K+10 minus one week

Here we are, one week from the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the Federal Flood ("Katrina" for short). Like most of my friends who lived here and through Katrina, I don't want to relive those days so I've been actively avoiding watching TV. I know it's not healthy to stuff the emotions down so I'll just deal with them as they come. I have been reading some articles and one that really spoke to me was this one by Robert Mann. I've enjoyed his OpEd pieces he writes for the T-P and hadn't realized he worked for Gov. Blanco at that time. I knew watching the reports by the big networks on New Orleans and Katrina that they were full of shit and making shit up, and he confirms that.

I worked for the governor of Louisiana during Katrina. Here are 5 things I learned. 
by Robert Mann on August 20, 2015

The Gambit has an interview with the former Governor and it's sad how politicized the rescue became.

Katrina at 10: An interview with former Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco
The former governor talks about Hurricane Katrina and the politics of Louisiana recovery
By Walter Peirce

The lies that were spread immediately following the have mostly been proved wrong, but most people will remember what they heard on the TV. I remember ranting in my emails and my blogs posts to friends to not watch CNN or FOX news. I encourages them to visit NOLA.com and get news from a local source. I follow my own advice today. When a disaster hits a distant city, I go to the local media outlets to get the facts, not the sensationalized conjecture and speculation. Here's a wonderful video that overlays the chatter of the media reporting on Katrina with footage of the city today. It was put togther by several very talented men, graphic design Tom Varisco (to whom I owe a huge debt of gratitude for taking the time to meet with a newly graduated art student looking for a graphic design job in New Orleans) and photographer Jackson Hill (who I had the pleasure of working closely on a number of projects).


High Water Mark from Tom Varisco on Vimeo.

Somebody went to New Orleans and all I got was this lousy t-shirt

My next post was going to be about all the road construction going on in New Orleans, but before I could do that, I was over on the Yellow Blog where I discovered that things are heating up over at the French Market. Comments made by the new director, Jon Smith, have angered some French Market vendors. The vendors were already ticked off by changes made in Market rules in 2012 and they filed a lawsuit which is still pending. This article just gives more proof to how screwed up things really are at the French Market.

One sentence made me take pause: "T-shirts also are prohibited, but a number of vendors who sold them before the ban went into effect were grandfathered in." Before Katrina, many, myself included, was lamenting over the proliferation of tacky, tourist t-shirt shops in the Quarter. These stores would cram dozens of t-shirts, usually with crude sayings on them (like these), in the doorway, all the while blasting music, sometimes Cajun, sometimes not. It was really getting out of control. Since Katrina, there's been a new explosion of t-shirt shops by local companies whose New Orleans themed t-shirts are geared to locals and tourist in the know. Stores like Fleurty Girl, Dirty Coast and Storyville to name a few. T-shirts are a hot commodity so it's surprising the Market would ban them.

Tacky t-shirts are no longer the only thing that scream tourist. What are the (tourist) symbols of New Orleans? Crawfish, something playing the saxophone and beads. Beads are no longer contained to Mardi Gras. The tacky t-shirt shops also sell beads, beads, beads. Feather boas are big too. The hot trend in conferences is in addition to your big old name badge and printed bag is a fake second line. There have been several times I've been down river when a brass band comes by with a handful of people decked out in beads and feather boas stumbling down the street behind them throwing beads. Like this company says on their web site: "We go beyond shutting down Canal Street for your own “second line” parade, bringing in voodoo priestesses to conjure your future and teaching you the Cajun two-step." Under Services one of the "Program Enhancements" they offer is a Jazz Funeral. Good grief.

As some of you may know, I used to teach at Delgado Community College. I was full time until I started my own company back in January 2005. After that, I taught one class a semester as an adjunct. I remember talking to my students on the first day of class of the Fall 2005 semester. I made a comment about how the fall semester before, we lost a week of classes because of hurricane evacuations. I said "Hopefully that won't happen again this year." DOH! How about missing a whole semester of classes? And the powers that be thought that it would be fine to host the college's website and data bases and so on, on campus with no off-site redundancy. Therefore, for weeks there was no DCC e-mail or website or data. They had to boat in to retrieve the hard drives if I remember correctly. If you had a non DCC email for someone you could try to reach them. Otherwise too bad.

Unfortunately, I have not taught there since, either because they didn't need me or scheduling conflicts. I miss teaching and being an adjunct was great. You show up, you teach class, you grade. You don't have to get involved in committees and other academic nonsense. I don't have much patience for bureaucracy, which is why I decided not to pursue teaching full-time and went back into private practice.

I haven't been back on campus other than to go to the Symphony book fair. I was sad to read this article in the T-P.

Meanwhile, Delgado is continuing its steady post-Katrina growth with 16,715 students this semester, 16 percent more than last fall and only 4 percent below its pre-storm high of 17,398, which it reached days before the hurricane struck in August 2005, Delgado spokeswoman Molly Jahncke said.

For the first time in Delgado Community College's 88-year history, the area's most populous institution of higher education has turned away 1,500 applicants because it ran out of building space.

About 40 percent of the square footage of the City Park campus' buildings is out of commission, including the library.

... eight of the 21 buildings on the City Park campus are unusable.

They used to have stuff about the flooding after the federal levees flooded, including photos, but that appears to no longer be on the web site. There isn't even a mention of it under "Our History." I typed in Katrina in the search box and the info does still live, Hurricane Katrina Chronicals, just no recognizable links from the current website.

FEMA is a four letter word

The Lyon's Center on the corner of Tchoup and Louisiana is in my neighborhood and since Katrina, people have been paying more attention to it. The latest saga of the park: FEMA, after being pressured by the City Council, laid new sod at the park after removing the FEMA trailers. The sod was looking good, kids were playing on the fields ect. Then one day it was locked. Here's what we found out (this put together from two emails).

I just got off of the phone with Keith J. Wright, deputy director of NORD. He returned my call asking about why the Lyons Center baseball field was locked. He explained that FEMA has not released the property back to the city. Apparently the locks on the gates are a measure taken either by FEMA directly or the contractor who is handling the refurbishment of the park to protect the sod and allow it to take hold on the field as well as to protect the park from vandalism. (There was an instance where some kids were in the park and a pipe was broken and had to be repaired.)

I asked Mr. Wright when we could expect to have our park back and he said that it was supposed to happen in October, but with the storms we have had that date has been extended. Mr. Wright could not give me a firm date, but expects us to be able to use the park again in the next few months.

. . .

I just spoke with Keith Wright at NORD (658-3000). In substance, I am told that I cannot write to this mysterious person at FEMA who is holding our neighborhood's field hostage. Mr. Wright assured me he would call and voice my concerns, but politely refused to tell me who at FEMA had the authority to go to the field, see that the sod has taken root and open our field back to the public.

Apparently, the "official" turnover date from FEMA to NORD has not occurred (and no one seems to know what this date is), and when the water main was vandalized, the contractor (who had left the field unlocked after laying the sod) was required by FEMA to repair the damages. So, the contractor understandably has locked the field pending FEMA's decision to turn it over to NORD.

If recycling matters to you, listen up.

On page A-26 of Sunday's T-P there was a "Recycling Survey" by the City of NO Dept of Sanitation. You have the option of 1) cutting out, filling out and mailing in the survey in the paper, 2) calling 311 or 3) "completing" it on-line.

I, of course, decided to complete it on-line. Going to the city's web site, you have to figure out how to navigate to the Sanitation section. Which is here. Once there, you can't exactly complete the survey on-line, all you can do is download a PDF of the survey, which you then have to print, stamp and mail. I guess I'll try calling 311 and see how that goes. Seems like they could make it a little easier. Fax? E-mail? Hello?

And have you noticed on the home page of the city's website site says off to the right hand side:

The City of New Orleans is currently updating
our website to better serve our citizens and
businesses. We apologize that some content may not be current
while we build our new site

No, really?

UPDATE: I called 311 and it took less than 1 minute. And I spoke to a human being. Will my comments go the way of all the properties I listed with the Good Neighbor program? *snort*

Seems like the best time I get blog ideas is when I’m driving in my car. Since I do not talk on the cell phone when I am driving, it gives my mind time to wander. Maybe I need to get one of those pocket tape recorders so I can record the thoughts and idea that come to me as I’m driving. Can’t very well jot things down while driving – I know because I’ve tried.

This morning I headed over to the Westbank to get my driver’s license renewed. It expired last week with my birthday. Didn’t get any notice in the mail. This morning it was gray, cold, windy and wet. I’m hoping it will keep others away from the DMV. Nope. Friday at 8:30 a.m. it was packed. At least I was standing in line inside the DMV office. The line stretched out the door behind me. Stand, shuffle, stand, shuffle. Took about 15 min. to get to the front of the line. As the man was pulling me up in the computer I said “I didn’t get a notification in the mail; should I have?” His answer was a vague “Yes or no. It depends.” I said “I haven’t received any notification about my driver’s license or car registration renewal in the mail since Katrina.” He nodded his head. He handed me a slip with a number on it and told me to have a seat. I sat down and my butt barely had time to warm the seat when my number was called.

At the DMV on Harvey, they have a very sophisticated system. A slip with your number is generated. There’s a LED board that lists the next 4 numbers on it. You number gets read out over the PA by a recorded voice and tells you what counter number to go to. As your number is being called, it will flash, and the number over your counter will also flash with your number on it. I looked at my number and looked at the flashing screen, then looked at my number again. That can’t be right, it’s only been a minute or so. But it was. I cross the room and sit down in front of a lady. She tells me to read the top line of numbers in the eye thing. Confirms my address. Some other woman came up and said something about calling maintenance. The woman helping me mumbled to me “I don’t know how to call maintenance. Why don’t she call?” I just shook my head, rolled my eyes and said “mmm hmmmm” in empathy. We finish up, she hands me my old license and says “You’re new license will be $21.50. Pay at the cashier when your name is called.” She barely had “called” out when I hear my last name. I scoot over to the cashier. “Stand in front of the blue screen. Smile if you want.” CLICK I have a slightly dazed look in my picture. Probably because I’m in shock this has happened so quickly. I didn’t even crack open the book I brought to read. My last license had a terrible picture. But the expression was akin to what a cop would see after pulling me over. I get in my car to leave, the clock says 8:59. Wow! And by the way, they stopped printing your social security number on the licenses. Good.

You know how people get in sync when they’ve been together a long time and especially married people. Our cars have a habit of messing up on us at the same time. The last time, G blew out a tire hitting a pothole, the same day my car overheated because it had sprung a leak. We both had driver’s license issues at the same time too. Last week he got pulled over, along with 10 other people, in a school zone. I guess the police can’t solve murders, so they enforce school zones. So be aware. With so many schools closed and none of the flashing school zone lights working it’s easy to do. The cop took G’s license and said to wait 5 days before going to pay his ticket. Fast forward 5 days… when G goes to pay the fine, he finds out that his license has been suspended for years because of an unpaid parking ticket. This is news to him. The notices had been sent to an address that he hadn’t lived in for years when the ticket was issued. He has even had his driver’s license renewed AFTER it was suspended. G told the man helping him that had he know about the ticket he would have paid it. Thankfully they waved the “late fee” and reinstated his license. The DMV and the state have our correct address, and that’s the address traffic court should have had. In fact, he had a new car at the time of the ticket, a car he bought after moving from the address the violations had been send. Go figure.