Bulldozing New Orleans: A Tale of Two Sisters

[nosmokes]

Just about every story out of NO breaks my heart.i have a niece that lives in mettarie and while she came through katrina OK the aftermath is sapping hr spirit.
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original-progressive populist

Bulldozing New Orleans: A Tale of Two Sisters

Katrina recovery funds pay to pull down public housing when it costs less to repair
By Bill Quigley

*New Orleans

Gloria Williams and her twin sister Bobbie Jennings are 60 years old. They are two of the over 4000 families who lived in public housing in New Orleans before Katrina struck who are still locked out of their apartments since Katrina. Their apartments are two of 4534 apartments that the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has announced plans to demolish. Demolition is planned even though it will cost more to demolish and rebuild many fewer units than it does to fix them up and open them. Ms. Williams and Ms. Jennings, and thousands of families like them, are fighting HUD; they want to return.

Gloria and Bobbie started working early. As children they picked cotton, strawberries, snap beans and pecans before and after grade school every day in rural Louisiana. "We were raised up to work," they said.

They moved to New Orleans after their father drowned. Their home was marked by regular domestic violence. A few years later, their mother was murdered by a boyfriend.

As teens they moved in with an abusive relative. They ran away, came back, and stayed with other relatives. They can even remember nights when they slept under their aunt's bed in a hospital while waiting for her to recuperate.

As young women they continued working. They worked in restaurants before starting careers as Certified Nursing Assistants. Then they worked for years in nursing homes and in private homes caring for the elderly and disabled. They fed people, cleaned people, bathed people, cared for people. Each married and raised children and grandchildren. Like 25% of the households in New Orleans, neither owned a car.

Both sisters are now 60. In the past few years, their years of physical work took its toil and they could no longer work. Ms. Jennings had back surgery and suffers with high blood pressure. Ms. Williams has heart and lung problems, high blood pressure, and clots in her legs that prevent her from standing or walking for long periods. Each lives solely on about $600 a month from disability. No pensions.

When Katrina hit, they had been living in the C.J. Peete apartments for years. Ms. Bobbie Jennings had been there for 34 years. Her twin sister, Ms. Gloria Williams lived there for over 18 years.
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complete article here

[IndyOp]

1. Kucinich is Chair of Domestic Policy Subcommittee of Government Oversight

This subcommittee has jurisdiction over Department of Health ad Human Services and Department of Housing and Urban Development.

I just called DC and they suggested contacting the Congressman by email. He has "WriteRep" connected to his website select "Ohio" and then enter the zipcode "44107" - http://www.house.gov/writerep/

[me b zola]

2. Thanks for that info, IndyOp, I'll be writing.

The heartbreak and outrage continues.

[Javaman]

3. The paving of the poor. nt

[IndyOp]

4. One more Rec & the reason for *'s criminal neglect will be laid bare for all to see...

Hurrincane Expert Threatened For Pre-Katrina Warnings

DON’T blame the Lady. Katrina killed no one in this town. In fact, Katrina missed the city completely, going wide to the east.It wasn’t the hurricane that drowned, suffocated, de-hydrated and starved 1,500 people that week.

The killing was done by a deadly duo: a failed emergency evacuation plan combined with faulty levees. Behind these twin failures lies a tale of cronyism, profiteering and willful incompetence that takes us right to the steps of the White House.

<snip>

Back at LSU, van Heerden (Deputy Director of LSU Hurricane Center) astonished me with the most serious charge of all. While showing me huge maps of the flooding, he told me the White House had withheld the information that, in fact, the levees were about to burst and by Tuesday at dawn the city, and more than a thousand people, would drown.

Van Heerden said,

“FEMA knew on Monday at 11 o’clock that the levees had breached… They took video. By midnight on Monday the White House knew. But none of us knew …I was at the State Emergency Operations Center.” Because the hurricane had missed the city that Monday night, evacuation effectively stopped, assuming the city had survived.

=========

I have only one gripe with Palast's story -- there were THREE things that killed those people:

(1.) a failed emergency evacuation plan
(2.) faulty levees
(3.) criminal neglect of FEMA and the White House to TELL people Monday night that the levees had broken and that they had only a few hours to get out.

People went to bed Monday night with only a little water in the streets - when they awoke the water was lapping at the mattress on which they lay. Many, many climbed into their attics to escape and died there because they did not have an ax to chop their way out and climb up on the roof. Deadly heat. Water rising.

The White House knew and chose to let people suffer and die. They knew.

Shall we push for impeachment? Or wait for him to drop a nuclear weapon on Iran?

[Leopolds Ghost]

5. Kick & five recs

At least someone is fighting for them, see this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3140849

[Anita Garcia]

6. Bill Quigley is a great man! kr