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Katrina, two years on
Aug. 29th, 2007 08:50 amOn this day precisely two years ago, Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Its aftermath included the flooding of my beloved home city, New Orleans, the Dante's Inferno-like travails of refugees at the Convention Center and the Superdome, the eradication of most of St. Bernard Parish and the Lower 9th Ward, the complete obliteration of towns on the shorelines of Mississippi and Alabama, and a shameful spectacle of government laziness, corruption, ineptitude and outright fraud at all levels. Parts of NOLA and the Coast are still rebuilding and depopulated, two years later. The city's indomitable spirit has risen to work wonders in some areas, but in others basic services are still missing and the land stripped bare where houses once stood.
And today the man who bears ultimate responsibility for the colossal fiasco that was federal response to the disaster has the unmitigated chutzpah to return to New Orleans, trumpeting alleged progress in which he had very little part. I could say all sorts of things, but I think this editorial cartoon says it all far more eloquently and succinctly than I ever could.
God save the city of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast; looks like no one else will except the locals themselves.
ADDENDUM, Wed. 8/29, 7:00 pm: In response to several complaints that the original posted link to the cartoon I wanted y'all to see did not in fact lead to that cartoon, I am doing what I should have done in the first place and embedding it right here below.
And today the man who bears ultimate responsibility for the colossal fiasco that was federal response to the disaster has the unmitigated chutzpah to return to New Orleans, trumpeting alleged progress in which he had very little part. I could say all sorts of things, but I think this editorial cartoon says it all far more eloquently and succinctly than I ever could.
God save the city of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast; looks like no one else will except the locals themselves.
ADDENDUM, Wed. 8/29, 7:00 pm: In response to several complaints that the original posted link to the cartoon I wanted y'all to see did not in fact lead to that cartoon, I am doing what I should have done in the first place and embedding it right here below.
John Sherffius Aug 28, 2007 |
