Bodies

One thousand three hundred twenty-six dead in five states.

One thousand seventy-eight from Louisiana.

One hundred twenty-nine still unidentified.

One hundred thirty-five days after Hurricane Katrina, still finding more bodies.

One more this week.

Been tagged: 5 Weird Things About Me

Okay, I've been tagged by Faeriebell to share 5 Weird Things About Me. Don't worry, this won't hurt one bit. Who is Number One?

1. I'm a 44-year-old-male who cries pretty much every time I watch an episode of "Highway to Heaven." You know that sappy Michael Landon TV show about the "angel" who roams the country helping people remember to forgive, be nice, and follow the rules of the "boss." I think it's that sad theme song played on the lone trumpet that gets me. And the kicker is, I'm not at all religious. I'm an Atheist.

2. My proudest accomplishment from my high school years is that I was president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Organization. I know a wealth of trivia about Star Trek, Space: 1999 and The Prisoner. I can recite the entire script of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, and I have large parts of the other movies memorized, too.

3. I'm powerfully allergic to dogs, but not cats. I have lived with cats every day for the past 17 years, and they never cause me trouble. But if I visit the home of a dog owner, even if they put the dog outside while I'm there, within a couple hours I start wheezing, coughing and sneezing.

4. In college, I competed in the National Concrete Canoe Competition. This is for real. Civil engineering students from around the country annually build and race canoes made of Portland cement concrete. I was part of the team from the University of New Orleans. We placed 3rd overall at Nationals my senior year.

5. I rotate the silverware. When I put away the clean forks and knives, I always put them on the bottom so that silverware that has been in the drawer the longest will get used next. Yes, it's important.

So now you know. I'm supposed to "tag" five other bloggers with this obligation to post 5 weird things, but I can't do that. I don't like chain letters and chain emails. So put that down as number 6 if you want, but I'm not doing it. "I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered!"

Wasted again

Back in November, I blogged about the enormous amount of trash and debris that continues to be hauled out of New Orleans. But it's not just here. Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma punk'd pretty much the whole US Gulf Coast last year, creating a steady stream of demolition and construction debris that will not abate for many months.



Government Executive magazine recently caught up with the situation and gives a lengthy and thorough analysis of the problem in a story called, "Agencies tackle massive Gulf Coast waste removal challenge." As an engineer, I found the article interesting, although I suppose this is not going to be the typical response.

I was amused to note they follow my lead and use a football stadium analogy to help the reader visualize the enormous volume of debris involved.

No news is good news, right?

Surfing the net, I stumbled on a "news" story from The Anchorman blog titled "New Orleans no longer needs help; Thanks anyway."

You might find it funny.

Or, you might think it's chillingly prophetic, as I did.

Tired of nails

I found another nail in my tire today. Really.

And I pulled it out with my bare hands. Really.

Since Hurricane Katrina smacked us around like a Mafia goon collecting on a bad debt, there's lots of debris on New Orleans' streets. I blogged about this last month, when I found a nail in my deflated tire.

At the time, I blamed that nail on the roofers who had been working in the neighborhood where I now live. There's not much hurricane debris laying around the sliver by the river anymore, but there's still some construction trash here and there.

However, I know where this nail came from. I am sure that it came from the neighborhood where I used to live, Vista Park. My old neighborhood, where my muddy, mold-covered house silently waits for its final fate.

The streets there are still covered in dirt carried by floodwaters. There is still a lot of flood-damaged furniture, wall board, fixtures and other belongings discarded on the curbs.

I knew when I was driving down my street yesterday that I was putting my tires in peril. I thought, "I'm going to end up with another nail in my tires driving around here." Really.

Today I noticed the small nail hanging out of the treads of my left rear tire. It wasn't embedded very far, or at least it seemed to be mostly exposed and bent to one side. I thought about it for less than 10 seconds before I decided.

"I'm going to pull it out."

I gripped it carefully with my bare fingers and began to twist and pull. I'd like to say it came loose with a satisfying "pop" like a champagne cork. But it made no sound. Especially important in this case, there was not even the slightest "hiss."

I held the reviled nail for a few moments, admiring my strength, imagining if Superman or Hulk could have done it any better. And then I properly disposed of the evil nail in a nearby trash can.

And that was the most interesting thing that happened to me today. Really.

Uh oh

Now I've done it. I've gone and gotten myself into trouble.

I've been blogging for a few weeks now, and being very discreet about "naming names." My daughter, for instance, is known in this blog only as "daughter." And my wife, my lovely wife of... wait, let me do the math... carry the two... um... 18 years, the woman I took in holy matrimony, she is known only as "the wife."

But she's not happy about this.

She sent me this email earlier today:

Tim, I love you and liked reading your blogs, but would appreciate some title other than "the wife." It sounds very 1950s male chauvinist.

So, what's a bloggin' guy to do? Do I call her "fabulous one with whom I share my life?" That seems a bit wordy. Should I refer to her as "the light of my life?" I think that's been copyrighted. I could call her "hootchie baby," but I'd prefer not to land on the sidewalk on my ass. "Wife" is just so succinct, I swear I didn't know it wasn't PC anymore.

I'm putting this question out to the blogosphere: what should I do?

Play the game

Well, once again Ashley Morris delivers an outstanding blog. He's got the sure-fire plan to get the president and congress to pony up to build significant hurricane protection for New Orleans. And its beauty lies entirely in its simplicity.

It just might work!

He's Baaaaaaaaaak!

That's the subject of an email I received last night from a friend of mine.

His name is J. Michael, and he only just returned to Faubourg Marigny this week. For those of you who don't know much about New Orleans, that's the neighborhood immediately downriver from the French Quarter.

J. Michael had fled town when Hurricane Katrina hit to the icy environs of New York (the state). He's a community activist type, the kind of person who spends equal amounts of time writing and calling on lawmakers to encourage things to happen, and then volunteers his labor in the neighborhood to make things happen for real.

His emails from New York were both sentimental and humorously sad, but this one I got today sums it up pretty good. He writes:

I have now returned to my apartment in New Orleans. To assist the Corps with building Cat 5 levees, I brought the five cats, although they don't show any signs of being willing to work.

My neighborhood is OK, but the city is hurting. "We're all in it together," has given way to the old, "Every man for himself," as the NIMBYism over FEMA trailer siting shows. Developers are champing at the bit to build condos for the rich to use a couple times a year, but almost nobody is interested in affordable housing.

Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' has abolished the minimum wage, but there are still way too few workers, mostly because of the lack of housing. Relief workers are literally living in tents in City Park, but New Orleneans aren't allowed.

The Red Cross ERV still shows up on my corner once a day with free food. My local market and drugstore are still closed, so you need a car to get supplies.

I could make a very good living in the salvage business just cruising the streets. Americans don't repair, they throw away and buy new. This is what keeps Chinese workers employed.

Still, there is good food, great music, including new hurricane songs, and all the good feelings that make me love this city.

Welcome home, J. Michael. We need you and many more like you!

Staying on top of things

“Blue on blue, heartache on heartache”
--Bobby Vinton

A lot of folks in and around New Orleans are just happy to have a roof over their heads. In many cases, that roof is blue.

As part of a program funded by FEMA and managed by the US Army Corps of Engineers, homeowners with damaged roofs in the disaster area can get a temporary patch of blue tarp “free for nothing.”

And a lot of people have taken the government up on the offer. According to a recent news release from FEMA, they’ve provided 77,510 blue roofs to date just in Louisiana.

Now think about this: Hurricane Katrina wasn’t all that bad a wind event in New Orleans. Sure, she was wound up to Category 5 just days before arriving here. But by landfall, the National Weather Service says Katrina had throttled back to a Category 3 storm. Better yet, the eye slipped to the East of New Orleans, so we missed the worst of her winds.

And yet, look at all those blue roofs. Look at all the homes and businesses that either got wet or came pretty close to getting wet. When water comes in through a bad roof and wets your sheetrock walls, it’s no different than if they got wet from rising flood water: you gotta tear it all out and put in new.

What would happen if New Orleans ever saw the business side of a Category 4 or 5 hurricane? Forget levees—even if we had significant levee protection, I’m thinking we’d have just as many heavily damaged and uninhabitable houses as we do now.

Keep in mind those 77,510 homes were the ones the owners felt were salvageable. No doubt there were many other houses with heavily damaged roofs that never got a tarp because the house is totaled anyway.

Keep in mind also that every shingle that gets pulled loose by hurricane force wind becomes a weapon. Can you imagine the damage that results when the hurricane hurls a few dozen shingles at neighboring houses at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour?

For now, the vast majority of homeowners are fixing their wind-damaged roofs with new roofs of exactly the same kind. No one should be surprised when the same thing happens again when the next Category 3 storm visits us. And let’s hope we don’t see a stronger hurricane for a long, long time.

Perhaps we need to rethink how we do roofs in this part of the world. Perhaps we need to put roofs on our houses that are held in place by some other method than just glue and gravity.

Paperwork

A cool evening in New Orleans. The wife fixed another wonderful meal, we ate and laughed and I enjoyed an Abita Beer.

And now I must fill out the FEMA paperwork.

But I’m not complaining.

I mean, you can’t expect the government to just fork over money without some checks and balances, right? Just because your house got sloshed and your stuff is now one big mold farm exhibit, you don’t really think that automatically means you need aid, do ya?

So you have to gather receipts and keep track of expenditures. You start a file of insurance correspondence and NGO donations.

I’m not complaining, really.

Several weeks ago I spoke to someone at FEMA about getting rental assistance. Sure I have insurance, and lots of it. But there’s no “Loss of Use” coverage on the federal flood policy. That kind of coverage is only available as part of homeowner’s insurance.

And when your house floods, that coverage remains untouchable in plain view, like fine jewelry behind a thick glass display window.

The FEMA lady was very nice and explained the application process step by step, including the Housing Assistance Rejection letter they would be sending me.

Come again?

Yes, she kindly told me, everyone will get a letter that says their request for Housing Assistance is denied. This same letter will explain how to appeal this decision, which she encouraged me to do because I’m probably eligible.

I’m sure it makes sense to some bureaucratic wonk somewhere. But really, I’m not complaining.

The other day we got the rejection letter in the mail. “Good news!” I said to the wife. I had to explain to her that getting turned down was progress in the FEMA scheme of things. It’s much like a teenage girl making out. Sometimes, “No” can mean “Yes.”

All I had to do now was write a letter, attach all supporting documentation, send it in and wait for another letter.

But really, I’m not complaining.

“Dear FEMA,

“Thank you for rejecting my request for Housing Assistance! We were thrilled to get your letter. We really appreciate your interest in the plight of our family.

“Let’s recap: Our house is toast. We’ve already spent the $2,358 for housing assistance you sent to us in September. In fact, since Hurricane Katrina, we’ve spent more than $6,750 just on rent and emergency expenses. We’re sure we will continue have uninsured, storm-related housing expenses for the foreseeable future. Any help here would be appreciated.

“Be a pal, FEMA, and let us know what you can do for us, if anything. And don’t be such a stranger!

“Sincerely,”

But seriously, I’m not complaining.

They were kind enough to send me a quick claim form, too. I was asked to provide some basic personal information and to declare, under penalty of perjury, “I have a continuing need for Housing.”

I guess there must be some folks who don’t have a continuing need for housing. Those folks might be homeless and might want to remain so. But that’s not me. And I guess FEMA wants to weed out the homeless. I don’t know why.

Look, I’m not complaining. Really, I’m not.

I’m glad FEMA is rigorously screening all applicants, even those of us from parts of the city where every single house got 7 feet of water. I’m happy to know that FEMA has created a counterintuitive process to test the will of those seeking aid. I’m pleased they’re sorting out the homeless, and I’m really glad they want me to prove that I don’t have insurance coverage that’s not even offered and that I’m really living in a different place now that my home is uninhabitable.

Seriously. I’m NOT complaining.

I mean, WHAT THE HELL DIFFERENCE WOULD IT MAKE?

Beauty and birth amid destruction

I know I've been blogging mostly about the destruction here. It's hard to not dwell on it since Hurricane Katrina's handiwork is all around. But life here in the sliver by the river is not too terrible.

There is fun and food, which I've tried to post about on occasion. And there is beauty, too, such as this recent sunset over the river.


I've been calling where I live in New Orleans "the sliver by the river" since that's what it really is. Just a strip a few blocks wide that follows the high ground near the Mississippi River. I didn't make up that name and I don't know who did so I can't even give proper credit to the person.

I did recently find out who wrote the The Twelve Days of Post-Katrina Christmas, which I posted here a few weeks ago. It was Trina Beck, who blogs at Trina Loves New Orleans. I've added her blog to the sidebar along with some other fun and informative bloggers from New Orleans that deserve checking out.

What we all have in common is this: our love of this city, and our determination to carry on. The destruction, the heartbreak, the anger and frustration is all there. But soaring above that is the will to live, love and laugh.

Just read a few posts from Ashley Morris, and you'll see what I mean. Here's a guy who has welded his anger with his humor, and incredibly just watched his third child come into the world amid the uncertainty and ruin of New Orleans.

And they named the baby Rey d'Orleans Morris.

Lennon and McCartney were right. Life goes on, bra!

Broken trees

We went over to the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain to visit my wife's father today. He lives in Mandeville, which is a bedroom community spread out under the tall pine trees. It's easy to get to if you don't mind the 26-mile drive and the $3 toll.

Folks who live on that side of the lake do not have hurricane protection levees. Most don't need them because the ground is generally higher. Only the people who live within a mile or two of the lake are low enough to be in danger of flooding when hurricanes come this way.

What they do worry about is trees. When Hurricane Katrina roared through here a few months ago, she snapped pine trees by the thousands. A lot of people move to Mandeville for the beautiful and abundant trees. And ironically, the trees are a constant worry once they're there.

One of these large trees fell right on my father-in-law's house during the hurricane. It has since been hauled away and he's had carpenters build an almost entirely new roof. But there are still plenty of fallen and cut-up trees all around.

I took this picture of a pine tree in his backyard that cracked right near the base. I would guess this tree was about 6 to 8 feet around where it broke, so you get the idea how much damage this hurricane did.
And yet, this hurricane really wasn't that bad. It was not "The Big One" we've often heard about. Katrina actually weakened right before coming ashore to a Category 3 storm, so sustained winds were just above 110 miles per hour. And the worst winds were to the east of the eye, so New Orleans and Mandeville did not get beaten with the strongest winds.

But look what happened.

Immediately after pictures of flooding in New Orleans appeared on television, I heard people saying that it's crazy to live below sea level. We should know better.

What then, would they say about the residents of Mandeville? They live surrounded by towering pine trees. Are they crazy to live in forest-like subdivisions? Should they take defensive action immediately and cut back all trees that might fall on their houses in the next hurricane?

I say no. This is simply another example of how we live in nature. This is not a battle between humans and nature; this is the natural struggle of humans in nature. We humans are part of the natural world, and we should remain connected to nature and the environment. This is no contest with winners and losers, but more of a partnership with mutually beneficial balances of good and ill.

Unfortunately, hurricanes are part of the natural world, too, so we have to learn to live with them as well. Cut down all the trees? Abandon New Orleans and low-lying areas? That's what I would call crazy.

My father-in-law has almost finished making repairs to his home in the wooded town of Mandeville. And all around, nature is also repairing and rebuilding where trees broke and fell.