July 30 Reaction

What is happening in New Orleans now? Have conditions improved for the city? What has changed since When the Levees Broke was filmed? (Cite any sources you find)

Right now, New Orleans is still being cleaned. Some places are cleaned and fixed up, with people living there and taking care of their house. But what about their neighborhood? After talking to the youth group at my church that just went to New Orleans, people are neglecting lots next to them and even public parks that are dangerous for them. They told me that they cleaned up a park on the corner of a street and while they were doing it, more than one person came out and told them that they were so thankful for them cleaning it up because everytime they came to the corner it was on, they got nervous because they couldn't see around it. Nice of the residents to thank the kids, right? My question is, why couldn't the people who live there help and do it themselves? According to the kids, these people were young, healthy and very capable of doing it themselves. Conditions have improved definitely but in some areas it is still really bad. Since When the Levees Broke was filmed, things have changed in some areas, but in others, nothing has changed. "In the Lower Ninth Ward, the worst-hit area of New Orleans in the August 2005 hurricane, just 1 in 10 original residents is living there today. Everywhere you look, there are abandoned and condemned buildings. Much more evident are the countless empty lots where the flood simply wiped the houses there off the face of the Earth, leaving behind in the interim little more than weeds taller than people."

Cite
Daniel Terdiman
"Post-Katrina New Orleans Aches For Recovery"
http://news.cnet.com/
http://news.cnet.com/2300-13576_3-6242942-18.html?tag=ne.gall.pg
July 2, 2008