What We've Lost in New Orleans
If you're like millions of people around the country, you have been overwhelmed with depression and sadness as you watch the devastation unfolding on television and in the newspapers. Perhaps you may have lived at one time in New Orleans or have close friends and family who had to evacuate.
One of the most pressing questions on everyone's mind seems to be: how long will it take to restore New Orleans? Will it ever be the same again?
Unfortunately, according to FEMA and American Red Cross estimates, it seems that it will take, at minimum, three months simply to restore electricity to the city and a minimum of nine months for the city to even be remotely inhabitable again. It's a harrowing thought. Two weeks ago, New Orleans was a thriving urban center of more than one million people going about its daily business; today it is a catastrophically flooded hellhole rife with violence and despair, a place that may never be the same again.
Rather than point fingers and assign blame (it is too early for this), it is first important to reflect on what it is that we have lost. Even for those who have never been, New Orleans has always held a special place in the hearts of Americans.
I leave you with links to two outstanding articles from the New Republic:
First Story,
Second Story
Here is an excerpt from one of them:
One of the most pressing questions on everyone's mind seems to be: how long will it take to restore New Orleans? Will it ever be the same again?
Unfortunately, according to FEMA and American Red Cross estimates, it seems that it will take, at minimum, three months simply to restore electricity to the city and a minimum of nine months for the city to even be remotely inhabitable again. It's a harrowing thought. Two weeks ago, New Orleans was a thriving urban center of more than one million people going about its daily business; today it is a catastrophically flooded hellhole rife with violence and despair, a place that may never be the same again.
Rather than point fingers and assign blame (it is too early for this), it is first important to reflect on what it is that we have lost. Even for those who have never been, New Orleans has always held a special place in the hearts of Americans.
I leave you with links to two outstanding articles from the New Republic:
First Story,
Second Story
Here is an excerpt from one of them:
Why did we choose to live in the shadow of pending ruin? The first reason, if you ask New Orleanians, is that risk is like the devil's music, the gothic voodoo scene, the inventive gastronomy, the insufferable weather, the debauched boozefests, the implacable corruption, the incomparable poverty, and the irredeemable football team: It sets us apart.
Something primal there engendered civic pride and a sense that, if a biblical end was as near as the next low pressure system, we should live it up. It was a dysfunctional raison d'être--call it Pompeii redux--but it had its appeal. Another reason was the payoff. Despite looming annihilation, tourists flocked there from all over the world, and the port system was the largest in the Western Hemisphere.
Until Wednesday, New Orleanians intuitively grasped that the risk was worth the profit and that, somehow, New Orleans worked. We lived like this, with grit, for 300 years, and we weren't going to let a little rain spoil the country's biggest party. As a result, our homes and livelihoods--and God only knows how many lives--have, overnight, ceased to exist.
I am deeply ambivalent about rebuilding in that impossible place; still, acquiescence is not part of the local lexicon, and that is inevitably what residents will do anyway. Even as we return in the coming months to collect debris, New Orleanians won't move. Our triumph over the elements is imperfect, but it sure beats living in Cleveland.
