Two full years after Katrina, the Big Easy is barely limping along, unable to make truly meaningful reconstruction progress. The most important issues concerning the city’s long-term survival are still up in the air. Why is no Herculean clean-up effort underway? Why hasn’t President Bush named a high-profile czar such as Colin Powell or James [...]
With government money for New Orleans trickling through the pipeline, private foundations, wealthy individuals, and philanthropies are playing a larger role than expected. Billions of federal dollars have been allotted or spent in New Orleans since hurricane Katrina, so it may come as a surprise that the first public works project in the city’s long-term [...]
Four men in New Orleans were killed on Monday, marking the deadliest day in the city. All four victims were shot in the head from point-blank range, but the murders did not appear to be connected. At least 55 people have been killed in New Orleans so far this year. Alexandra Cohen reports, followed by [...]
In the latest twist to the demographic transformation of New Orleans since it was swamped by Hurricane Katrina last year, hundreds of babies are being born to Latino immigrant workers, both legal and illegal, who flocked to the city to toil on its reconstruction. The throng of babies gurgling in the handful of operational maternity [...]
Mental health problems soared after Hurricane Katrina, just as the citys ability to handle them plummeted, creating a crisis so acute that police officers say they take some disturbed people to a destination of last resort — jail. Because of the storm damage, only two of New Orleans 11 hospitals are fully functioning. Whats more, [...]
Alligators have been dragged from abandoned swimming pools. Foxes had to be removed from the airport. Coyotes are stalking rabbits and nutria a sort of countrified rat in city streets. And armadillos are undermining air conditioning units. In the year since Hurricane Katrina drove out many of the people of New Orleans, wild animals have [...]
Some critics are starting to praise the Army Corps of Engineers’ work in rebuilding the levees around New Orleans. Coming from Professor Bea, an engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who has been one of the most persistent critics of the Army Corps of Engineers’ work on the levees, it was an important [...]
Critics say the New Orleans levee system is likely to fail again, because not enough clay is being imported to strengthen it. Read (New York Times)
Up to a third of those who lived through the death and destruction of Hurricane Katrina may be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but cannot find treatment. Read (Reuters)
Monday, the mailbox contained: March 2006 issue of Popular Mechanics (Debunking Katrina Myths) February 17, 2006 issue of Entertainment Weekly (Spring Movie Preview – All the Buzz on 93 New Films) January/February 2006 issue of CA (ACS Guidelines, 2006) A Social Security Statement A subscription offer for Sports Illustrated A subscription offer for Tin House [...]
More than 3,200 people are still unaccounted for nearly five months after Hurricane Katrina, and the Louisiana medical examiner wants the search to resume for those missing from the most devastated neighborhoods. Read (CNN)
Friday, the mailbox contained: January 13, 2006 issue of Sporting News (The Power Issue) January 16, 2006 issue of ESPN The Magazine (In His Own Words – LeBron) February 2006 issue of Linux Journal (The Nokia 770) January 13, 2006 issue of Entertainment Weekly (You Can’t Kill Jack – 24) January 9, 2006 issue of [...]
After experiencing record demand for food immediately after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Gulf Coast food banks are now in danger of coming up short. Local food banks throughout the region are warning that many people in the area are already going hungry. Read (The New Standard)
A Louisiana congressman says e-mails written by the government’s emergency response chief as Hurricane Katrina raged show a lack of concern for the unfolding tragedy and a failure in leadership. Read (CNN) For some reason, we are still paying Brownie a salary – $148,000 a year. I wish someone would pay me that much money [...]
Investigators yesterday added a possible new explanation for some of the flooding that devastated New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina: contractors who may have skimped on construction materials in building the city’s floodwalls and levees. Experts probing the cause of the flooding have received at least a dozen allegations of major cheating by builders and possibly [...]
Confronted with unprecedented needs that emerged after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the American Red Cross has been forced for the first time in its 124-year history to borrow a large sum of money to complete its disaster relief work. The Red Cross set a $2.3 billion fund-raising goal in the aftermath of the two hurricanes, [...]
Thursday, the mailbox contained: November 4, 2005 issue of Sporting News (College Football @ The Half) Make Vol. 04 (9 DIY Music Projects) October 10, 2005 issue of Oncology Times (Hurricane Katrina: How the Cancer Community Coped with the Immediate Crisis) An advertisement from Saturn of Roanoke Valley A subscription offer from [Sports Illustrated](http://www.si.com A [...]
The hurricanes shed light on the growing US population that subsists below poverty level. Read (Christian Science Monitor)
For 16 critical hours, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials, including former director Michael D. Brown, dismissed urgent eyewitness accounts by FEMA’s only staffer in New Orleans that Hurricane Katrina had broken the city’s levee system the morning of Aug. 29 and was causing catastrophic flooding. Read (Washington Post)
Saturday, the mailbox contained: Fall 2005 issue of Tin House (Dorothy Allison, William T. Vollmann, and Billy Collins Work It Out) November 2005 issue of Harper’s (Don’t Watch The News) November 2005 issue of Smithsonian (35 Who Made a Difference) November 2005 issue of Wired (You Call This The Phone of the Future?) November 2005 [...]