Today, after an afternoon of sitting at the legal aid table at the St. Bernard Parish DRC (Disaster Relief Center, aka "FEMA tent"), the NOLAC attorney I was working with took me on a drive through the Lower 9th Ward. This neighborhood, as you may know, was the hardest hit by Katrina. And by hardest hit, I mean that it no longer exists. At all. A nuclear holocaust would have left more buildings standing than Katrina did.
I'll let these photos do the talking, but I would like to take serious fucking issue with "President" G.W. Bush's "visit" to NO today. First, he was scheduled to stop by the St. Bernard DRC, as the Secret Service had scoped the place out last night & this morning (according to a security officer at the tent). And, well, he flaked. Su-prise, su-prise.
Secondly, all my pals working with ACORN demolishing drywall and emptying folks' houses of toxic refrigerators and furniture actually saw the motorcade drive by. Although they didn't see W, they caught a glimpse of Laura, hair helmet & all. The motorcade was reportedly 70ish vehicles long. No shit. Perhaps this is because every single resident of this town would like to personally shoot G Dubs. And the thing of the thing is...um, their SUV sped past at approximately 45 MPH. To give you some context here, it is really hard to take in the whole scene in while driving any faster than 10 MPH. To call it surreal is the understatement of the decade. So, he blasted through the 9th Ward, stopped by the Industrial Canal (which is under construction) & took a quick helicopter flight over NO. What a fucking douchebag. Period.
Enough blathering from me. I am still in shock from my experience today.
1 comment:
oh my... i can't wait to talk to you about this when you get back. when i was home over winter break, i heard so many awful stories about the experiences of folks on the mississippi gulf coast. it's unbelievable. just the damage there took my breath away. and i saw it all months after the storm came through. i can't even imagine the amount of work it's going to take to bring the coast back from this.
i'm proud of you for being there! you're doing good work, dice!
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