New Orleans — The city today looks like an unkempt, moldy trailer park. Those who remain are reduced to living in trailers planted on their front lawns; labor and material shortages have prevented many from vacating the campers for the relative comforts of central cooling and carpeting. A year after the catastrophe, some New Orleanians are still battling insurance companies over claims that should have been settled months ago. There is a citywide rat infestation; mosquitoes carrying the West Nile virus are as common as drunken collegiates on Bourbon Street; and electricity and water service remain spotty.
Yet for these prisoners of love, New Orleans is not a city, but a way of life they wish to revive; a joyous procession of family, food, music, and festivals that overwhelm concerns about living below sea level or amid horrendous criminal activity. It is a city of traditions, a place caught in a liturgical rhythm that its sons and daughters find hard to escape. Though some have reluctantly moved on, others stay to demand that New Orleans return to herself.
But after a year of heroic waiting, the prospects for the city’s immediate restoration are bleak, and the hope that brought so many back is flagging. Much of this is due to the inaction of the city government and Mayor Ray Nagin. A year after Katrina blew through town, the city has yet to announce which areas should be rebuilt and which need be returned to nature. With no clear plan in place to rebuild the city, more than half of the monies allocated by the federal government remain in Washington.
Rather than risking a political backlash, the city has decided to let the people decide for themselves which areas should be re-inhabited. This patchwork approach leaves it up to individual homeowners to restore their properties and resurrect their neighborhoods. The problem is, there is no guarantee that a restored home won’t be bordered by a series of burnouts or that electricity and water service will be maintained. Entergy, the local power company, lost 22 substations in Katrina, their alternative lines are down, and they estimate it would cost $267 million to repair the system. With only half of the population returned to the city, it is financially unfeasible for the company to provide power to just one house on a block of teardowns. Of course, much of this could be avoided if New Orleans political leaders would make some hard decisions.
The political fear is that any announcement by city hall condemning a neighborhood as uninhabitable will dislocate poor, mostly black residents. But the greater sin is to remain silent, allowing these poor people to spend what little they have rebuilding homes and businesses in an area that is likely to be condemned within a few years, or worse yet, flooded again. One fails to see how stringing people along and toying with their scant resources is in their best interest. Everyone who wishes to return to the city should be allowed to, but to condemn New Orleanians to the failures of the past, to low-lying, crime-ridden districts with irregular or nonexistent city services is cruel and heartless.
The major problem facing New Orleans is the problem that has dogged it for decades: incompetent political leadership. Louisianans were never particularly attentive to politics, and to expect them to become engaged now, at a time when the beleaguered population doesn’t know where they are going to live or where their children will be attending school, is absurd.
Our taste in politicians has always mimicked our taste in food: spicy, fried, and bad for you. We got what we ordered. The political traditions established by the likes of leaders from Huey Long all the way to Edwin Edwards stand testament to our folly. Sane, competent figures like former Governor Dave Treen, or near-Governor Bobby Jindal, always had a harder time attracting voters than the theatrical blowhards or drawling belles who held us in their sway. Endless parties and the laid back way of life too often made us forget the importance of things like levees, evacuation plans, and a thriving business climate. We imagined that the great city could float along forever on the fumes of nostalgia and the ghosts of Mardi Gras past, no matter who was running the place. How wrong we were.
Sadly, even a year after floodwaters ravaged more than 80 percent of the city, drowning an area the size of Washington, D.C., New Orleans still lacks a cohesive plan for redevelopment. Though there is much chattering about the “rebuilding” of the city, virtually no attention has been given to the long-term economic prospects for it. The mayor seems content to whistle in the graveyard as New Orleans defaults to the addiction that destroyed it: the quick fixes of tourism and hospitality.
Yes, New Orleans is a tourist town, but for it to be viable into the future it must find a new reason for its existence. Decades of onerous taxation, crime, and city ordinances better suited to a banana republic scared off major companies and eroded the city’s tax base. Katrina took out the suburbs of Lakeview and Gentilly, which accounted for a huge chunk of the city’s tax revenues. Yet where are the calls to offer businesses and returning residents a local and state tax holiday for rebuilding in the region? Where are the incentives for investment and a focus on attracting developers to the city? They are non-existent. In fact just the opposite is occurring.
At present the New Orleans City Planning Commission, responsible for approving building plans and permits, has a staff of exactly eight people, down from 28 before Katrina. Due to the understaffing, hundreds of applications are languishing. A $400 million retail and residential project proposed by several developers, including Donald Trump, cannot get a hearing. Another $50 million hotel and condo project also waits in the cue. And this is only the frost on top of the Daiquiri. Rather than fast-tracking these sensible projects and adding millions to the city’s tax rolls, New Orleans is content to let these opportunities wither away. The city council found millions of dollars earlier this year to pay for extra policing during Mardi Gras, but can’t find the funds to hire 20 more employees for the Planning Commission. This situation is emblematic of what is wrong in the city.
The federal government also is to blame for what happened in New Orleans. The city’s levee system is the creation and responsibility of the federal government. The Corps of Engineers has admitted to inadequate construction and maintenance of the levee system. In a recent report they also cautioned that a Katrina-like event could happen again, as the levees are still not up to pre-Katrina levels (which were no great shakes). Thus far the feds have missed their goal of repairing the levees and have given little or no attention to the levees that did not fail. And here we are in the middle of another hurricane season.
As is so often the case, the federal government, with little appreciation for the culture of New Orleans, is throwing money at the problem. So far $122 billion has already been earmarked for the Gulf Coast region (the lion’s share going to Mississippi) and the hats are being shaken for more federal dollars. Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu recently said that the Gulf Coast will require a “few billion dollars a year” for progress to continue. The glaring question raised by all of this is: Who will be policing these funds? Who in the federal government is ensuring that the funds allocated by Congress are making their way to the people in need? Looking around New Orleans today, and talking with the holdouts, it is hard to see where all the money went. The only hopeful news is Louisiana’s Road Home program, which promises to grant homeowners up to $150,000 for uncompensated losses suffered in Katrina. But the qualifications are rigid. For instance, a residence must have been categorized by FEMA as destroyed or badly damaged to apply. Locals are warily watching to see how the government assistance pans out.
There should have been a federal czar to oversee the rebuilding process. Washington has a role to play, particularly in New Orleans. It must coordinate the distribution of federal monies on the ground to insure that they do not get routed into the failed political machinery that destabilized the city in the first place. If the president and Congress step forward and take a visible role in the process, the local populace will enthusiastically support them.
In a major speech last year in the Crescent City, President Bush looked forward to the second line: that jubilant New Orleans march of song and dance, following a burial, that celebrates the resurrection. Not only is there no second line in the city today, these politicians seem incapable of even organizing a proper burial. For the sake of those brave souls camped out in the driveways of their homes, or pining away in Mississippi, Texas, Alabama, and Georgia, the local and federal government must give the residents an honest appraisal of their fallen city, then find a peppy tune and play it quickly – preferably in unison. Otherwise, even the most devoted New Orleanians may soon be mourning the great city’s passing from a faraway vista.
– Raymond Arroyo is the news director at EWTN, author of the New York Times Bestseller Mother Angelica, and a New Orleans native.