of the very hands that need it to rebuild, to return home. For those that have some money to repair their homes and businesses, getting good contractors is an exceedingly rare commodity. Without money flowing into the city and county coffers be it from FEMA or insurance companies or tax revenues, local and county governments cannot rebuild basic buildings such as schools to educate children and jails into which to incarcerate parents who are deliberately failing to live up to their financial obligations to their kids even when they do have these financial resources.

That’s my point. Reputable media outlets like the New York Times must tell the whole story of the challenges that post Katrina life presents. From a strictly political perspective, this is how we bring about recovery faster. The more varied the stories, the more the entire picture becomes clear, the greater the opportunity for momentum to build. That is what is needed most of all: momentum outside of the Katrina-ravaged region regarding everything from Insurance companies failing to pay out on legitimate claims . . . to governments not being able to build schools and jails . . . to homeowners not getting the plumbers and other contractors they need . . . to building low income housing in the 9th Ward and throughout the rest of the Katrina area. This is a broader lens through which to see what needs to be done and what can be done to speed up a vibrant recovery.

Today’s political hell raising activity targets the New York Times. Let’s call and write the paper thanking them for investing the time and money to write the story and devoting the enormous amount of space in the paper itself to raise awareness about the continuing challenges of getting home after Katrina. When we talk with or email the paper, we’ll be asking the editors to broaden their lens to include the plight of those in the rest of New Orleans, its surrounding Louisiana cities, and the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast. We’ll again thank them for providing coverage to something that is important to healing the wounds of Katrina and the pathetic circumstances that the insurance companies’ failure to properly fund and the White House failure to provide appropriate leadership has created.

In this way, we’ll praise their coverage and encourage more articles as we direct their attention to additional stories they could explore beyond the 9th Ward.

Go here for today's political hell raising activities.

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Like Walking Through Glue

Before leaving San Jose, CA, to drive four days to go home to the Katrina-ravaged region of my birth, one brother told me that there was no way he could prepare me for what I would experience once I arrived in my hometown of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Located on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, “the Bay” as we locals call it, is a tiny beach town.

As I drove from the Bay area of California to “The Bay” of my birth, I thought of all the HBO and CNN documentaries I had watched. I replayed the innumerable conversations I had had with my family over the last 20 months. As I crossed the state line of Mississippi. I took a deep breath.

No words can completely describe, no news videos can completely reveal, and no documentaries can reflect the totality of the devastation remaining in post-Katrina land.

Boy, was my brother ever right.

For over two decades, my verbal and written communication skills have been one of my greatest assets. Yet, I find myself at a loss for articulating accurately the difficulty of life’s daily activities. The best I’ve come up with is that many of life’s routine activities is like walking through glue . . . for miles on end.

Tiny Mississippi Gulf Coast towns comprised Katrina’s ground zero: Pearlington, Waveland, Pass Christian, and Bay St. Louis, my hometown among them. For just over two months, I’ve been back in “The Bay”.

After graduating from high school 30 years ago, I haven’t spent this kind of time in my home town. I went to college and through the years acquired a broad, deep, and expansive experience—a pleasurable luxury for someone from a small town, particularly Mississippi.

I’ve lived in Nashville, Tenn., Northern Virginia, and San Jose, CA. I’ve worked on both coasts from the nation’s capitol in Washington, DC, to the capitol of Silicon Valley. I've worked as a management auditor for the Tennessee legislature and the city of San Francisco. I've worked in high tech Corporate America.

Lastly, but most prominently since leaving the Bay, I've been politically active professionally and as a volunteer on the local, state, and national levels with a number of progressive issues and organizations.

With all of this, you might think I was prepared for the world I was about to re-enter. But I wasn’t.

Soon after having arrived in the Bay, I drove from one side of the Gulf Coast to the other along the 40-mile beach stretching from Waveland to Biloxi, Mississippi.

The next day I drove 60 miles west to New Orleans and went through the many devastated neighborhoods such as the 9th Ward and Lakeview, two ends of the economic spectrum in New Orleans.

We do LOVE to eat, LOVE to dance, and LOVE to have a good time! Seafood gumbo, shrimp po-boys, fried fish. We’re known for our great cooking, fantastic music, and our ability to enjoy life. Our spirits are lively and energetic accompanied by a heaping dose of sunny optimism. Enjoying life is our gift to the world, kind of a cultural specialty.

Indeed, whether New Orleans or the 40 miles of beach towns that dotted Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, Katrina’s devastation was decisive physically, financially, and emotionally. The huricane’s merciless destruction brutalized everything in its path. What is barely known to those living outside of here is that life’s simplest tasks remain unbelievably cumbersome.

To illustrate the point, let’s take going to the grocery store as an example.

Before the storm, my mom and the rest of the seniors living in our neighborhood could frequent four or five grocery stores within a matter of minutes from home.

Today, the only big grocery available is Wal-Mart. That’s right. Wal-Mart. Heck, a few years back, I protested with the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council in front of Wal-Mart in Gilroy, California, a town just south of San Jose where I have been living for about five years! Wal-Mart has a terrible reputation for coming into an area and putting out of business all the local mom and pop stores, providing low-wage, no benefit jobs to its employees whose incomes are so low that they turn to the government to pick up the tab on health care costs.

The AFL-CIO calls this the Wal-Mart Tax.

So I look for an alternative to handing money over to a corporation that fails to honor the well-being of the family members in its employ. The nearest alternative is in Long Beach, Miss. Great! We can go a few miles down Highway 90 where the Bay Bridge crosses over 2 miles of water and . . . oh.

The bridge is out. I don’t mean as in needing a bit of repair and is unavailable for a few hours or maybe a day or two. I mean that Katrina blew away the Bay bridge.

On May 17, 2007, some 20 months after Katrina crumbled it into the Gulf of Mexico, two of the bridge’s four lanes are scheduled to open. Click here to peek at the work in progress via camera. To say there will be dancing in the streets is an understatement.

Back to grocery shopping. The point is to get to the other side of the water because that is where the alternative to Wal-Mart is. In December 2006, several federal and state agencies began to provide ferry service across the bay to alleviate some of the transportation challenges caused by the bridge’s destruction. The ferry was just a mile or so from the bridge along Beach Boulevard.

The ferry was somewhere on the other side of the water. Lots of cars waiting to get on it. I remembered what happened the first time I came down for the sheer adventure of experiencing the ferry. An adventure was what I got.

I waited about 30 minutes for the ferry. Once it arrived, most politely and delightfully, the ferry employees directed the cars onto the ferry. As soon as we were settled, the captain announced that something was wrong with the motor, it would be one to one-and-a-half hours to repair, and we would have to get off the ferry. Those delightfully polite ferry employees directed our vehicles off the boat. Wow, an hour and a half to repair it.

The Bay St. Louis Ferry.

Ana Maria's sweet little red Miata!

As I look at the line of cars remembering the last time I tried to cross the water via the ferry, I changed my mind. I decided to go the only other route available to get to the other side of the two miles of water. It was another kind of adventure.

I drove west 3 miles, 8 miles north, 10 miles east then south 7 miles to get to a point that was simply a few miles on the other side of that 2 mile bridge that would have taken two shakes to drive over.

This adventure took a total of 30 minutes. That means that at least a total 60 minutes in travel time would be added to my shopping.

With this amount of time in pre-Katrina days, I’d have already been to the store, checked out, loaded up my car, and home unloading what I’d bought. But in post-Katrina life, we’ve not yet made it to the store. And folks, that’s just to get to a full service grocery store that isn't Wal-Mart.

Geeze, Louise! As committed as I am to economic justice, I cannot in good conscience say a word to anyone about shopping elsewhere. A number of the people that I'm visiting range in age from late 70's to mid-80's. And those that are far younger are too exhausted from trying to put their lives back together to expend another hour just to avoid handing their money to Wal-Mart.

Before Katrina hit, Winn-Dixie was only 3 blocks away from our neighborhood.

So guess who's making groceries* at Wal-Mart? Heaven help us all!

* “Making groceries” is a New Orleanian phrase meaning to go to the grocery, to go grocery shopping. ;)

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