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Katrina: After the Storm

Historian Karen Sawislak talks about what’s old in New Orleans

By Christopher Hayes

When New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin assured the city’s black residents that New Orleans would remain a “chocolate city,” he was roundly ridiculed by everyone from late-night talk show hosts to local politicians. But clumsy as the rhetoric might have been, it’s hard not to sympathize with the excruciatingly difficult balancing act he’s now trying to pull off: The city… return to article

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    Page 1 of 1 pages

    Frist!  (Do they do this on this site?!?!?)

    Anyway: I was just going to say, it seems a bit self-defeating to lobby for the right to rebuild your own homes in sub-par materials - though I agree that a ban on wooden houses must have seemed a bit harsh!  Tar-paper roofs should be definitely a no-no, however.

    Oh yes!

    Shouldn’t they have lobbied rather for a bit of assistance to help them build brick houses with proper roofs??

    And the same goes for New Orleans today.  Instead of pork for the big businesses, there should be generous grants to home-owners and small landlords.

    United Kingdom Posted by Liz on Feb 15, 2006 at 8:33 AM

    If New Orleans can rebuild like Chicago did - primarily through private investments - then I have no problem with New Orleans rebuilding.  However, if Federal tax dollars bear the brunt of the reconstruction, I say that we spend the money on relocating people instead of rebuilding a city that is destined to be flooded over and over again.  New Orleans is located in a terrible spot for a city, and even though the residents may love it there, it doesn’t mean we should continue to throw millions, perhaps billions of dollars away so people can live in a marshland.

    United States Posted by JRakoski on Feb 15, 2006 at 10:22 AM

    http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_by_berna_060214_pushing_them_off_the. .htm

    in 4 months we will be in hurrican season, the levees are at cat. 3 strength if new orleans gets hit with a cat.4 it is going to flood again. Besides it is better to spend half a trillion on the iraq war than fix america.

    United States Posted by brian28 on Feb 15, 2006 at 11:33 AM

    The response to Katrina increasingly looks like thinly disguised ethnic cleansing!

    United States Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Feb 25, 2006 at 4:01 PM
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