Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?

I was going to do a LONG post about Hurricane Katrina. I started composing it and I couldn’t decide which direction to head with it.

Here were the topics:

1. The friends who have returned to the area and are rebuilding their lives.

2. The clients I had who against all odds have picked up the pieces and started all over again.

3. The bickering between Bush, Blanco & Nagin. Regardless of party affiliation, everyone was to blame.

4. How a natural disaster was worsened by the ineptitude of The Army Corps of Engineers. Go visit The Netherlands and come back with a game plan. (The brunt of the storm went east of New Orleans. Sure there was wind damage and lots of water but if the levees had been properly built they should have held.)

5. The people stranded at the Convention Center and the Superdome and my thoughts 18 months later when I walked into the Convention Center.

6. Watching live coverage on CNN and being dumbstruck that this was happening 350 miles from my doorstep.

7. The inability of the U.S. Government to get food and water to its own citizens and my thoughts about FEMA Director Michael Brown.

“You’re doing a good job Brownie.” –George W. Bush

Correction on 8/30/07: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." -George W. Bush on September 2, 2005

8. The inability of the local, state and federal governments to get a game plan together and rebuild The Big Easy. We can rebuild Iraq but we can’t rebuild New Orleans? Come on Cheney…use your muscle and get Halliburton in there without going through the bidding process.

9. Evacuees in Houston who are trying to start all over again; some have succeeded and some are surviving day-to-day.

10. Anne Rice p!ssing me off when she stated that “Americans have turned their backs on New Orleans.”

11. Spike Lee's documentary When The Levees Broke. Overall I liked it but I have some issues with it.

12. The new Hispanic influx on theCity.

13. How the City of Houston and Harris County decided they would do whatever it took to provide shelter for the evacuees. Months later Neil Diamond would salute the citizens during his concert when he said, "This is a city with a heart." Then Dallas Morning News lauded the City for what it did. This should have been headline news because of the rivalry between the two cities. :-)

14. How the U.S. Coast Guard said "Screw it!" and threw out the rule book and ignored government red tape and rescued people. They were probably the unsung heroes of the catastrophe.

15. "What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (chuckle) – this is working very well for them."
–Former First Lady Barbara Bush, on the hurricane evacuees at the Astrodome in Houston, Sept. 5, 2005 Do I EVEN need to comment on this? UGH!

16. Everything that I love about New Orleans: friends I have made there; the locals; the food & booze; the charm; the history; Mardi Gras, Southern Decadence and Halloween; the good memories.

So rather than harp on all of those topics…many of which still make my blood pressure rise…I’ll end this post with the lyrics from a song:

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans
And miss it each night and day
I know I'm not wrong, the feeling's getting stronger
The longer I stay away

Miss the moss-covered vines, tall sugar pines
Where mockingbirds used to sing
I'd love to see that old lazy Mississippi
Hurrying into Spring

The moonlight on the bayou
A Creole tune that fills the air
I dream about magnolias in bloom
And I'm wishin I was there

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans
When that's where you left your heart
And there's one thing more, I miss the one I care for
More than I miss New Orleans

-Louis Alter & Eddie DeLange

And in case you're wondering...my first trip back to New Orleans after Katrina was in February 2006. I've made several trips since then and plan on making many more.