Today was an interesting day... After breakfast Greg and went grocery shopping. I ran into a women I hadn’t seen in years. We gave each other a huge hug, found out that our houses both had made it through OK. Caught up on things. She said she’s try to send some work our way so I gave her my card. I remember one Mardi Gras several years ago she was riding on a float for the Krewe of Isis, an all-woman krewe. She spied me in the crowd and pelted me with whole bags of beads. I was an instant celebrity with the people stand around us. “Wow. Who is she? Who’s that she knows?” (Riders wear masks. She had lifted hers up so I could see who was showing me with goodies.) I shared my bounty with those around us-- what was I going to do with several gross of Mardi Gras beads? Put them in the attic with the others?

We then drove out to Gentilly, one of the neighborhoods that got badly flooded. My friend and her husband in were in town salvaging more things out of their flooded house. They are still waiting to find out what the insurance company wants to do. they were going to prepare the house for demolition, but said now they aren’t doing anything until they get $$$ from the insurance company. I asked if their insurance adjuster had come out --there are people STILL waiting, 4 months later for theirs to show up. She said yes, as had the mold adjuster. Mold adjuster? They got their check from the mold adjuster. The mold was growing in what could almost be called an artistic manner. Surprisingly it hadn’t started growing on the ceiling. But it was growing everywhere else. Their furniture was flipped over and spread haphazardly around the rooms. It all floated when the water rose, bobbed around, then settled where ever it was when the water level dropped. She showed me the top shelf in their bathroom - a stack of perfectly white fluffy towels sat there, like nothing ever happened. There is no power, or phone, or water. Surreal is the best way to describe it. After we left, we drove around looking for places we knew, houses Greg had worked on. Drove through Lakeview, the neighborhood by the notorious 17th street canal. Most building in the city have been tagged with spray paint left by groups searching for survivors, victims or animals. The water had gotten so high, that the marks were on the second story or on the roofs of the building instead on the front doors like in other neighborhoods. It was freaky that we were driving down a street that back on August 31, we would have been completely underwater. There are no people around and very little traffic since no one can live there right now, we did see that many people had been back to clean out and gut their houses. It was comforting to know that there people were planning on coming back. Why else gut their house? One house had a spray painted message “Good-bye New Orleans, we’ll miss you.” The trash removal crews had been busy though because Lakeview didn’t have the big piles of garbage like Gentilly did.

That was pretty sobering and made us so thankfully our house and neighborhood was spared. All day we could hear the machinery in the park behind our house, preparing it for trailers. I read in the newspapers how some people are screaming “NIMBY” Not In My Back Yard. The people who will be living in these trailers, lost their home, and will have to live in a trailer for a year or two and you won’t let them? How can people be so selfish?

I did laundry, cleaned, Greg worked on the house as the bulldozers plowed the field. Greg left to go to the office after he wore himself out taking out an old fireplace. I heard a lot of traffic on my street and stuck my head out. 3 of my neighbors were out there so I asked “what’s going on?” and they said a parade was coming. It was really a second line, but we got cups of wine and sat on one neighbors porch and waited and talked. Finally the police drove by, the start of every parade, wedding or funeral procession. A limo carrying some men with santa hats drove by. We yelled “throw us something santa” and he replied it was all gone, all they had left was love. The sign on the limo identified the procession was for the “Prince of Wales” - one of the black “Aid and Pleasure” Clubs. The Rebirth Brass Band was next followed by about 200 people second lining. My neighbors flowed into the dancing crowd and were gone. I sat on the porch waiting for their return.

I have been closely watching operation “ignore it and it will go away” playing out at nearly every level of the Federal Government as it applies to the wasteland of what was the city of New Orleans, and I am struck by something.

There is a larger issue here, and the rest of the country needs to realize that should disaster befall your city or state, you will be on your own. You’ll get a few weeks of hand wringing and some empty promises. Then it’s: thanks for the tax dollars, but it would be irresponsible to help you, so we’ll go through the motions so as to not look callous.

The ambulance will pick you up, drop you at the door to the hospital, and you’re on your own after that. Can’t make the crawl to the door? The Federal Government will simply cross to the other side of the street. No insurance? There’s a chair for you next to the morgue, but try not to linger on too long, another person will be along shortly. Hurricane season starts in less than six months.

New Yorkers really should take a look at the projections of what a major hurricane would do to Long Island and the city proper. No one in their right mind should live there. And Houston? The projections when Rita was approaching were frightening enough, but just like stupid Texans, once the storm passed they all came right back into the future path of destruction. Seattle and Tacoma have a nice active volcano right in their backyard. What kind of stupid idiot would build there? California, what do you need to say? Besides the obvious earthquake risk, those faults extend offshore and pose a tsunami risk as well. But there just a bunch of liberals anyway; they don’t deserve our help. I wonder what would happen if a cat 4 or 5 Hurricane turned up the Chesapeake Bay? There has to be some projections somewhere. Think you are safe away from the coast? New Madrid Fault; last time there was a major eruption there were four 7+ earthquakes and the Mississippi ran backwards. The stupid people living in the four states that would be most affected didn’t bother to enforce any seismic building codes (I blame it on corruption). Scientists say we’re due. Or I should say “you’re” due. None of us in unaffected areas have any concern. Our Government has shown us the way: we’ll donate a few buck to charity, take in a few refugees and then bitch about how ungrateful they are, and then we’ll find plenty of reasons while those wretched people don’t deserve any help. But we can sure make a buck off it; we’ll set up tours for people to see the devastation.

It used to be that the call of “every man for himself” came after the lifeboats had been filled, usually with women and children first, and launched, and every heroic effort had been made to save the ship. Today we recognize that this is merely quaint sentimentality, and that we operate under a far more enlightened philosophy, “every man for himself” begins when you purchase your ticket. Civilization is such a quaint concept.

GJH