So I went back to New Orleans last week... (cross post to a good post)

[uppityperson]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1912903#1916887
I don't have permission from OP to copy the whole thing here yet, but wanted to pass this on anyways. I'll try to get the whole thing here before it disappears into archieves. It is a good bit of writing that starts:

[Brotherjohn]

1. You do now. Here ya go (and thanks):

(since I can't add it to your post, I'll just put it here)

So I went back to New Orleans last week...

And all I can think about now is Katrina Katrina Katrina.

We had a memorial service for my Mom, who died as an evacuee 2 months after "The Thing" (as Times Picayune columnist Chris Rose has deemed Katrina). The situation had never, until now, really been settled enough to call a bunch of family and friends into town to pay tribute to her life.
My tribute to her life is posted here:
http://www.legacy.com/Nola/GuestBook.asp?Page=GuestBook... .
(If you link to this anywhere, please link to the Times Picayune-Legacy site above and not DU, out of respect for my mother and father and keeping politics entirely out of it.)

It went well, and ended up being a fitting remembrance of her life. But, and I guess I should have expected this, EVERYONE had a Katrina story. Of course, in New Orleans, everyone does. And they're not just "This is how I rode out the storm". They're more like "This is what I've been doing day in and day out for 11 months... the struggles to get a pittance from the insurance company... attempts to get electricity in my FEMA trailer so I can at least live close to my gutted house and get it livable before the next hurricane hits... and then HOPE the new (unfinished) levees hold". Not to mention the "simpler" stories... those who lost everything, home and business, if not lives.

Between that and the service, it all became kind of numbing. I think I simply caught a bit of the sickness that those still there experience all day, every day, and all night, every night.

I guess it didn't help that I read Chris Rose's excellent book, "1 Dead In Attic", on the way back. You get a small sense of what drove his colleague (that TP photographer) temporarily insane a short while ago. But I'm glad I read it. It's an excellent collection of his columns from the days during and immediately after, and through the months following the storm. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to get a glimpse at the personal side of what the city has gone through, and continues to go through. (http://chrisrosebooks.com /)

Everyone in New Orleans is struggling. They're struggling to keep a roof over their heads, to keep their families together, to keep their children from re-living the nightmare every night. They're struggling to keep their home a home (whatever or wherever it may be at the moment). It's no small accomplishment to stay either A) sober or B) out of an institution on any given day. There is still so much destruction and so many lives disrupted on such a massive scale, that I don't think anyone can imagine it unless they have been there and spoken to a few dozen New Orleanians and driven around the worst-affected parts of town (which is to say, about half its area).

There is hope. There is much work being done. But there is SO much left to be done (in many ways, the job has only just started). New Orleans is a city teetering on the edge.

I want to take the opportunity of the approaching one year anniversary to urge everyone who may read this to take up this issue again. It's not just any issue. An American city is dying. Write your Congressional delegation and urge them to give Louisiana its fair share of oil and gas revenues (http://www.levees.org/advocacy/revenuesharing.php ). Urge them to make sure that the billions allocated to hurricane relief actually get used. Urge the to hold the Army Corps of Engineers accountable for faulty flood protection (which they have already admitted to).

Don't just watch the shows on Discovery Times and HGTV and the Weather Channel (which I will be doing too, as I can't bring myself not to). Whatever your take on the most pressing aspect of the issue is, DO something!

[uppityperson]

2. thanks! and congratulations, looks like you have a star.

Do something indeed. Thank you for going, for writing this, for doing something. It is quite a mess. I ordered that book also.

[uppityperson]

3. I bought, recieved, red 1dead in attic, wow.

Good sumnation of the chaos that is the gulf coast post Katrina. Wonderful things, awful things. Mental health issuse abound. Doing the best they can, doing what they can. Gulf coast is a mess, history, culture has changed. I wish I wish I wish I had gotten there before and for longer than a train passage back in 1980s. I wish I wish I wish.