Well, the WaPo at least put a link up to a few pics from the Mississippi Gulf Coast but little else and today’s feature story is about the trainwreck that is the post Katrina recovery in New Orleans from incompetent leadership at NOPD and from the Mayor, Ray Nagin to the outright thievery and unbridled corruption that is the Jeffersons. The media likes train wrecks.
That said you cross the line from cognitive bias to outright ignorance when you lede a review of Kathleen Kock’s new book on Bay St Louis, When the Levees Broke: Kathleen Koch, ‘Rising from Katrina: How My Mississippi Hometown Lost It All and Found What Mattered’. Kathie herself unwittingly explains why the national media as a whole had little interest in the Mississippi Gulf Coast as train wrecks evidently make better news:
I decided to write the book the week that we covered the storm. We were down there the entire week, from Sunday before the storm hit to the following Saturday, and I told the people at the citizens’ station in my hometown in Bay St. Louis, “I promise I’ll never let anyone forget what happened here,” and I meant that. I had already seen the media spotlight switch to focus on New Orleans, but I also saw before my eyes towns in an 80-mile stretch that looked like Armageddon. And every single story you do, there’s a lot that falls on the cutting-room floor — you accept it and you move on — but this was part of my town’s history, and it was so largely untold that I didn’t feel it was right to take stories to the grave with me.
And many of them were uplifting and inspiring stories. I think most of the nation, when they hear the word “Katrina,” they wince and say, “What a horrible chapter in America’s history. I don’t want to hear any more about that,” and they just want to forget. But Mississippi’s story is very powerful. When all the national focus turned to New Orleans, the people there rolled up their sleeves, they climbed out of the rubble and said, “I guess we better take care of ourselves and each other.” They were so strong and resilient and full of faith — watching them and seeing how they got through it all was so inspiring.
There’s another side to this great gray cloud of Katrina that people need to know, and especially in these days and times, when so many Americans are struggling for a variety of reasons — maybe because of the economy or because of the mortgage crisis or for whatever reason they’ve lost faith — and it’s just, “How can I go on? How can I get through this?” And with this book, you see this story of an entire Gulf Coast that got back and is still getting back on its feet from nothing, recovering from losing everything, and you can draw inspiration, because this book is not just about a hurricane. The hurricane is over in the first 40 pages. It’s really an exploration of what gets people through when they’ve lost everything, what keeps people putting one foot in front of another. It’s really a very timeless story of getting through everything imaginable.
We have a big tent here at Slabbed and I think the message we convey sells broadly across the country because it’s real. We got nothing against levees as we’ve blogged on Consolidated Canal Breaches and the related topics extensively. But you’ll also hear us talk about concepts like flood mitigation and the wisdom of developing filled in wetlands, topics you don’t hear much about in the greater post Katrina blogosphere.
To borrow a phrase from Boss Hogg the reason the people of the Mississippi coast “hitched their britches” and got on with the business of recovery is that deep down the public knows that the damage brought by natural disasters such as Hurricanes are preordained events.There is no man made silver bullet that cheats mother nature. Even the Dutch, who have largely destroyed their wetlands with their levee systems will find that out in time. There is no such things as a free lunch or Santa Claus.
But though nothing that man does will ultimately defeat mother nature she is as kind as she is cruel if respected. The answer is in the wetlands my friends, an ecosystem that were once there that the locals allowed to be destroyed in the name of economic development. Getting them back will be both expensive and time consuming.
sop
Sop: w/o even reading your article in its entirety (yet – I will though as soon as I write this comment) but I MUST comment on your title FIRST (part of it anyway):
“…..THE RED HEADED STEP CHILD: KATRINA PLUS 5. SO WHAT? THE
SAME OLD TIRED SONG MOST EVERYONE IS SICK OF HEARING.”
Again, commenting w/o reading the article, but not EVERYONE – you did say MOST though didn’t you (?) – is sick of hearing about it.
I would bet that the ones that may be sick of hearing about it are the ones that “TOOK THE MONEY AND RAN” out of your state leaving it in the sad shape it remains in to this day.
Let’s start w/the ATTORNEYS who – as well all know – made MILLIONS OF DOLLARS off of Katrina claims – ironically, ATTORNEYS on “both sides of the fence” made LOTS of money off this catastrophe. That is, ATTYS. that REPRESENTED INSURANCE COMPANIES AND ATTYS. THAT REPRESENTED INSURANCE CLAIMANTS (i.e., homeowners, business owners, city entities, etc., et al)…they may be sick of hearing about it. I can safely say (being a Legal Receptionist/Legal Secretary/ Paralegal for the past 29 years) that “former clients” are calling their “old” and/or “former” ATTORNEYS asking questions like:
1. I thought the settlement included the ins. co. doing this and
that?
2. How come this and that has not occurred yet?
3. How come you’re not calling me back? Is it because you’ve
already received your attys. fee?
Yes, I’m using ATTYS. as my example, but other professions could be used as well. Many, many professionals made ALOT of MONEY OFF OF THE MISERY AND DEVASTATION CAUSED BY KATRINA and yet they are not in “Katrina land” right now to see it’s just as they left it and, frankly, probably do not care. Engineers that testified for either side, restoration companies retained by either side, estimators retained by either side and the list goes on and on.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that the people that are NOT sick and tired of hearing about katrina are the ones still affected by the aftermath and the ones that were taken advantage of…that’s all.
SHIRLEY HEFLIN
the red headed step child: Katrina plus 5. So what? The same old tired song most everyone is sick of hearing.
Russell sometimes complains to me that I tend to write too much on the inside. In other words you almost have to be in this area to fully understand what I’m writing.
Once you read everything you’ll understand. Katrina fatigue is real and even exists here on the coast. Most folks naturally get tired of being a victim, even after they are subsequently fleeced after by their insurers. Most folks naturally wear down and get to the point where you just want to move on. I know the feeling and frankly it is one of the challenges I face doing Slabbed because the job entails keeping one foot in the past in order to lend context to the present. The lawyers that we rely on for help notice it in their juries too and that is not a good thing for plaintiffs. There is no sense denying it.
From my standpoint as a coastie the portrait of Katrina painted in the media is almost a caricature in that it represents just a slice of the experience and frankly it is far from the most flattering slice given the events after the storm.
Somewhere in my email folders is a story from the old Tampa area newspaper on the Kiln very early on after Katrina. You are heaven sent today Shirley because you got us permission to reprint it in total. I’ll try to dig it out and run it on Sunday.
sop
I’m dealing with Chinese drywall and I promise you its worse than anything associated with Katrina except for losing a loved one to the storm and/or its aftermath. Its ironic that after representing hundreds of homeowners in first party insurance cases, I’m battling the same corporate heavyweights as a plaintiff.
The only reason the Chinese drywall issue is not more prevalent is because of its smaller scope. Trust me, dealing with Chinese drywall is worse and if anybody cares to know why, just ask me.
Katrina seems to have also created a disconnect between the public officials and the people much more than before. The corruption seems to have exploded . It’s as though the politicians and their friends seized upon this catastrophe as though the hurricane winds had blown open the golden gate to riches for them. From what I read almost daily it would appear to have been what happened.
I often wonder what it would take to have the citizenry of Jefferson and Orleans Parishes to actually take an active interest in the many injustices we read about daily in the only source of information most rely upon, our sad and oddly biased local newspaper.
How many people actually know who their political representatives are at the Local, State and Federal levels of government and how the hell they got elected?
Does the citizenry care that the same old cronies pop up over and over again decade after decade, and do they care?
The political decay, particularly in Jefferson Parish where elections are decided before they are held is sickening, and frightening to me.
Does anyone care about the manner in which our tax revenue is wasted by payment to members of our cronyism form of government? Why the same lawyers, contractors and consultants keep getting the big bucks, usually inflated, depending on how high up their connection lies in the ranks of political connection?
When we will we take charge and realize, although we love where we live, we live here at a price paid in tax dollars so that a select handful of people can prosper at our expense? Better yet, would you love to live where you live at say 20% less in taxes that you currently pay?
You may argue the homestead exemption is our tax savior, however, look at the increase in sales tax and other hidden fees taxed to you on your water bill, garbage collection fee and taxes on certain items you purchase. These fees and others could be eliminates if our governmental efficiency was improved and the huge waste in cost overruns paid to cronies was eliminated.
This cronyism is pandemic and must end. For example,
Here is the latest bit of jackassery as the guy who runs the Armstrong allegedly helped his squeeze defraud her insurer after Katrina.
This link to the finance boards is to a post in reply to one of mine. The author is a senior executive of a fortune 500 company and LSU guy. Somewhere in his reply is the reason the rest of the country has a hard time writing blank checks to this area in the name of wetlands or whatever the crisis de jour happens to be. Remember folks they all saw Jindal’s Sand Berm shakedown of BP too.
sop
Billions of dollars have been infused into Jefferson and Orleans Parishes over the past five years. The corruption has been more than adequately pointed out on this board by Sop.
Am I outraged? Yes, because my tax dollars funded this corruption. However, all should also be outraged at the citizens of those jurisdictions which keep electing those kind of public officials.
jeanladeaux…thank you for your post. You have captured many questions which I have asked myself over the past few years – thanks for such insightful commentary. You have captured the very essence of what has happened in Jefferson Parish ..and, your comments/insight as to the numerous investigations which seemingly go on forever unended is spot on.
And, supsalesmgr, spot on to your final comment “However,all should be outraged at the citizens of those jurisdictions which keep electing those kind of public officials.” Jefferson Parish – are you listening…?..
The Washington Post discovered that people with jobs recovered better than people without jobs, homeowners with insurance recovered better then renters without insurance, and people with credit recovered better than people without credit. I’m not saying there are not legitimate complaints but name a place where people with no jobs, no assets, and no credit are doing well. Not in Washington for sure.
In fact, the Gulf Coast is still the closest thing to a poor man’s paradise as the Subdudes say. At least as long as there are fish in the bayou.
New Orleans is Post-Federal Flood.
Not Post-Katrina. MS’s Gulf Coast is Post Katrina.
Weather Event -vs- Engineering Failure.
Truth -vs- Deceit.
Perhaps that is why this untruth that Katrina flooded New Orleans 8/29/05 is having such a problem bouncing here?
It was a Crucifixion in the Holy Land ’00.
It was an Apocalypse in Modern Europe ’38.
It was an Engineering Failure in New Orleans 8/29/05.
It was a Natural Disaster in MS 8/29/05.
A difference that makes no difference is no difference.
All the rest we must pass over in silence then.
Enough is enough.
Please stop trying to call what happened to me, and everyone else, a Natural Disaster, in New Orleans, starting when the levees failed in New Orleans 8/29/05.
To argue that it is OK to label it as a blanket “Katrina” strikes me like a cold ice pick as intellectual masturbation that has no place in the discourse of serious survivors of man-made federal civil engineering disaster.
In short it is bull shit and it is starting to hurt.
That’s the point Editilla. We weren’t talking about what happened to you or NOLA besides pointing out it was a train wreck and like rubber neckers in rush hour traffic that is where the press corp flocked.
Based on that Lede in the WaPo there are evidently some journalist that need to learn the natural disaster that was Katrina wasn’t a clusterfuck everywhere despite the crushing destructuon that accompanied her.
sop
OK. I’m just not getting it.
As long as we call the devastation of New Orleans 8/29/05: Katrina, we are not calling it a Corps of Engineers Federal Responsibility.
I don’t call what slabbed your home a Federal Engineering Failure, and I do not consider it within the same question at all of Federal Responsibility.
What happened to you is Not a question of Product Liability, as in New Orleans.
Your disaster is after that fact, and different all together than what happened to New Orleans.
You are Post-Katrina. I am Post-Federal Flood.
You are at the mercy of Insurance Litigation.
I have no recourse or redress as per the Flood Control Act.
You can or cannot argue the question of Liability for damages on the Coast.
The people of New Orleans cannot by law, period, as the Corps is held immune from such a luxury in the failure of their bill of goods.
No one in my brain is denying that Katrina devastated your home. However, the Corps of Engineers doesn’t even have to deny that they flooded My Home. They are protected by law. It would help if others refused to join them in this denial.
It’s the Levees….
You’re catching on Brother.
Katrina is bigger than any one area.
Everyone is hip to the design and maintenance flaws that lead to the levee failures in a storm they were billed to withstand.
If the goal is to keep history from repeating itself there is a message to sell. It will take the entire region to sell it though.
The best way to keep the surge out of both here on the coast and the City is in the wetlands IMHO.
With climate change and the new breed of super large Hurricanes it is our only hope.
The weather modelers have a story to tell beyond the bogus use of their work product by insurers. It is frightening as shit.
And to think their political waterboys in the GOP deny climate change despite rising sea levels.
Sop
Ok Lettenemgo: a$55,000.00 used car defrauding an Insurance Co that has screwed over thousands of homeowners for billions of dollars. Protect Allstate against those nefarious evildoers. This is ludicrous! Hubbard of St John Parish. Coulon Whitmer Broussard of Jefferson Parish. Stolen public funds in the hundreds of millions but Lettenemgo and company thinks nailing a black couple for fraud against Allstate for $55000 is laudable. It would be laughable if not so pathetic! Where is justice? Where are the indictments of white Jefferson Parish politicians?! Or do the Nazis in power think they can continue their pogram, their purge , their cleansing? Appalling. The media should stop covering such trivial prosecutorial events. Redflex? Go after Julie Murphy and Bryan Wagner: oh no they are white and one has a Germanic surname. Silly me. Perhaps Lettenemgo is feathering his retirement by protecting big business so he can go work for a BIG insurance defense firm?! Now that makes sense.
All true Unslabbed. With Letten think of it this way, the environment is so target rich the fruit literally drops on his plate as was the case with the Beemer. I guarantee Team Insurance also has retired FBI in their fraud unit. Insurers love to hire retired law enforcement as employees in fact.
Sop
Sop you say “The best way to keep the surge out of both here on the coast and the City is in the wetlands IMHO.”
I don’t disagree…we need to rebuild the wet lands and barrier islands to protect us all…thats why I don’t understand the opposition to the dredging projects…I don’t care if BP plays for them or the federal government that has taken the oil monies that should have be sent back down here for 50 years to rebuild same. Will it hurt some…yep….will it help more than it hurts…yep
Unslabbed you say “The media should stop covering such trivial prosecutorial events” I disagree from the standpoint they should cover it all… In time I think Letten will get to all those you speak of. They move slow and with purpose…..they let the people involved dangle slowly draining them mentally and financally…in the end, and it will take another 4 to 6 months the noose will tighten but the end result will be certain
The sand berm projects were not ever intended to restore wetlands. That meme came after the blowout was capped. In fact the there is substantial evidence the berms destroyed several oyster reefs.
Rebuilding the wetlands will take lots of good science and planning. Coastal scientist were excluded by Bobby Jindal and attacked by Billy Nungesser. The planning that went into the berms was of the political variety including the calculation of how much money Jindal could push out to his political supporters via no bid contracts.
I’ll add the berm scheme, especially hurts the cause of wetlands restoration when the same group of pols invoke it after the fact as a reason to support continuation of the berm project. They are selling the public out in on the issue in fact by doing so.
Sop
Iggy: the # 1 complaint I hear from the Fibbies and Lettenemgo’s gang is lack of resources to pursue all the leads. To fritter away ANY resources pursuing a young ignorant black couple over a $50,000 used Beemer when all these fat white men are sitting on billions of dollars of stolen money is to me LUDICROUS! The media should have made that point rather than glorifying Lettenemgo’s nailing yet another black official for chump change, for what amounts to one month’s income for the white fat cats in JP whom Lettenemgo should be indicting! and putting in jail. These reprobates are out on the town, going to Saint’s games,playing golf and yucking it up with their buds. IMHO. Oh and their wives? They don’t get a pass just like this black guy’s wife isn’t. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
I sometimes take the quality of comments for granted and am probably guilty of taking our two incredible moderators for granted.
But sometimes, a new commenter comes along and grabs my attention; jeanladeaux did just that. Great analysis. As a life-long resident and taxpayer of Jeff Parish, who knows many of these politicos, I applaud you for calling it exactly like it is.
Jim Letten quote: “Louisiana is famous, if not infamous, for it’s corruption.”
And well he should know, since here in Jefferson Parish, Letten’s non-prosecutorial posture has facilitated the inbred political corruption of the Connicks, Tim Coulon and his son Chris, Whitmer, Wilkinson, Lagasse and his partner in crime Bordelon, Broussard, Vitter etc. And of course he would, he’s one of them: a white retirement junkie public official from Jefferson Parish!
So let me throw some cold water on all you “Big Jimbo” Letten groupies with this fact before ya’ll turn blue holding your breath expecting that any of these white JP Public Officials currently being “investigated” will be brought to Justice:
On August 24, 2010 US Attorney Letten boastfully exclaimed that his office had prosecuted 165 corruption cases in the past 5 years.
WOW…isn’t that special.
What US Attorney Letten didn’t tell you was: that of the 165 cases prosecuted, only 2 public officials from Jefferson Parish were prosecuted, and those individuals, State Sen. Sheppard and Gretna City Councilman Bolar, are black.
It seems as if every time I write the truth about Katrina and malfeasence the site fails and my comments do not get in. So I’ll make this short and sweet. If 33 CFR 208,10 had been followed since 1970 the LP&VHPP would not have failed and East Jefferson & Orleans Parishes would not have flooded! That law requires monitoring of all canals for erosion and sloughing and a 1988 document from the COE almost complied with that law, but just for one canal, the 17th St Canal. It required annual hydrographic surveys be taken by the local sponsor and forwarded to them to monitor the Stability Control Line so the levees supported by the bank would not fail and repairs to the erroded or sloughed bank were made immediately. This was never done as there is no evidence of any surveys being taken!! No matter what they build if the foundation is gone andthe stability control line is violated the protection will fail!! This is for all local flood control projects all the way to Venice.