[StBernard] Seven months and a week after Katrina

Westley Annis westley at da-parish.com
Tue Apr 11 19:39:25 EDT 2006



Westly,
One of my aquaintances received this email from one of their close
friends sharred this with me. I wanted to share this with our readers.
Surely hits close to home.
Jill Dolese

****************************************************************************
**********



I delayed writing this edition of my Katrina chronicle because I
thought I would be able to say that Corky's house had been torn down - a
critical step in moving on with our lives. Sadly, I can't say that. After
three separate trips to oversee the work, we remain stymied - by
government-required inspections, contractors breaking commitments - the
things that everyone here who is trying to move on seems to be dealing with
these days.

I remain hopeful for our future, but it is harder all the time to
stay that way. Tears come far easier than sleep does these days - not just
for me, but for nearly everyone I speak with. Yet, it's a beautiful day
today as I sit in a FEMA trailer outside a house that should have been torn
down weeks ago. Nature continues to heal and nearly everything is green and
flowering. There are an astounding number of little lizards and turtles in
the canal that I can look out at. Birds and squirrels have returned in
significant numbers. The neighbor's garden of vegetables and flowers is
incredible - her own therapy after a harrowing experience of staying through
the storm as the eye came up this street.

So - here is what I can say about progress in the area.

Mississippi's Gulf Coast is slowly coming back together. People are
attempting to rebuild. The government has laid out a clear vision for the
recovery and renaissance of the area. There are still mountains of debris
to remove. There are still insurance hassles. There are still people who
are waiting for someone else to act so that they can move on - but there is
progress. The critical bridges that allowed people to move along the Gulf
Coast remain out. People are going hours out of a direct path - but they
are moving.

The five parishes (counties) in Louisiana that have been the most
severely impacted by the two hurricanes - St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Orleans
(New Orleans and south of the city), St. Tammany (north of Lake
Pontchartrain and between New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast) and
Cameron (in western Louisiana which was devastated by Hurricane Rita a month
after Katrina, and is largely overlooked by the outside world) continue to
develop and implement plans - but with less clear, consistent guidance from
the state level than Mississippi has received.

Armies of volunteers - many associated with church groups from all
over the country or connected with Habitat for Humanity - have already been
here and continue to arrive. They have gutted houses, built new houses and
other structures, provided aid and comfort to a weary population that
continues to struggle to rebuild.

We have just completed the development of a coordinated plan for
restoring health care to the southeast and southwest parts of Louisiana - a
requirement of the federal government before substantial funds will be
released. We are hopeful that the plans will be seen as well-constructed
and a responsible proposal for the use of funds that will rebuild hospitals
in the rural areas that have been so badly hit, fund the recruitment of
medical personnel to replace the substantial number of doctors and nurses
that we have lost permanently in the area, and re-establish critical mental
health infrastructure that will help the population that was in need of
these services before the storms - and the thousands of people who have
exhausted their personal emotional resources in the face of loss of home,
job, family members and their known way of life. During a meeting last week
that centered on the finalizing of these plans, a doctor from St. Bernard
parish spoke eloquently and from the heart as he told some of his story. He
said, "As I was being rescued from the roof of our hospital that was under
water, we passed my son's house which was under water, and I watched
everyone around be being rescued. And I realized all my patients were gone,
and I didn't have a job anymore. My family took a 1500 mile road trip.and
one day my son said, 'I want my life back.' And I thought, my former life
is gone. Yet I also realize how fortunate I was to have all that I had, if
only for a time.that it was a gift from God that I need to be thankful for."
There wasn't a dry eye in the room as he shifted then to talking about how
health care could be restored in his parish. What strength! And we see
this over and over again among the people of this area - a simple faith and
an incredible personal strength, that is being tested as never before.

Local news columnists who have long written personal interest
stories in the area are increasingly revealing their own struggles in
dealing with "post-Katrina" life. Have I told you before that nearly
everyone around me speaks of "pre-K" and "post-K" elements of our lives? (I
suspect the same is true in southwest Louisiana about Rita, but I cannot
personally attest to that.) It is impossible to equate life before with
life after these storms. For life has been unalterably changed for us.

Even as we see more people getting back into to their homes - or at
least are actively engaged in the process of doing so - we cannot just go
back to "how it was". Our landscape remains littered with our lives of the
past (homes, contents, landscape - even bodies that continue to be
discovered as the clean up continues) and has been infected with the
ubiquitous FEMA trailers on personal property and in every trailer park
around. Electricity is restored to most areas, but is not fully back to how
it was - every thunderstorm or high wind yields blackouts or at least short
losses of power. Health care workers are seeing a substantial increase in
construction-related injuries. We likely have the highest antibody rate
protecting a populace from tetanus in the country. Fires are breaking out
daily - in homes that are being worked on and a spark ignites damaged wiring
and in rural areas where dead timber is everywhere. People trying to clean
up their own debris have accidentally started several forest fires when
their little burn pile got out of control. Our levee system remains damaged
- and hurricane season is now less than 60 days away. Many residents are
trying to rebuild, but have indicated that if this hurricane season brings
us another bad storm, they will give up and move away.

I've lost so many dear friends to relocation - people who've lost
everything here and can't bear to deal with the clean-up. I miss them
terribly and find myself emailing and calling people a lot to stay in touch
in any way I can. There are still quite a few that I don't know how to
reach - phone numbers, addresses, emails have all changed - and I can't find
out how they are. Each time I see someone I haven't seen in a while, we hug
a little longer than we might have before the storms, spend a little more
time catching up on personal things that we might have before the storms,
care a little more about each other than we might have before the storms.
Whole neighborhoods remain dark with little activity to suggest that people
will be returning.

Yet there is also an amazing amount of rebuilding going on in this
mess. The sound of construction equipment is everywhere - sometimes taking
structures down, mostly putting things back together. In Orleans parish
alone, it is estimated that there are over 25,000 construction workers -
many from out of town (or out of state or out of country).

The bridges leading out of New Orleans are nearly all restored -
although some with temporary solutions that need constant monitoring.

Frustrations are running high with the entities that keep
individuals and communities from moving on with their lives. FEMA has done
an extraordinary amount of things to help us get our lives back in order -
yet there are an incredible number of things not done, or done badly. The
news is quick to report all the complaints and bad stuff.and there is plenty
of that to go around: trailers being installed where they aren't supposed to
be, people and organizations still waiting for their temporary trailers,
fraud and misuse of funds. Other federal, state and local entities have
their labyrinth of permits and processes that we are all becoming too
familiar with. The systems that worked when there was only a periodic need
for permits, etc. are strained beyond capacity - and with fewer workers (at
the state and local levels) because of loss of tax base.

Someone gave me an analogy that might help those reading this to
comprehend the magnitude of this situation. Imagine that one quarter of
your state's population was evacuated - all over the country - in the space
of a week - some traumatically from shelters and their homes, mostly by
helicopter and small boats. Find temporary housing and perhaps employment
and schools for all these people. Assume that the majority of the people
who have been evacuated lose their homes and all their contents, and
probably at least one car and perhaps their job while they are gone.
Collapse the infrastructure that supports all these people: utilities,
roads, bridges, communications systems, trash pickup, restaurants,
groceries, pharmacies, hospitals, other medical services, most retail
establishments, hotels, and cripple the government entities with the loss of
half their workers and most of the tax base. Flood much of the geography in
which these people lived.

Now: a week later, begin to drain the flood waters and rebuild the
infrastructure. A month later, start moving people back, including
reestablishing for many a place for them to live. GO! Imagine rebuilding
one-quarter of your state from scratch - while you don't have adequate
communications systems to coordinate this enormous task. Imagine trying to
coordinate the return of one-quarter of your state's citizens, from every
walk of life and from every socio-economic status. Imagine teaching them
all a new language: the language of disaster recovery, which includes
negotiating with insurance, government at all levels, contractors that will
tear down and rebuild.is your head swimming yet? (Pardon the analogy for
those of you who literally had your life -- if not yourself -- up to your
neck in water.)

That's where we are: attempting to rebuild our lives, our
communities and our states from scratch. Everything is familiar - and
nothing is. There isn't a person in this area who isn't profoundly impacted
by this series of disasters. Yet, we are rebuilding. Some of us need more
help than others - and have all our lives. Others are anxious to get
control of their lives back - something that we've had all of our adult
lives and long for again. A month ago the cry was for something that seemed
normal.this is still something we long for. Yet the familiar begins to
return, normalcy begins to creep back in, and we cling to a hope that life
will someday, somehow, begin to resemble what we knew.pre-K.

Thanks for listening to me again. I hope this finds you and your
family well - or healing. It is a long road back, but we will get there -
together. Hold your loved ones close - for in the end, this is really what
is most important. Until I feel like rambling again..Nancy






More information about the StBernard mailing list