Day 39: State of Play

Dear friends and family, It’s early Friday morning, before we head off to New Orleans for our salvage trip. My sleeping patterns are still totally out of whack, so getting up at 4am is not out of the ordinary. I sleep like a log while I’m asleep, but as soon as I wake at all, my mind snaps alert and there’s no going back to sleep. Before Lillie and I head home for the first time in 41 days (39 since Katrina hit), I thought I’d give you a brief update on the general state of play. Our local utility company, Entergy, reports that neither gas nor electricity is available in our neighbourhood, nor will it be for an indefinite period. There was water intrusion and damage to the gas mains as well flooding in the electricity substation. The sewerage system is inoperative and there’s no drinking water (although the information about drinking water has been conflicting). “Phase I” of debris collection has been completed and “phase II” is 2% completed. Now, what that means is a mystery, because there appears to be no explanation of the debris clearance phases anywhere. Given that most of the streets in our neighbourhood are still blocked by trees – according to very recent reports by neighbours and friends – phase I must have been fairly limited. In the whole of New Orleans, it’s estimated there are 50 million cubic yards of debris. I’m trying to picture that in my mind. It sounds like one very big cube. Of that amount, around 436,000 cubic yards have been removed, which is a very small nibble off one corner of the cube (although I don’t recommend nibbling on any part of it). The best estimate for clearing away all the debris is around two years; the most optimistic estimate is one year. There are no traffic signals operational and no temporary stop signs at intersections in our area. In fact, there are very few traffic signals at all throughout the city, and local hospitals – those that are still functioning – have reported increased numbers of traffic accident victims. As for the hospitals, it’s almost certain they’ll need to tear down Charity and replace University, the two public hospitals in New Orleans. Lillie’s sister Jane worked at Charity, the hospital which, with University, serves the poor and those who can’t afford or get health insurance. That’s around 500,000 people, a figure which is one of many indicators of  how crippled the health system is here in the US. Charity has been in dire need of renovation or complete rebuilding for years, but almost no-one in government has seen it as a priority. After all the damage during Katrina, it’s really beyond repair. The CEO of the Charity/University system has called for its rebuilding. I regard the absence of an immediate and resounding “Of course, we’ll make it a priority” from the Federal government as an indication of how tepid is its commitment to rebuilding New Orleans. (They’d probably point to the state’s responsibility in this, but it’s clearly the Feds that need to pick up the tab.) This is the hospital which served those people we all saw suffering so much during Katrina; without a strong public hospital, there will be no health service for that section of our community. At the moment, the US Navy is providing a hospital ship, anchored in the Mississippi, to cover for Charity, but because of the low numbers of patients they’re anxious to weigh anchor and head off elsewhere. That, of course, would leave poor people with no health care at all. I really do wonder whether the underlying, unstated plan is to stop poor people from returning to the city by ensuring there is no support for them whatsoever. There’s also been a rumour that Memorial Medical Center (Baptist), where some of Lillie’s family were trapped, will be closed, too. We’ve heard no confirmation of this. Rumours, of course, abound about almost everything. One rumour has it that all of Lakeview will be bulldozed and the area added to City Park, which would make it the largest urban park in the US. I can’t see this happening, although the house bulldozing is likely to occur in much of Lakeview. There’s too much money at stake. The city has sacked 3000, almost half, of its employees, which is no surprise. A little more surprising is that the Catholic archdiocese has sacked 881 employees. In such an intensely Catholic city, that’s a telling indicator of how far from normal things are. Questions remain over how habitable New Orleans is from a health standpoint. There have been some very wild and disturbing pronouncements by a variety of people whose primary concern appears to be “return to normalcy” over public safety and health. Mayor Nagin started declaring that the water was fit to drink while both the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Louisiana Department of Health were saying it was not. And then there was this little tidbit from the local newspaper: “Tests found elevated levels of fecal bacteria in some parts of the lake. The Environmental Protection Agency has warned people not to come in contact with the contaminated water. But even though the Food and Drug Administration recommended that the lake be closed to fishing, Louisiana officials have declined to do it. They say lake fish are safe to eat as long as they are kept refrigerated, isolated from other food to prevent cross-contamination and thoroughly cooked before eating.” Louisiana accounts for a sizeable percentage of the country’s seafood production, so there’s a strong financial incentive to declare the fish and shrimp and oysters safe. The EPA is also downplaying risks, despite its own data showing various forms of water and soil contamination. It’s been letting people like Nagin get away with clearly false statements instead of taking a leading role in looking after public safety. But, after all, this is an agency which the Bush administration has worked long and hard to reduce to little more than a prop for polluting businesses. And after all this time, of the 976 killed by Katrina in Louisiana, only three dozen have been identified. After this weekend, I’ll be able to give you a much more personal state of play report. Love, Rose