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.

Happy Independence Day.


Independent from what I’m not sure any more. I for one plan on expressing my love of ‘Merica by stimulating the economy (‘cause it sure does need it), laying out to work on my tan (cancer schmanser), finally doing a blog post (incite the masses) eating and drinking to excess (the land of plenty) and lighting illegal fireworks (rebellion). Today I’ll drive over to Gretna and smuggle illegal fireworks into Orleans. Gee, I hope the cops don’t track me down from this post. Maybe they only troll MySpace pages. Actually, I’ll probably just get sparklers.

I’m glad to have a long weekend in which I am staying in town and have no big plans. Things have been busy around here with work, going out of town and neighborhood stuff. Along with the above I also plan on catching up reading blogs and answering email. It going to be too hot or rainy this weekend to be outdoors for long.

Speaking of neighborhood stuff…the POS house across the street is finally being renovated. And work is being done to Lyon’s park to take up the trailer park infrastructure up and return it to a field. I have to applaud city council for standing up to FEMA and getting them to get to work and lay sod at all the parks.


Looking up the weekend weather I noticed there's a TS out in the Atlantic. It's far off, but I was amused by the computer model that has it heading due east back to Africa. Add to the list this weekend: go through "disaster" kit...

All of a sudden, stuff is happening in our neighborhood. It started when we pulled up to our house upon return from our trip to FLA, and we saw a "for sale" sign on the eyesore on our street. It's a Christmas miracle. It's been empty for years and like many properties, the owner refuses to do anything, other than keep the weeds cut. With pressure from neighbors, the city got on his case and he started working (tearing parts down actually) on it just before Katrina hit. After that, he did nothing knowing the city was too disorganized and understaffed to enforce anything. He got reported to the Good Neighbor Program (it does work!) and a couple of months ago (slow, but it works) a bright orange noticed was posted on the house. I guess he got tired of dealing with it and put it in the market. In less than a week "sale pending" was added to the sign. A realtor friend said the asking price of $75K was a steal. It remains to be seen who buys it and what they do with it. Of course I'll keep you all posted.

le eyesore

If that wasn't enough, a neighbor just informed us the former apartment building next door that got sold, flipped and condo-ized, has filled; all the condos have been bought. The condo-izing process started before Katrina. Hopefully this won't lead to a parking war on our street. The house on the other side of us is still empty (has been for years) though today the owners were over there moving stuff out. And lastly, the FEMA trailer park in the city park behind us is slowly being taken out. I noted that the trailers were installed Dec 05 and sat empty until March 06. Some less compassionate people in the neighborhood were acting all NIMBY. I want to say, for the record, we had no problems what so ever the whole time - and the park backs up to us. It's always been quiet, you wouldn't even know people were living back there. All we heard was the occasional crunch of tires on gravel. I actually started to miss the sound of kids playing and finding the occasional ball in our back yard. One last odd development... a stop sign has appeared at the corner. It wasn't there when I left for work Friday morning but was when we left for dinner that evening. I don't think it was placed "officially" I think some one came across a stop sign and decided to put it there. I have mixed feelings; it is a bad corner - our street has the right of way, but you can't see around the house to your right. I always go through there very slowly since some people on the cross street seem to feel the stop sign doesn't apply to them. So while this may slow down those who go flying down our street at 80 mph, we'll have to listen to the earthshaking BOOMBOOMBOOM slightly longer. And one of these days I'll figure out how to thwart the guy with the super charged muffler who drives down our street every morning at 6am.

Saturday, we held our first St. Patrick’s Day party, which was a blast. We live next to the Irish Channel neighborhood and every year there is a parade, as well as parades in other parts of the city. It’s like Mardi Gras lite – almost all local, no elaborate costumes but lots of green clothing, lots of drinking, hanging out and good fun.

Along with the usual parade fare--beads, cups and toys-- cabbages, potatoes, onions and carrots are also thrown. I put corned beef on to cook that morning. After the parade, I threw in the veggies we caught and had a very yummy “Irish Boiled Dinner” (the secret is beer!) Typical parade day, the group of people we started out with, wasn’t the same one we were with at the end of the day.


In addition to St. Patty’s day, spring has sprung and everything is growing. And the oak trees are dropping their neon green pollen everywhere. ACHOO! I started my veggie garden early this year. Last month I planted lettuce, spinich, parsley and cilatro, which is now coming up. Planted a few tomato plants this weekend-hmm guess I forgot to take a picture of that. Saving room for cucumber and peppers. We put down plastic to keep weeds at bay. One gardener had a roll of FEMA blue roof that we used to cover the empty plots.