reflections

I received a phone call from a good friend who is also my mentor in counseling. He is an amazing person and since the storm, I have been a little embarrased to talk about all of the up's and down's we have experienced. I don't want to be a counseling case for him, I want to be his friend. I called him to check in with him when I was feeling pretty good a week and a half ago and to see how his travels to europe were. Since that time, things fell apart again. My fiance' and I both did not get the jobs we had hoped for. It would not be so bad if it didn't feel like constant rejection. She has applied and interviewed for more than 12 jobs and she has lost out to an insider, someone already in the territory, or someone with 15 years of experience. I know Austin is competitive but this is ridiculous. She was really upset about this and, in turn, so was I.

While we had planned for the worst (moving to austin without jobs) you always hope it doesn't turn out that way. Especially after all of our struggles. My friend called because I hadn't returned his call and he knew it was not characteristic of me. I told him I was a little down when I got the news about the jobs and so was my fiance. I told him I didn't think I could talk to him when I got his call. He reminded me that it's okay to feel like you don't have it together and I could call him anytime. I can't tell you how much that meant to me. He is really such a wonderful person, the like of which is a rare encounter in life. My friend Amelia is another who I consider that close. It is so hard being away from people that are so special to you. I know the distance has helped me to appreciate just how special they are to me.
(artwork: Brett Calzada @ 504destruct.com)

Rose colored glasses

I have repeatedly referenced and posted Chris Rose articles because he has a gift to say things that I feel, but have a hard time pulling together quite so appropriately. He has the spirit of all of us who have been hurt, angered, saddened, and pulled apart by this "thing" running through his veins, and perhaps most importantly, his pen.

I was listening to NPR, which is one of the few news programs I listen to. I read the Washington post, New York times, Los Angeles times, CNET, Huffington Post, wwltv.com, nola.com, MIT's technology review, and BBC news daily. As I was listening to "The World" on NPR, they are doing a special on world changing events in people's lives. I have been intrigued to hear about amazing stories of struggle and pain but most importantly, how regular they are in other parts of the world. Countries war with others, themselves, rioting, suffer plague, genocide, etc. It is amazing what a vanilla reality most of us in the USA experience. While it gives me an appreciation for the perspectives of others, and how lucky we are in some ways to be Americans, it does make you wonder, when all struggle and how we will deal with it.

After the hurricane, it has created an inseparable bond between those who experienced it and made us feel like outsiders to the rest of the world. This why Chris Rose is so important to us... he puts in to words the struggle all of us are experiencing but unable to relate to others. I wonder if those in the rest of the country could cope with the enormous blow our city, region, and people have been dealt.

While I have been amazed by the kindness of some strangers, it still blows my mind that so many remain ignorant of the size of the problem. They do not understand there are miles of neighborhoods destroyed by floodwaters. Some of them have insurance, some do not, and some are still fighting their insurance companies for a proper settlement. Many are waiting for word from FEMA as to whether they can rebuild or not. Could other people deal with a Hurricane like Katrina that destroys 80% of property in a city and more than 300,000 homes? Could they deal with another Chicago fire? Could San Francisco deal with another huge earthquake? Will they be left to fend for themselves in a similar manner to New Orleans?

That said, I would like to make a special comment about the kindness of strangers/friends. I would like to say thank you to Jeremy Johnson and his family. They have repeatedly let us stay in their apartment in Austin for free as we have come down to look for jobs and a place to live. They got an apartment in Austin after the storm wiped out both of their houses in midcity. They lost everything due to 8-10 ft of water. They tried to start over in Austin but quickly realized their hearts and home was still in New Orleans. They have been fighting to keep their lives going in New Orleans and living with one family member who did not lose their house. Jeremy and his parents have been volunteering with a ton of agencies to rebuild New Orleans. When they are not working (Jeremy is in commercials, a physical trainer, and a massage therapist; his father is a carpenter), they are rebuilding their houses and helping others to do so. They are truly inspiring people and have helped me to realize the interconnected nature of the world. We all must do selfless acts to help others to truly live.

ON THE INSIDE LOOKING OUT

For now at least, being an insider in New Orleans means feeling like an outsider everywhere else
Friday, June 16, 2006
By Chris Rose

I was in Washington, D.C., recently, talking to a very educated man who was making reference to another man he knows who does restaurant consulting work in New Orleans.

The man, a school administrator, said to me: "I don't know what he thinks he's doing there. There are no restaurants in New Orleans anymore."

Cue the ominous sound effect between scenes in "Law & Order."

I was recently working with an out-of-town TV news producer who was looking to set up a shot of neighborhood desolation and he asked me if I thought it would be hard to find any concentration of damaged and abandoned houses in New Orleans.

Cue the ominous sound effect between scenes in "Law & Order."

I was in Portland, Ore., this week and I heard a guy in a bar hold court with stories about New Orleans. He said: "The police on Bourbon Street, they come around at night with a big cart -- like a hot dog cart -- and they pile up all the drunk and passed-out people on it and wheel them off to jail."

Cue the buzzer, the gong, the cowbell.

A hot dog cart?

Obviously, the range of opinions and "knowledge" about New Orleans out in the Great Elsewhere is staggering. Said a documentary filmmaker from Indianapolis to me the other day: "Speaking for central Indiana, it's not that people don't care about New Orleans. It's more that they're oblivious to what happened. They just don't know."

And so some folks think New Orleans is a fine and peachy place, where finding footage of wrecked houses would be a challenge all these months later. And some folks think there are no restaurants open.

And some folks, it seems, got so pie-eyed when they visited Bourbon Street that they hallucinated some bizarre vision that married the cops and the Lucky Dog guys into a harmoniously cartoonish image of civic peace keeping.

I've been traveling a lot lately. "How is New Orleans doing?" people ask all along the way, and they do care -- really, really care -- you can tell. But how do you answer that question?

Unless they have two days to listen to you talk about the unraveling of the social fabric, the menace of crime, the absence of leadership, the palpable fear of another hurricane and the fact that 15 of your closest friends are making plans to move away -- joining the other 15 of your closest friends who already have moved away -- then what do you tell them?

My wife and I recently made the circuit of journalism awards banquets in the Northeast, and I watched my media colleagues and peers fall into easy shop talk at these events but somehow Kelly and I always stood off to the side, wondering who all these people were and what they were talking about.

We were guests at many of these events and -- in some cases -- honorees, as I have had the privilege of picking up several awards that The Times-Picayune has won for its coverage of this unholy mess.

And people are warm and gracious and concerned but -- at each event -- I asked my wife: "Did you ever go to a wedding where you didn't know the bride or the groom?"

That's kind of what it's like to be from New Orleans as you travel around the country these days. You just can't find the rhythm of the outside. Of the other.

I am on a plane bound for Salt Lake City as I write this and I look around and realize how disconnected my life is from the folks who sit around me.

Not that they don't have troubles and sorrows and issues, too, but they don't necessarily look lost in a fog of war. I look around at the sleepy faces and the faces buried in books and newspapers and the bobbing heads of folks plugged into iPods and I wonder when I'll ever get back to the place where they are.

. . . . . . .

Columnist Chris Rose can be reached at chris.rose@timespicayune.com; or at (504) 352-2535

(photo credit: Brett Calzada @ 504destruct.com)

rebuilding

In the last year I have moved 8 times. I am sick of moving and it is hard to feel stable. Whenever I think I have it bad, I think about my parents and most of my fiance's family. My folks are living in the basement of a friends house. They are not sure when their house will be ready. They gave their builder $35,000 just to be put on his list 3 weeks after the storm. They were #22. They are planning on living in their trailer till the house is ready in 2007. At least they are not like so many who are paying a note on a house that got 10 ft. of water and footing the note on a new house or apartment.

Many people just don't understand what happens when you flood. The maximum flood insurance you can get is $250k structure and $100k contents. While getting $350k is great, if your morgtage was for more than that amount and the mortgage company receives the insurance payment and applies it against the balance due, you are screwed. This is what many insurance companies have done. So, you are stuck with a rotting structure you many times that you still owe money for and forced to pay rent for another home. Many of Bonnie's family lost their house in New Orleans and on the coast. Imagine that picture, throw in kids, and a struggling economy.

It is all so painful that I find myself crying whenever I hear good news. The Saints have been a recent inspiration of good news. Reggie Bush donating money to a troubled school for children with autism and donating to Tad Gormeley to rebuild the stadium. Other saints players working to help sheetrock and rebuild houses on a regular basis. Drew Brees buying a house in the garden district and volunteering with different causes. Reggie Bush buying a condo in the warehouse district. All of this brings tears to my eyes. I am so torn between the home I love and the future I hope to have in Austin. I know that many have similar struggles. In some ways, being away from home, has been hardest. People in other places just don't get it. The hurricane, the pain, the shattered life, struggling to rebuild... it's all still very present and we need the emotional/physical support of others to go forward.

I guess that is it in a nutshell... I feel for New Orleans not only because it is my home, but because we are both still wounded and need help to rebuild. (art credit: Brett Calzada, 504destruct.com)

Tsunami relief workers shocked by 9th Ward tour, say they expected more signs of recovery

Tsunami relief workers shocked by 9th Ward tour, say they expected more signs of recovery
05:10 PM CDT on Friday, June 23, 2006
Bill Capo / WWL-TV Eyewitness News Reporter

Two leaders of the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights who have spent the last 18-months helping victims of last year’s Tsunami took a walk through the Lower Ninth Ward Friday.
Their reaction was one of shock, because they said they expected to see more signs of recovery from Hurricane Katrina.
“We think of America as being this fabulous, powerful superpower, and it’s exactly like Third World situations,” said Tom Kerr.

“In my personal opinion, I think you should have done much, much faster. It should be much better than what I have seen today,” said Samsook Boonyabancha.
For months, they have been exchanging emails on the recovery process with the New Orleans based National Policy and Advisory Council on Homelessness. Friday, they got to see Katrina’s devastation first hand, and heard residents talk about the long, hard road to recovery.

"The fact that the relief and the support for people who live here is so minimal even though there is so much money in this country, it's really shocking," said Kerr.
Their conclusion: hurricane victims face far more red tape from government and private industry than do the survivors of the tsunami.

"We just sit together and we decide what we like to do together, and we find funding supporting the people, then we start to do it right away. It is much easier that way. Here your lives depend on the government’s plan, depends on the insurance company, and you keep waiting, and waiting, and waiting," said Boonyabancha.
Later this summer, a group from New Orleans east and the Lower Ninth Ward will travel to Indonesia to see what they can learn about the recovery efforts from the tsunami in some of the world's poorest countries.

"So I think it is important that we look at those models, what's happened in Asia, and try to take those lessons of self help, mutual aid and volunteerism, and how that might apply back to New Orleans," said Brad Paul, with the National Council on Homelessness.

tunnel vision

You know that feeling you get when you are going through a really dark small tunnel? The dark seems to engulf everything and your fear is like a static charge all over your body. You are afraid of all that is unknown around you. Everything is black and even the echo of your steps in unnerving. You can see a light ahead but you can't make out anything in particular.

That is the only way I can describe where I am right now. My fiance' and I are moving back to Austin and neither of us have jobs. My nerves seem to be knotting all over my body. My palms are sweaty as my thoughts race about how to move on. It keeps feeling like we are starting over after the storm.

Different direction

Normally I don't post much about music but it is a huge interest of mine. I ran across a podcast that some friends from nola helped put together mixing their labels music with other recording artists. It's electronic infused hip hop. It's an interesting mix and I always enjoy hearing someone elses perspective on mixing music.


http://www.heftyrecords.com/Hefty_Flossed_Out.mp3

An Inconvenient Truth

grey

I can't say enough about how the stress of the storm has effected us. After the storm hit, my fiance' had a friend die, moving 4 times... she developed fibromyalgia from the PTSD. She would sleep but she would toss, turn, talk out loud in her sleep, and wake up exhausted. It became so exscerbated that she was in extreme physical pain that was diagnosed as fibromyalgia. All of this happened over 6 months.

I, on the other hand, was in survival mode for the first 3 months we were in Austin. Between fixing our house in nola, finding renters, continuing grad school, fighting with our insurance company, finding a new place to live, moving furniture, buying furniture, helping my fiance' cope... I was avoiding things.

Things started unravelling for me when my fiance's company got bought by another one and almost laid her off. She was one of their top reps and they were considering laying her off because they didn't consider Austin a prime market. So, we had to move for a 3rd time, to Dallas. When I found out my graduate school would not allow me to complete my remaining class remotely and would only offer me the option of returning for 15 weeks to complete school... I broke down.

For a couple months, I did not leave the house. I could not get dressed. I could not sleep and/or when I did, it was awful. I was only able to sleep after starting to acknowledge the severity of my situation. I realized every night I was reliving the hurricane... the footage... the pain of having the place I called home destroyed... the pain of not being able to do anything about it... the isolation. I developed this pain in my back that initially felt like tighly clenched fists of muscle underneath my shoulder blades. This grew into feeling like large railroad ties or big metal nails hammered into either side of my spine. Daily I would look at the news about my home and was glued to it for a sign of hope from the federal, state, or local governments. As I was looking in the mirror one day, I noticed my hair has quickly sprouted a number of silver hairs... only on one side of my head. I am convinced this is due to stress.

After finding out the news from my grad school, I blanketed other schools to see about transferring. After a month of work, I found two that would allow me to transfer the bulk of my hours. We put our house on the market and for 5 months did not have a single offer. The stress of not knowing what to do... return to New Orleans, sell the house, rent it out, move to Austin, stay in Dallas, insurance, job uncertainty, grad school... so much in the air... it was unbearable.

Things are starting to turn the corner now. Our house has not sold but is under contract. If it does not sell, we will rent it out for a few years. My fiance' and I realized we are miserable in Dallas and being somewhere that we want to be is of the utmost importance, so we are moving to Austin. I got into grad school outside of Austin and my fiance' is quitting her job with her miserable company. We are both looking for jobs in Austin but we have faith that if we are in an inspiring place, good things will happen. We love New Orleans and miss our friends and family there... and all over the country. We realize we still have some hurdles in front of us but we are planning for the worst case scenario. My fiance' is losing her company car and I bought a Vespa scooter and she is going to take my car. We will find a way to make it all work.

Corps Takes Blame for New Orleans Flooding

Jun 1, 6:55 PM EDT
Corps Takes Blame for New Orleans Flooding
By CAIN BURDEAU
Associated Press Writer

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- A contrite U.S. Army Corps of Engineers took responsibility Thursday for the flooding of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina and said the levees failed because they were built in a disjointed fashion using outdated data.
"This is the first time that the Corps has had to stand up and say, `We've had a catastrophic failure,'" Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the Corps chief, said as the agency issued a 6,000-page-plus report on the disaster on Day 1 of the new hurricane season.

The Corps said it will use the lessons it has learned to build better flood defenses.
"Words alone will not restore trust in the Corps," Strock said, adding that the Corps is committed "to fulfilling our important responsibilities."

The $19.7 million report includes details on the engineering and design failures that allowed the storm surge to overwhelm New Orleans' levees and floodwalls Aug. 29.

Many of the findings and details on floodwall design, storm modeling and soil types have been released in pieces in recent months as the Corps sought to show it was being open about what went wrong. But the final report goes into greater depth.
The Corps, Strock said, has undergone a period of intense introspection and is "deeply saddened and enormously troubled by the suffering of so many."

Katrina damaged 169 miles of the 350-mile hurricane system that protects New Orleans and was blamed for more than 1,570 deaths in Louisiana alone.

Robert Bea, a University of California at Berkeley engineer and Corps critic, called Strock's comments and the report signs of "a leadership in growth." "They're catching up with the 1,000 years of progress of the Dutch," Bea said, referring to the Netherlands' long, and mostly successful, history of battling the North Sea.

The much-anticipated report - prepared by the 150-member Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force, assembled and headed by the Corps - is intended to serve as a road map for engineers as they seek to design and build better levees and floodwalls.

Serious work began on New Orleans' hurricane protection system in the 1960s after Hurricane Betsy flooded the city in 1965. But over the decades, funding slackened and many parts of the system were not finished by the time Katrina hit.
The result was a disjointed system of levees, inconsistent in quality, materials and design, that left gaps exploited by the storm, the report said.

Also, engineers did not take into account the poor soil quality underneath New Orleans, the report said, and failed to account for the sinking of land, which caused some sections to be as much as 2 feet lower than other parts.
Four breaches in canals that run through New Orleans were caused by foundation failures that were "not considered in the original design of these structures," the report said. Those breaches caused two-thirds of the city's flooding.

Thursday's report urged the Corps to shift its formulaic cost-benefit approach on how it decides what projects are worthwhile. The agency was urged to look at potential environmental, societal and cultural losses, "without reducing everything to one measure such as dollars."

The report did not directly address questions raised in other studies regarding the Corps' organizational mindset.
Last month, a report by outside engineers said the Corps was dysfunctional and unreliable. That group, led by experts from the University of California at Berkeley, recommended setting up an agency to oversee the Corps' projects nationwide.
In response to criticism after Katrina, the Corps has made fixing New Orleans' flood protection system a top priority and tried to incorporate the task force findings.

The Corps already has spent about $800 million for repairs and improvements and plans to spend $3.7 billion over the next four years to raise and strengthen levees, increase pumping capacity and install more flood gates.
A thorough assessment of the region's current flood defenses found no "glaring weaknesses," said Col. Richard Wagenaar, the Corps' district chief in New Orleans.

The Atlantic hurricane season runs through Nov. 30. William Gray, a leading hurricane forecaster, said Wednesday that the 2006 season should not be as destructive as 2005, which set records with 28 named storms and four major hurricanes hitting land. Gray's team is forecasting 17 named storms this year, nine of them hurricanes.
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On the Net:
Corps: http://www.usace.army.mil
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