So I suppose a recap is in order, so that normal blogging routines can resume.
- The Corps is fixing some of its previous levee fixes. It had to essentially slap together some repairs to the levees before the 2006 hurricane system, and now it's taking the time to do it right. It makes sense, I suppose, that the whole system can't be built up to 100-year protection over night, but it seems rather wasteful to repair the same thing twice. (The fact that the government isn't giving enough money to protect the region makes it seem even more wasteful.)
- "A United Nations treaty committee ruled Friday that the United States' response to Hurricane Katrina has had a greater negative impact on displaced black residents and called on the federal government to do more to guarantee that they can return to affordable housing in their hometowns." Very interesting. This calls to mind the homeless camp on Claiborne Avenue. A lot of people criticize them for coming back without having secured housing, but I think you need to consider the spike in housing costs that happened after the storm that many people might not have expected.
- FEMA is still unprepared and is still missing deadlines. Big surprise. Whoever is elected president really needs to bump the agency back up to cabinet-level. Agencies can still coordinate with each other (as I presume was the goal of putting them under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security), but FEMA is responsible for managing emergencies, and that needs to be able to mobilize quickly and efficiently and without having to go through a lot of bureaucracy.
- They're starting to disband that homeless camp on Claiborne by taking away the people who are sick or disabled. But the eighth HRT group from Susquehanna just got back from its week during spring break, and I've already seen pictures of the area under the overpass. There might not be as many people, but they're still there.
- This is interesting. A poll said that 70 percent of displaced public housing residents don't want to go back to public housing in New Orleans. And most of the people who said the did want to go back to their old homes are already there. This seems to be in stark contrast with the rallies that were going on when we were there -- the government was going to tear down some large public housing units and build mixed-income units. A lot of people said this was going to eliminate housing for low-income residents, but what if they don't want to live in project housing in the first place?
