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A Great Way to Start Any Day
Issue has two sides on Coast
By JOSHUA NORMAN
jdnorman@sunherald.com
The same week major immigration reform died in Congress, illegal immigration came to the forefront on the Coast in a tragic way.
Read the rest of the story in Mississippi Gulf Coast's Sun Herald.
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Company to contract with residents, not city
Sunday, July 01, 2007
By Valerie Faciane
Curbside recycling again?
Most local residents haven't seen the service since Hurricane Katrina. And with the city nowhere close to reviving its curbside program, a company that provided residential service in the early 1990s is gearing up to offer it again, primarily in New Orleans.
Officials with Phoenix Recycling have said the company has enough prospective customers in Uptown, Mid-City, Broadmoor and Lakeview, as well as Gentilly and Old Metairie, to start a service in late July or early August.
But it won't be cheap.
Read the story in the New Orleans Times Picayune.
The End.
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July 2007
July 2007
by quaoar
Mon May 07, 2007 at 07:43:28 AM PDT
How bad is it in New Orleans? Bad enough that a blogger from Iraq -- visiting the city while on a journalism project -- compares it to Baghdad and feels sorry for the city's residents.
What shocked me the most in this trip was how the city looked like Baghdad. New Orleans looked like Baghdad after the war in 1991; I swear I kid you not. The devastation, empty houses, the people returning to their life in the city, the "rituals" people practice before they completely come back, the bumps in the streets and the smell of destruction (it has a distinctive smell people. Yes it does.)
I arrived to New Orleans Thursday. On the way to the hotel, I saw the same thing I saw on tv two years ago, destroyed buildings. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Two years later and the scene is the same? Where are we? A government that spent hundreds of billions of dollars on wars overseas is not capable of dealing with a crisis on its own soil! A crisis that all what it needed was money!
Our state’s insurance commissioner, George Dale, has been rather busy of late speaking before audiences spewing forth one or another talking points provided by the insurance industry with which he is in the preverbal political bed. In his latest appalling display of happily carrying water for the insurance industry, Dale told the Clarksdale Noon Lions Club Katrina [was] "the worst natural disaster in U.S. history . . . and put an undue burden on insurance companies.”
What?! This publicly elected official is unapologetically expressing concern over Katrina’s devastating impact . . . not for families, neighborhoods, communities, and cities all across the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, the state in which he is elected to protect consumers from corporate insurance running amok over them? That would be empathizing with the folks with whom we would expect him to empathize. After all, he is the insurance commissioner for the people of Mississippi.
No, sir. Dale has the gall to reserve his empathy for the industry which all through the Katrina ravaged Mississippi Gulf Coast region has been ripping off consumers, families, businesses, right and left, Republican and Democrat, rich, poor and middle class. In his official capacity, Dale expresses concern for the corporations which boasted obscene billion dollar profits in the aftermath of . . . now, how did Dale characterize it? Oh yeah, “the worst natural disaster in U.S. history.”
A friend too shy for direct attribution and to whom I’ll refer to as a gloriously delightful celestial spirit who came to me in the night summarized Dale’s disgusting public betrayal.”This is unbelievable. George Dale told the Clarksville Lions Club that Katrina ‘put an undue burden on insurance companies.’ If people pay premiums year in and year out, how is it an ‘undue burden’ for insurance companies to keep the faith with policy holders? I guess George thinks that it is an undue burden for a casino to have to pay off when someone pumps their dollars into a slot machine and hits the jackpot.”
Insurance Companies Hit Billion Dollar Jackpot
With a government insurance commissioner gleefully bouncing around the state touting the latest round of talking points the industry supplies him, no wonder the insurance corporations have been able to hit the billion dollar jackpot.
The Insurance Industry Institute reported that the private insurance industry boasted $44.2 billion in after-tax profits in 2005 and $63.7 billion in after-tax profits in 2006. That’s some heavy profit making. These profits were after the companies had paid out $40.6 billion in Katrina claims. Of course, that wasn’t all of the Katrina-related claims. The industry sent the U.S. federal government flood program a $23 billion bill.
So far, claims paid out on Katrina add up to $64 billion— and this amount only accounts for those who’ve been paid on their claims through 2006. By the end of last year, the private insurance companies had paid $41 billion. These same companies essentially handed a $23 billion bill to American taxpayers for damages that these private companies determined for themselves that flood waters had caused. How generous that the private insurance industry only stiffed the U.S. taxpayers for 36% of the bill, so far.
On his official government website, Congressman Gene Taylor, a good Democrat from the Katrina ravaged Gulf Coast of Mississippi, has an incredible collection of “documents that suggest fraud by insurance companies in the handling of Katrina wind and water claims.” These documents appear to officially direct claims adjusters with such doozies of corporate policies like this one from Nationwide “if loss is caused by both flood and wind there is no coverage.”
NO coverage?!
Or this doozie from State Farm that instructed adjusters that “where wind acts concurrently with flooding to cause damage to the insured property, coverage for the loss exists only under flood coverage.”
Dale’s Foot-in-Mouth Disease
Dale’s insults to Katrina’s survivors continued. The Clarksville Press Registry reportedThe enormous impact from Hurricane Katrina should leave Mississippians wondering if they should live "in harm's way," State Insurance Commissioner George Dale.
Let’s see now. According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration“Populations and built environments in coastal watersheds are growing rapidly, with 55 percent of the U.S. population already living within 50 miles of the
coast.”“The Coastal Community Development Partnership” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
The Coastal Community Development Partnership brings together NOAA and EPA offices to better support state and local governments as they promote safer and smarter development along the coast.
Is Commissioner Dale suggesting that 55% of the U.S. population move inland? Katrina’s devastation went well over 100 miles inland. How far inland would he recommend that over half of America’s families move? 150 miles inland? 200 miles? How would he recommend accomplishing that? If it isn’t hurricane country, it’s tornado country or blizzard country or earthquake country.
Dale should focus on doing the job to which he was elected rather than pretending to be the grand master of city planning.
Mr. “I-can-do-my-job” shouldn’t have one
In his impromptu speech before the state’s annual Municipal League conference held on the Gulf Coast this week, Dale repeated this mantra many times “I can do my job.” Thanks to John Leek at Cotton Mouth Blog, another Gulf Coast blog, we have video of Dale’s public admission.
Considering the man has been in the pocket of the very industry he has been responsible for regulating in the 32 years Dale’s been elected to this office, I’m glad to hear him admit that he can do his job. The question, of course, is “when is he going to start?”
Verrrrry Interesting
Before the Lions Club, Dale continued his showmanship in demonstrating his expertise in the foot-in-mouth department. "Can we survive another (Katrina) . . . ?" Excuse me?! This from a man who has all but prostituted himself for the insurance industry that has made recovery all but practically impossible for everyone involved?! Thanks to Dale’s buddies in the insurance industry and their shameless flackey with this Mississippi Insurance Commissioner, surviving Katrina has yet to come to a resilient conclusion.
When I read those highly insensitive words, I thought of the ever popular 1970’s comedy show Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In. The show had a character named Wolfgang, the Nazi soldier who would pop up behind bushes to say the infamous line "Verrry interesting...but schtupit!"
Yep. That's schtupit, alright. George Dale needs to voluntarily retire and work directly for the insurance industry he has protected from any real regulation.
Personally, I think the real question is this. "Should the good people of Mississippi even entertain the thought of surviving another year with an Insurance Commissioner who is a mouthpiece for an industry that ripped off the families and businesses of the Katrina-ravaged regions of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and New Orleans?!"
The answer is no.
Dale’s handling of the Katrina disaster alone should have the Democratic voters in South Mississippi sending this guy packing come the August primary.
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I come from a musical family. Growing up in my home, playing musical instruments, dancing, and singing were the norm. On Saturdays, one of my older brothers would turn on the radio or put a stack of 45s on the stereo. We would dance with mops and brooms to Motown or other terrific music playing in the background while doing our chores.
As my younger brother now says, “Anything worth doing, is worth doing to music!” I wonder if this is his modern day version of the Mary Poppins’ lyrics “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” For old time’s sake, here’s a YouTube version of Julie Andrews singing it. Go ahead, press the button. You know you want to! ;)
Early yesterday morning before the sun rose high in the sky to beam its beautiful—and hot as Hades—rays upon the Mississippi Gulf Coast, I put in a couple of hours sanding base boards and such. The sander fits my tiny hand pretty well, and its light weight nature makes it easy on me. I’ve been dealing with it for a number of days by now, and I guess, that I’m getting pretty good with it and pretty fast with the process. I will confess, however, I DO . . . NOT . . . LIKE . . . doing this.
I’m a petite woman with an extremely high energy level and whose well toned and agile muscles are located between my ears rather than in my physical body. On more than one occasion in my life, I’ve been told I have more energy than the Energizer Bunny. This has come in mighty handy throughout the years when I’ve had to go long hours in electoral campaigns or in the corporate world. However, this post-Katrina physical labor wears . . . me . . . out.
I find myself becoming a bit agitated with it and a bit grumpy at the challenge that doing this kind of work creates. In my exhausted stupor—which comes in full speed about 2 hours after I happily crank up the sander, I always think of those in this Katrina-ravaged area who have been here dealing with the physical, emotional, and financial toll the hurricane imposed.
In addition to that, I think about the betrayal everyone has felt from a White House occupant who remained on vacation while Katrina gathered strength and did nothing to help the states, cities, and the Gulf Coast and New Orleans residents in the face of what was about to happen. And who still does nothing to help with anything remotely resembling good old fashioned leadership.
Then to have the insurance companies deliberately betray consumer trust and outright refuse to cover legitimate claims had to have been another nightmare.
I cannot imagine what it must have been like to watch as your home was swept away with the ferocious winds or the wind driven water . . . or to learn that all that you have left of your life is the set of clothes you and your family packed for the few days you thought it would take to return home or to watch, as my own family members did, water come into a home that has been a safe haven for its entire 43-year existence.
So many homes are gone. We were lucky because the family home remained standing though the roof poured water into the attic and water rose four and a half feet or so and placed about 8 inches in the house itself. I reflect on the various stories I’ve been privileged to learn.
Southern Hospitality, Goldie Locks, and Through the Looking Glass
A few weeks after I arrived for what I had intended to be a short visit back in March of this year, I attended a St. Patrick’s Day event at the local Internet Café, the Mockingbird Café. My brother Michael introduced me to two women who were sisters. For a time, their dad had carpooled to work with our dad. Both of our dads worked at Avondale Shipyards, some 90 minutes away—one way, if the roads were clear and there was no fog, rain, or other intemperate weather as is often the case in these parts.
Anyway, let’s call one of the sister’s Mary. Mary told me her Katrina story. As the storm proceeded to rain upon this area, she, her kids, and her best friend ended up crawling into the attic and eventually on to the roof to escape the water. She said that they were holding on for dear life. They noticed that a lot of houses were floating by them. Shocked, of course, at this entire nightmare, there greatest shock was soon to dawn upon them as they realized that the other houses were NOT floating at all.
Rather it was THEIR house that was floating away with them holding on for dear life! Mary tod me her story without choking up. Rather, in typical fashion for the New Orleans and Mississippi Gulf Coast region, she was laughing.
Indeed, a sense of humor about the whole Katrina experience wards off the adverse effects of the stress of the storm and the betrayal experienced at the hands of the Bush Administration’s failed FEMA leadership as well as the hands of the insurance industry.
After Katrina passed, Mary and her family went looking for others in the area. No one was around. They went to a neighbor’s house whose second story was still in good condition. They showered and slept. She said that she knew very well that her neighbors would welcome their presence. Before they left, they took care to make the beds. Sort of like Southern hospitality and manners meets Goldie Locks and the Three Bears in an Alice-in-Wonderland-Through-the-Looking-Glass reality.
Katrina Fatigue
So as I am feeling the exhaustion and a myriad of other things, I imagine what it is like for anyone who actually stayed and went through the storm itself. I need go no further than my own family. Two of my brothers stayed at the house through Katrina.
Why, you ask?
Because historically it has been the safest place in the county. Built in 1962, it has gone through every hurricane relatively unscathed save knocking down the trees. Camille did a bit of roof damage, but nothing traumatic.
After Katrina, my brothers pulled up carpet, tore out walls, helped out neighbors. My brother from New Orleans also went back to the city to check on and deal with his own house there, the home of his daughter’s mother, and various relatives and friends. To this day, he has been unable to get a plumber to show up and install the new hot water heater he has had for quite a long time.
A friend of mine recently visited the Gulf Coast for a work meeting. He remarked that he felt that folks down here were experiencing Katrina Fatigue. Yes, of course, they are. An overall sense of abandonment is almost palpable.
We’re the greatest nation on Earth, but since the current set of folks moved into our White House, caring about the American people and our families evaporated as surely as if Katrina herself had blown away such a traditional notion.
We like to pride ourselves on American ingenuity, our stick-to-itiveness. Yet, the national dialogue on our public airwaves focuses on Paris Hilton’s time in the slammer rather than the imprisoned feeling Katrina’s survivors are experiencing after the storm slammed these shores.
We are the wealthiest nation on the planet with a White House that loves to cloak itself with religious overtones, yet neglecting the real and ongoing needs is its modus operandi. Having returned to the town of my upbringing, I recall easily the songs we sang at Mass while I was growing up. (Please excuse the sexism.) But the words go like this. “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me.” I guess Bush and his callous conservative crowd skipped those lessons.
For many of us inside and out of this Katrina-ravaged region, we understand the universal message of caring for others, being of service to others, giving a helping hand to those whose hand we can so easily touch . . . if only we would.
The current Administration talks of compassion, they don’t “do” compassion. It talks of American ingenuity and uses our famed “can-do” spirit to its own end, but it places unnecessary obstacles that prohibits our American can-do spirit . . . from doing.
Had we had a different federal leadership coming out of the Oval Office, one that would have been appropriate to the situation, then the folks living through Katrina and picking up the pieces afterwards to put together their lives would have been spared the lunacy and hardship of the “you’re on your own” homeland security policy that the Bush White House implemented.
As I continue my part in renovating my mom’s home, I think about the hardships of my friends and family as well as those of everyone I have met. This puts my personal experience into a larger context that keeps me focused on an attitude of gratitude for what my family has as I continue to wonder . . .
How would these incredible and unnecessary hardships from Bush’s FEMA and the insurance industry have been avoided had we had positive, healthy, appropriate White House leadership? The current administration spits out the phrase “family values” as if a punch line in a joke.
The leadership we had expected would have implemented innovative policies—including aggressively taking on the insurance industry—that demonstrated it really did value America’s families. This kind of White House leadership would have removed rather than placed obstacles in our way. This kind of White House leadership would have unleashed America’s can-do spirit, that uniquely American trait that inspires our ingenuity. That’s the American way.
With a White House leadership that implemented solid policies which valued America’s families, the Katrina fatigue that my friend so keenly observed this past weekend would have been a joyful exhaustion from having worked fast and furiously to rebuild so quickly, to reconstruct our homes, communities, and cities with vision and energy, and to rebound with vitality and vigor.
That’s the America we love, the America we respect, the America we trust. That’s the America in our hearts.
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Just got off the phone with my mother’s friend, Ms. Betty. I mentioned that when I had left California, I hadn’t anticipated staying here this long. That my recipe books were back in San Jose. But! I remembered that she had given me a recipe book some years ago and in it was a recipe for a cookie that I would LOVE to bake. When I was a little girl, I just loved it when one or another aunt would bake cocoons, an absolutely scrumptious delicacy! Kind of like a wedding cookie, only far better, in my not-so-humble culinary opinion. ;)
Years, before the storm, Ms. Betty had put together a cookbook for the local county hospital which happens to be in our hometown. She had given me a copy of it, and I recall that in it was this recipe.
I didn’t think twice about asking her for the recipe. It’s a simple enough of a request. Everyone down here loves great food, swapping recipes, and raving over mouth-watering palatable pleasures. I told Ms. Betty that there was absolutely no rush, just whenever she came upon it, if she would call and read it to me, I’d simply write it down.
She said that she didn’t know if she could find it. Not quite yet grasping the situation, I mentioned that it was a pink covered book that she had put together for the hospital. I could hear in her voice that she may not have it. How thoughtless of me especially considering that I knew that she had lost her home. An easy going conversation ended up as reminder of what was lost in a moment during a major natural disaster.
“Ahhhh, yes!” Ms. Betty said. She proceeded to tell me that it made her sick to lose that book in the storm because she had worked so hard on it. Ms. Betty, who is now 71 years old, had been a full time volunteer at the local hospital. However, she then told me that she had mentioned to a friend at the hospital that she had lost the recipe book in Katrina. Lo and behold! There was a single copy of it left, and Ms. Betty did, in fact, have the book containing the cookie recipe. Whew!
Not so fast, though. Ms. Betty said that she had to look through her Katrina boxes to find it and would look for it over the next few days. As she and I talked further, she piped up and changed the subject. “You have a pen and paper?” I said, “Uh, yes.”
“I found the book.” Ms. Betty then dictated the recipe to me. We continued chatting about cooking, food, recipe books. I mentioned that I had really missed having mine with me especially since I’m baking a carrot cake for my younger brother’s birthday at the end of the week. Again, she piped up with offering to look for her carrot cake recipe. I was really feeling conflicted. I knew how food-centric we all are here—cooking it, eating it, sharing it with others. But, I didn’t want to put her out nor did I want her to go looking for something that Katrina had swept away almost 22 months ago.
Again, she put her hand right on the recipe and now I have a great recipe in my hands. Such a sweetie that she is, Ms. Betty asked if I had cake pans. See, when she moved back after the storm, she had attended some volunteer meeting and offered to make a cake for some occasion.
She went to the store and got a few things. When she got to where she was staying, she realized that she didn’t have any cake pans. By this she meant that Katrina had carried away her kitchen belongings along with the rest of her things. Something as simple as baking a cake—at least for those of us who are used to having a kitchen stocked with pots and pans, cooking utensils and assorted items like flour, sugar, baking powder and the like, becomes a reminder of all that was lost on that fateful day Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and burst the levees in New Orleans.
I replied to her question stating that mom’s baking pans were in a box somewhere in the shed or in the make shift storage on the carport. However, my brother’s girlfriend has cake pans she was going to let me borrow.
I think about all of my belongings that are safely in California. Given the way life has unfolded since I arrived here back in the beginning of March, I am uncertain of when I’ll reunite with my things. I remember that I’m lucky. I have all of my belongings. For so many here in Katrina Land, they don’t have what they had pre-Katrina be it a cake pan, a dish towel, or a home to call one’s own.
It shouldn’t be this way. The insurance companies should have paid out the claims long ago. Instead, their unconscionable behavior has forced policyholders to go to court. Thankfully, we have the Scruggs Katrina Group, the Merlin Law Group, Mississippi’s Attorney General Jim Hood and others who are bringing justice to this ongoing nightmarish situation. Hopefully, the insurance companies will receive sky high fines for their atrociously bad corporate behavior which they continue to demonstrate. Along with the fines, I wish that there could be personal criminal charges brought against the insurance managers and board of directors for their role in what they have imposed on Katrina’s survivors.
This is America, where we learn as children about Justice being blind so as to see Truth. When corporations deliberately conspire internally or externally as the documents listed on the official website for Gulf Coast Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS) appear to indicate, we look for the wheels of Justice to do us proud.
As we wait for the court proceedings to conclude favorably, those of us in Katrina Land must continue to live our lives as best we can. While living in California, going to the one of many grocery stores within a 15 minute drive was the norm. Having at my fingertips, the pots and pans that I’ve accumulated over the years was, of course, common place. Like my maternal grandmother, I absolutely enjoy cooking and baking. These are among many such simple pleasures that I, along with many of you, take for granted.
For me—as for others here in Katrina Land, things are different. Even the simple pleasures in life are not so simple.
FEMA may not fund new school
By DWAYNE BREMER
Jun 22, 2007
Repeatedly over the past 22 months, FEMA officials said in public meetings the school board could build the schools if it raised the elevation above the ABFE.
The recent memo caught state and local officials completely off-guard this week, and now the possibility that FEMA may not fund the school is potentially a serious problem, officials said.
"This is the first we have heard about this," School District Attorney Mark Alexander said Thursday. "FEMA has changed the rules in the middle of the game. Every single step in the process involved reps from MEMA and FEMA. It was our understanding from them that we could build above the ABFE."
***
Alexander said if the school district has to absorb the $33 million dollar contract . . . , it could mean "extreme ramifications" for the school district. ***
“This policy is coming down from headquarters and it is not what the local reps have interpreted."*** Mike Womack, the executive director of MEMA
Thursday, the school district was scheduled to break ground on the new school, which officials hoped to have completed by August 2008.
Last month, the [Hancock County] school board entered into a $33 million contract with Roy Anderson Corp. to construct South Hancock and another school in Leetown. FEMA funding was to cover most of the construction costs.
Repeatedly over the past 22 months, FEMA officials said in public meetings the school board could build the schools if it raised the elevation above the ABFE (Advisory Base Flood Elevation).
The recent memo caught state and local officials completely off-guard this week, and now the possibility that FEMA may not fund the school is potentially a serious problem, officials said.
"This is the first we have heard about this," School District Attorney Mark Alexander said Thursday. "FEMA has changed the rules in the middle of the game. Every single step in the process involved reps from MEMA and FEMA. It was our understanding from them that we could build above the ABFE."
Mike Womack, the executive director of MEMA, said Thursday he believes the school board is exempt from the policy.
"The policy was actually put in place about a year ago, but it said if your project was already underway, then you were exempt," he said. "It's unfortunate that they (FEMA) are taking this position. This policy is coming down from headquarters and it is not what the local reps have interpreted."
Read the entire article in the Sea Coast Echo.
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