New Orleans progress; Eye Ai ai!
I have the feeling that the degree of Katrina recovery we have now is about where we should have been in October, or maybe the first week in November.
They are still pulling bodies from the ruins. Mostly in the Lower 9th Ward, but recently also in the Upper 9th, Lakeview, and a couple in New Orleans East. They are now in the process of tearing down some of the ruins of buildings that are blocking streets.
Some 2/3rds of the local businesses in my unflooded neighborhood are back open, now including coffee shops, though wi fi is still spotty or very slow.
The big chains have decided that New Orleans is still here, and are reopening or making plans to reopen; the Starbucks in Riverbend and the Wal-Mart on Tchopitoulas have signs saying they plan to reopen this month.
Most of the city has just been assigned once a week garbage pick up days. Though there are still sizable portions of the city with some people back living in them that don't have trash pickup or electricity.
Mail is still spotty.
About half of major intersections have their traffic lights back working now.
More than half of those who requested them in the aftermath of the strom now have had their short-term emergency housing FEMA trailers delivered (though how many of those are actually inhabitable yet -- electric & water hook ups, for example-- is a very different question still).
The previous time I went into the Lower 9th, a CNN camera man told me it looked like the Biloxi 3 days after Katrina.
I stopped back yesterday afternoon after my radio show. I was hoping to photograph where the Ingram Barge used to be, but they aren't letting people near there now. I saw a crew working on demolishing one of the street houses. [Edit: "street house" meaning a house that was knocked off its foundation and the ruins were in the street. Unfortunately fairly common in some parts of town. Those that completely blocked streets were usually some of the first demolished, but many that that only block half the street remain.] Not far away, an old guy was piling his pick up full of metal bathtubs, railings, and other scrap metal from the ruins not hard to gather from streetside. Another tv news team was filming the ongoing levee repair work, and someone from one of the networks interviewing someone from the Common Ground aid house here. A small group, who turned out to be from Ohio working with Habitat for Humanity, interviewed me when they found out I was a local who'd been back since October and had been visiting the Lower 9th since November.
In the evening I went to the Prytania Theater and saw the film "V for Vendetta". I'd give it a B-, but I'd read the funny book graphic novel back in the day.
I decided to make some use of my eyes. Later today I go for the first in a series of procedures which I hope I'll be seeing better at the end of. No corrections with this one; as I understand it, it's some sort of using lasers to "tack down" my retena to minimize risk of detatchment in later procedures. I hope I get some decent drugs; I'd have a damn hard time holding still while they mess with my eyes otherwise.
They are still pulling bodies from the ruins. Mostly in the Lower 9th Ward, but recently also in the Upper 9th, Lakeview, and a couple in New Orleans East. They are now in the process of tearing down some of the ruins of buildings that are blocking streets.
Some 2/3rds of the local businesses in my unflooded neighborhood are back open, now including coffee shops, though wi fi is still spotty or very slow.
The big chains have decided that New Orleans is still here, and are reopening or making plans to reopen; the Starbucks in Riverbend and the Wal-Mart on Tchopitoulas have signs saying they plan to reopen this month.
Most of the city has just been assigned once a week garbage pick up days. Though there are still sizable portions of the city with some people back living in them that don't have trash pickup or electricity.
Mail is still spotty.
About half of major intersections have their traffic lights back working now.
More than half of those who requested them in the aftermath of the strom now have had their short-term emergency housing FEMA trailers delivered (though how many of those are actually inhabitable yet -- electric & water hook ups, for example-- is a very different question still).
The previous time I went into the Lower 9th, a CNN camera man told me it looked like the Biloxi 3 days after Katrina.
I stopped back yesterday afternoon after my radio show. I was hoping to photograph where the Ingram Barge used to be, but they aren't letting people near there now. I saw a crew working on demolishing one of the street houses. [Edit: "street house" meaning a house that was knocked off its foundation and the ruins were in the street. Unfortunately fairly common in some parts of town. Those that completely blocked streets were usually some of the first demolished, but many that that only block half the street remain.] Not far away, an old guy was piling his pick up full of metal bathtubs, railings, and other scrap metal from the ruins not hard to gather from streetside. Another tv news team was filming the ongoing levee repair work, and someone from one of the networks interviewing someone from the Common Ground aid house here. A small group, who turned out to be from Ohio working with Habitat for Humanity, interviewed me when they found out I was a local who'd been back since October and had been visiting the Lower 9th since November.
In the evening I went to the Prytania Theater and saw the film "V for Vendetta". I'd give it a B-, but I'd read the funny book graphic novel back in the day.
I decided to make some use of my eyes. Later today I go for the first in a series of procedures which I hope I'll be seeing better at the end of. No corrections with this one; as I understand it, it's some sort of using lasers to "tack down" my retena to minimize risk of detatchment in later procedures. I hope I get some decent drugs; I'd have a damn hard time holding still while they mess with my eyes otherwise.