Katrina Update #68

March 25, 2006; 3PM CST

This past Wednesday, March 22nd, our middle son Adam turned 23. He had the day off, not as much by choice as by necessity since he had badly sprained his ankle while attempting to leave his house by not using the stairs (which we assume was unintentional). I won't go into any more detail except to say that we raised our kids to be pretty much self-punishing, and the cause of this particular accident would lend itself to that conclusion.

Anyway, the occasion of his birthday and the fact that Travis' mom and uncle were in town seemed like reason enough for us to have one of our cookouts, so we did. Naturally, we had to feature Adam's Ribs. The original recipe is inspired by the Secret's of The M*A*S*H Mess cookbook, which, despite how much as the fictional characters of the TV show disdained the food from the Mess Hall, is actually quite good. I have done my own modifications, of course. Here's a link for the book as well as my recipe:

Spring Is In The Air - Not!

Being from Wisconsin, I have a different concept of winter than most people here in New Orleans. Their idea of winter is a warm spring day to me (and a nice summer day if you talk to my friend Keith, who is from Upper Michigan originally). Nonetheless, it is here we live, and from the perspective of the locals, our wonderful Spring weather I talked about in last week's update has given way to a burst of "cold" air, sending temperatures "plunging" into the upper 30's. To be fair, the average high this time of the year is 74 F and the average low in the mid 50's, so by local standards, it is cold.

But "cold" weather also means dry weather, and that is something we get all too little of down here, so we are loving it. With a dew point of 30 F, the humidity is only around 25%, which is positively desert-like by New Orleans' standards.

New Orleans Is Definitely Not Singapore

Waste Management is both a concept and a company, and I must admit, I am having trouble with both at this point.

While there is still plenty of debris in the greater New Orleans area, it is safe to say the bulk of it has been removed at this point. Certainly, in the "sliver by the river," there is hardly any debris left. But there seems to be plenty of trash, and that is becoming a sore point with residents. A few weeks ago, FEMA turned responsibilities of picking up trash back to the City of New Orleans, who relegated it to the pre-Katrina contractor, Waste Management. Before I go further, it is important you understand a couple of small points: a). before Katrina, residents were accustomed to having their trash picked up twice a week – which, in New Orleans' hot and humid summers, is a very good thing; and b). as I have said before, normalcy is something people need. The more normal things are, the better we can tolerate those things that are not normal and help others who are less fortunate.

OK — so while FEMA was still in charge, they had changed our pickup day (only one day per week now, understandably), to Friday – and garbage was getting picked up pretty regularly. When Waste Management resumed their responsibilities, they shuffled the days again, and our new trash day became Tuesday. Since we had just had our garbage picked up on Friday, I could understand why it wouldn't be picked up the following week – and people are still putting out a lot of trash, so they could use the extra few days to catch up. No problem.

But when the garbage didn't get picked up the following Tuesday, things started to stink – literally. The next week it did get picked up, but not until Thursday. By this time there were about 10 bags of garbage on the curb just in front of our house. We were hopeful that they were finally getting caught up and that the following week's collection would happen on schedule. This brings us up to last week (two Tuesdays ago). As you probably guessed, no such luck.

Now I don't expect New Orleans to be Singapore (although, someday, it might be nice to at least try to be that clean), but it really detracts from what asthetics we can muster when every home has piles of trash outside because the city can't keep up. I understand that some of the trucks were flooded. I understand it is difficult to find employees. I also understand we are talking about an area of the city that is home to roughly 20% of the city's pre-Katrina population. I find it difficult to believe the city can't find the resources to keep up with a demand that is roughly 20 to 30 percent what it was before the storm. (Keep in mind here that the Waste Management employees only pick up household trash, not debris.)

To be fair, I suppose we did come close to getting our garbage picked up on schedule. Last Tuesday, a Waste Management truck parked itself at 7th and Carondolet, blocking the street, for about a half an hour while the crew had their lunch break. When the break was over they drove off – leaving all the garbage behind them on 7th st. still there.

So on Tuesday evening I sent emails to the Residential Dispatcher and Compliance Manager for Waste Management, asking them if I was entitled to take a 50% discount off my monthly trash collection bill because trash was only getting picked up half the time (actually, 1/4 of the time compared to Pre-Katrina). I did not get a response, but an interesting thing did happen. On Wednesday around noon not one, but two Waste Management trucks came into our area and picked up all the garbage. Janis wondered if maybe someone "in power" reads this site and just wants to make sure I don't say bad things about them. That would be nice, but I am inclined to believe it was just a coincidence.

But, on the off-chance someone "in power" is reading this, here's the deal: I would readily accept a schedule where our garbage gets picked up every other week – every odd Tuesday, for instance (although I have always found all Tuesdays a little odd, to tell you the truth) – as long as it really was picked up on schedule. I am tired of seeing all the bags of garbage and trash bags in front of almost every house in the neighborhood because we don't know when the trucks are going to show up. Tell us when you will be here, and then stick to the schedule. I'll happily keep my smelly old garbage in the back of the house and even double-bag it if necessary. Just show up on the day you say you will show up – that's all I ask!

I Still Get Emails

I received the following email from site reader Jonathan earlier this week:

I moved back to the States from a year in London and debated between moving to New Orleans and Los Angeles. I picked Los Angeles, and arrived here in mid-August; obviously, had I made the other decision, I'd have been there just in time to get wrapped up in all of the mess.

I've got family in Baton Rouge, Lafayette, and up around Jackson, MS, as well as Orange, TX, all of whom were affected in some way by the hurricanes, but not at all to the level that the people of New Orleans and the surrounding coastal towns were, so I've got a lot of interest in how things develop around there.

At any rate, thanks for doing what you're doing.

So, like the Energizer Bunny, I keep going, and going, and going. But I do appreciate getting the emails – especially from those who haven't written before. It's nice to know who reads the site and where they are from.

People

Joe Fontana has been busy the past few weeks working as an extra in Deja Vu, the Denzel Washington movie directed by Tony Scott that is filming in New Orleans. He was filmed in a piece for CNN, but they cut him out of it before it aired. Apparently, part of the plot involves an explosion on the Ferry that crosses the Mississippi River. Joes says he gets to play an extra that gets killed when that part of the movie films next week.

News

- In an article distributed through the Associated Press, Mayor Ray Nagin said New Orleans has improved its plans for evacuating residents should Mother Nature stage a repeat performance this coming year. (Something that is not out of the question, btw. Dr. Grey's 2006 forecast is for 17 named storms and 5 major hurricanes. That's 2 more than he predicted last year (which had 27 named storms), and the earliest he has ever released his predictions.) The city now plans to evacuate residents with no other means of transportation by bus, rather than shelters such as the Superdome. In the article, Nagin said "People are pretty attuned to leaving if I say you have to leave, so I don't see that as being as much of a challenge." Really? Ya Think?

- BayouBuzz.com reports that Entergy will walk away from its bankrupt New Orleans' division if it doesn't get sufficient government aid. Entergy-New Orleans. Entergy New Orleans CEO Dan Packer said in a TV interview recently that typically what happens after a disaster is that the rates go up in that region to pay for the repairs. But in the Gulf Coast, and especially the New Orleans area, the damage was so extensive and complete that customers would not be able to afford their gas and electric bills if they were raised enough to recover the costs of repair. He refferred to a customer who is accustomed to paying $100 for service would be paying around $300 per month. So if the updates stop coming, check to see if New Orleans has electricity.

- Surprise! Louisiana has money! The Times-Picayune is reporting that the State of Louisiana ain't broke after all! Despite all the doom-and-gloom predictions, it appears that Louisiana may have its richest fiscal year ever – and that's without counting the federal bailout money! According to the article: "Storm-impacted shoppers restocking their closets and kitchens, corporations ringing in profits, oil firms producing in a high-priced market and gamblers indulging themselves have combined for an unexpectedly robust momentum in state tax receipts seven months after the devastating hurricanes."

But, as the article points out, we shouldn't count our chickens before they are hatched: "It is too soon to announce the return of the good old days before the storm, as budgetary pitfalls riddle the road ahead and some local governments, New Orleans in particular, are woefully unblessed by resurgent tax collections." One particularly interesting tidbit is that Harrah's Casino in New Orleans continued to make its monthly installments on the $60 million in taxes it pays the state each year, even though it was closed for more than 5 months.

What this really means is that when the other shoe falls, Lousiana may be in a better position to weather the storm, no pun intended.

- I watched with some displeasure this past week as former mayor Marc Morial, and the Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton continued to turn our upcoming mayoral elections into a national media circus. Their point is that the elections aren't fair since so many Louisiana residents are displaced. They want Louisiana to set up satellite voting stations in the various states where the majority of evacuees live, which is what the US did for Iraq citizens in the US for the Iraq elections last year. The problem with this is that setting up out-of-state polling places are illegal under Louisiana law.

Guess what? In the first statistical portrait of registered voters (as opposed to overall population), GCR and Associates found that about 80 % of New Orleans' 297,053 voters either have not filed a change of address form, or they have listed a new address within the metro New Orleans area. So the actual percentage of voters living locally is not that high. While it is certainly true that not everyone has notified the post office they have moved, I think it can safely be said that those who do not want others to know (or are too stupid to figure out how to tell others) they have moved also sacrifice their vote. Further, the data shows the proportion of white voters to black voters living in the metro area -- although not necessarily in Orleans Parish -- remains almost the same as before the flood, about 32 percent white and 62 percent black. And the data on race is more reliable because of the massive size of the sample.

To put it simply: this ain't no big deal. While there may be people in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Jackson, and other communities who will not be able to vote, their vote will probably not substantially change the outcome of the race.

- Red Cross fired their New Orleans administrators, as an article in the New York Times reports. This is why donations to that organization does not represent the best possible win-win scenario. It has grown so big that graft and corruption are inevitable. If you still want to donate, give your money to Habitat for Humanity – or better yet, to my own fund. I have been very prudent in how that money has been distributed, with most of it still in the account. Most of it will be used to replace lost items for people like my son Cary and others in our "Coop's Family" once they get settled.

- I found this interesting tidbit on the site for Texoma TV station KFDX the other day that claims some New Orleans city leaders have come up with a plan to prevent widespread flooding if another hurricane hits the city by connecting a series of railroad canals to the levees. This would presumably channel water away from the city, and the resulting flow would go into a holding area instead of neighborhoods. The plan is not perfect, neighborhoods closest to the lake would still flood. The Army Corps of Engineers is looking into the plan. I can find nothing in the local news about this plan, but it sounds like something that should be considered.

- Crime is on the rise again, and for a change, New Orleans residents seem like they are not going to tolerate it. There are several neighborhood groups rising up, and some are actually militant enough to take the police department head on when drug dealers or other crimes go unhandled. While an article in today's Time Magazine claims the murder rate is up to its pre-Katrina levels (that's the rate, not the number of murders in total), they also admit that it is hard to know if that is really true, since no one really knows how many people are living in the city now. Take away the guns, people. That's the only solution. Sorry, gun fans – but believe it or not, I am totally behind "when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns." Why? Because then we will know who the bad guys are and as long as our legal system puts them away, I'll feel safer!

Anyway, it seems that the next mayoral election in New Orleans will be as much about crime and garbage as it will be about rebuilding.

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