You lookin' at me punk?! Reilly's game face...
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Silencing the Zydeco
How do you adequately discuss the absolute destruction of an entire city, much less one with the panache of New Orleans? The whole country must still be in shock, certainly those citizens who have spent even the smallest amount of time in the Crescent City, because the scale of the destruction is so vast that it seems as if it cannot be true. Maybe that's why the federal reaction was the way it was - the utter shock that this was even a remote possibility, much less an actuality. But this is no excuse. Nor is the "we didn't know it could happen" argument.
For Bush to say that they didn't know the levees could be compromised is akin to a child saying he didn't know the dog would run away when the gate was left open - you've been warned about it, even scorned about it, so when it happens this flies like a lead balloon. The powers that be at both FEMA and DHS have said they didn't know about certain conditions until hours if not a full day past when they were first reported on national news. How is this possible? How can it be that we are getting the most accurate reporting from Harry Connick Jr., a guy who plays the piano for a living (and a New Orleans legend), and even at that point, when the lines between MSNBC and Entertainment Tonight have been merged, the government claims to have had no idea how bad things were? This whole thing has been bungled beyond belief and at the expense of those citizens who were trapped in a toxic lagoon. Some should have evacuated and they didn't, that is those with the means but not the desire. But the others, the one's without the means, were utterly abandoned. Why did the relief not come sooner? Not in the immediate day or two following the catastrophe (which it should have in the worst possible scenario), but as a proactive measure?
For years people have foretold about the very real possibility of a total breakdown of New Orleans levee system in the event of a cat 4 or 5 hurricane, but nothing was done to remedy this potential calamity. That being said, it was well known, and well documented, that a storm of this size would demolish a significant part of the city and it was also known that a large portion of the city's inhabitants lay well beneath the poverty line. So where was the planning? If we knew of this possibility, why weren't there buses lined up on Saturday to take people from these neighborhoods out of town? How much would it have cost? It certainly would not have been cheap, but what is the cost of potentially thousands of lives? Bush is now trying to push through another $40 billion for recovery, the transportation effort would have been a fraction of a percent of this number, and we would be talking about material goods, not lost souls.
Furthermore, why weren't there 10,000 national guard troops staged in Memphis, ready to roll south as the rain from the storm passed them by? Even if New Orleans was spared the flooding, these troops would've been put to work quickly in one facet or another on this. And it keeps getting worse - the Keystone Cops, Presidential Edition. One image that will always stand out to me is the picture of Bush "surveying" the destruction from Air Force One: not only was he two days late and had to cut his vacation short, but he didn't return to actually set foot on ground in any of the disaster areas until 4 days after the storm. Imagine waiting for the cavalry to come save you for 2 days, seeing the president - the most powerful man in the nation - fly over, then waiting 2 MORE days until anyone showed up to help. How would you feel? Abandoned. Right in the middle of the United States of America.
Today the streets of the French Quarter are silent. And they will be tomorrow and the day following that, probably for the next 60-90 days. After that, who knows? It has been widely said that the spirit of the people of New Orleans will rise like the proverbial Phoenix and rebuild this great city, and we all hope this is true. New Orleans is an American institution - not unlike (but not at all like) San Francisco and New York City. These cities distinguish themselves immediately, not only in the US but as world cities. The Zydeco music blaring from every crevice. The debauchery of all things Bourbon Street. The coffee and beignets at Cafe DuMond. "The Quarter" is another world that is not of this world. Bill Simmons says that the French Quarter is one of the only places in the world where as soon as you step into it you feel like you are in a movie, and I couldn't agree more. Eight weeks ago I was down there with a lot of uncles and cousins of mine and can tell you that you haven't lived until you have seen the sun rising above the bayou and filling the French Quarter with morning's first light. You may feel like you want to die, but it is quite a site - bittersweet almost in that "curtain being pulled back from Oz" kind of way, but it also means you have survived.
On the flip side, I proposed to my wife in Jackson Square. She said yes, so this story is a good one. The romantic aspect of the Quarter is often overlooked in the face of Mardi Gras and a million different crude Bourbon Street t-shirts, but it is still there. The old streets and horse drawn carriages. The boutique shops. The vine laced balconies. The smooth southern drawl and sweet tea. The music hanging in the air. The gumbo. The laid back life style. It's all there to be found, on foot no less, in the Quarter - with Jackson Square and St. Louis Cathedral right there on the banks of the mighty Mississippi.
This was the best part of 'Nawlins - that it was all right there. And it will be back. It has to come back. There is too much music yet to be played.
For Bush to say that they didn't know the levees could be compromised is akin to a child saying he didn't know the dog would run away when the gate was left open - you've been warned about it, even scorned about it, so when it happens this flies like a lead balloon. The powers that be at both FEMA and DHS have said they didn't know about certain conditions until hours if not a full day past when they were first reported on national news. How is this possible? How can it be that we are getting the most accurate reporting from Harry Connick Jr., a guy who plays the piano for a living (and a New Orleans legend), and even at that point, when the lines between MSNBC and Entertainment Tonight have been merged, the government claims to have had no idea how bad things were? This whole thing has been bungled beyond belief and at the expense of those citizens who were trapped in a toxic lagoon. Some should have evacuated and they didn't, that is those with the means but not the desire. But the others, the one's without the means, were utterly abandoned. Why did the relief not come sooner? Not in the immediate day or two following the catastrophe (which it should have in the worst possible scenario), but as a proactive measure?
For years people have foretold about the very real possibility of a total breakdown of New Orleans levee system in the event of a cat 4 or 5 hurricane, but nothing was done to remedy this potential calamity. That being said, it was well known, and well documented, that a storm of this size would demolish a significant part of the city and it was also known that a large portion of the city's inhabitants lay well beneath the poverty line. So where was the planning? If we knew of this possibility, why weren't there buses lined up on Saturday to take people from these neighborhoods out of town? How much would it have cost? It certainly would not have been cheap, but what is the cost of potentially thousands of lives? Bush is now trying to push through another $40 billion for recovery, the transportation effort would have been a fraction of a percent of this number, and we would be talking about material goods, not lost souls.
Furthermore, why weren't there 10,000 national guard troops staged in Memphis, ready to roll south as the rain from the storm passed them by? Even if New Orleans was spared the flooding, these troops would've been put to work quickly in one facet or another on this. And it keeps getting worse - the Keystone Cops, Presidential Edition. One image that will always stand out to me is the picture of Bush "surveying" the destruction from Air Force One: not only was he two days late and had to cut his vacation short, but he didn't return to actually set foot on ground in any of the disaster areas until 4 days after the storm. Imagine waiting for the cavalry to come save you for 2 days, seeing the president - the most powerful man in the nation - fly over, then waiting 2 MORE days until anyone showed up to help. How would you feel? Abandoned. Right in the middle of the United States of America.
Today the streets of the French Quarter are silent. And they will be tomorrow and the day following that, probably for the next 60-90 days. After that, who knows? It has been widely said that the spirit of the people of New Orleans will rise like the proverbial Phoenix and rebuild this great city, and we all hope this is true. New Orleans is an American institution - not unlike (but not at all like) San Francisco and New York City. These cities distinguish themselves immediately, not only in the US but as world cities. The Zydeco music blaring from every crevice. The debauchery of all things Bourbon Street. The coffee and beignets at Cafe DuMond. "The Quarter" is another world that is not of this world. Bill Simmons says that the French Quarter is one of the only places in the world where as soon as you step into it you feel like you are in a movie, and I couldn't agree more. Eight weeks ago I was down there with a lot of uncles and cousins of mine and can tell you that you haven't lived until you have seen the sun rising above the bayou and filling the French Quarter with morning's first light. You may feel like you want to die, but it is quite a site - bittersweet almost in that "curtain being pulled back from Oz" kind of way, but it also means you have survived.
On the flip side, I proposed to my wife in Jackson Square. She said yes, so this story is a good one. The romantic aspect of the Quarter is often overlooked in the face of Mardi Gras and a million different crude Bourbon Street t-shirts, but it is still there. The old streets and horse drawn carriages. The boutique shops. The vine laced balconies. The smooth southern drawl and sweet tea. The music hanging in the air. The gumbo. The laid back life style. It's all there to be found, on foot no less, in the Quarter - with Jackson Square and St. Louis Cathedral right there on the banks of the mighty Mississippi.
This was the best part of 'Nawlins - that it was all right there. And it will be back. It has to come back. There is too much music yet to be played.
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