On Sep 23, 2005, at 22:50, susan wrote:
the areas in new orleans should be left as tourist areas only,
And who's gonna flip their burgers for them? Scrub the bathrooms, do the laundry, change the bulbs and see to the plumbing in their hotels? Remove the trash? Maintain the souvenir shops, lead the sight-seeing tours? Amuse them in the evenings? Who's gonna take care of them when they get sick? Who's gonna baby-sit and teach the kids of the "worker ants"?
And where are all those "worker ants" going to live? 50 miles out of town and commute (always supposing there are safe areas within that distance where housing for them *can* be built)? That puts an undue burden on them, if all they're going to have to live on are "tourist support" jobs. Maybe even an impossible-to-bear burden, given the rising prices of gas and lowering standards of the social safety net.
A city is a multi-layered "organism"; reducing New Orleans to a tourist attraction is just another way to put it into a coffin. Immediately post-Katrina, it was WalMart that was the most effective at providing help. But tourists don't shop at WalMart; it's the poor who do.
Besides... Although Katrina attacked at 5, she "went to rest" at 4, and her path spared the tourist quarter. What's the guarantee that it'll be like that the next time? Especially if we keep contributing to the global warming at the pace we are doing now, without doing anything at all to counteract it?
their government representatives are mostly responsible for how slow things are moving. the higher up officials shouldn't have to make such small decisions. they just handle all the money to be disbursed. the police departments, mayors, city council members, governors, and senators are mostly to blame. it shows there are a lot of bad politics in the state of louisiana by how slow they were.
Did you see the "evacuation" of Houston, Texas (the President's own state)? Ths time, taught by Katrina, they didn't wait to be flattened, heeded all the warnings. The city did use the school buses, unlike in NO, and it did try to take care of the sick and elderly... And it took 12 hrs to move to the city limits, with cars running out of gas in the stop-and-go procession. The city did have plans for evacuation and people did what they were told. Only, the plans allowed for 800 thou and 2.5 million wanted to move. If Rita flattens out Houston, would you suggest it be rebuilt elswhere?
they have books and training, but no one to test them.
They did start testing in NO. But the money for the purpose ran out; it was needed in Iraq and for the tax breaks for the rich. And it wasn't the city council that was responsible for *that* little mess-up.
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