As cafe society blooms in the tourist areas of New Orleans, poor ex-residents struggle to survive.

The late-night bars and jazz clubs are open in the French Quarter, as are the cafes in the elegant Garden District. One year after the worst natural disaster in US history, New Orleans is gamely giving the impression that the good times are rolling again.

But a couple of miles to the north or east, the Cajun bravura falls away like a cheap carnival mask, the streets fall quiet and the Crescent City becomes a dead zone.

storm killed 1,500 people and scattered the rest. Out of a pre-hurricane population of 450,000, so far just over 200,000 have returned to build their lives, according to independent estimates. The others have either found better options elsewhere or are waiting in trailers for government reconstruction assistance and a development plan that has so far failed to materialise.

 

In some areas of New Orleans the only signs of life are the occasional Humvee full of national guardsmen - summoned in June to help control gang violence - and fluttering placards promising "We tear down houses" or "Houses gutted $1,600 or less".

 

Two weeks after the flood, with much of the city still under water, Mr Bush stood in Jackson Square and announced a visionary manifesto for reconstruction, promising "this great city will rise again" adding even more ambitiously: "We will build higher and better."

 

Twelve months on, the people of New Orleans are asking who he meant by "we". Federal money has yet to reach the streets. Not long after the Jackson Square speech, the president pulled the plug on a congressional reconstruction bill aimed at buying up flood-damaged properties, consolidating them, and selling them to developers to redesign the city. It was replaced by a less ambitious and much cheaper plan. The White House, reporters were told, did not want to get into the "real estate" business

 

A city planner told him there would be no money until there was a plan, but the crowd was suspicious. Most people interviewed in the district believed the floodwall had been dynamited under the cover of the storm by white developers. "For years they wanted this land. Now they figured out they got an opportunity to get it from us," said Henry Irvin, a 70-year-old stalwart of the Lower Nine.

 

Katrina broke other levees last year, flooding all-white neighbourhoods, but the conspiracy theory is rooted in history. The levees around the district were dynamited in 1927 by whites trying to drive out other groups - an act that left generations of deep distrust. "They dynamited it in '65 and in 2005 too," Mr Irvin insisted. "There were loud noises that night that people heard that could only be explosives."

 

This is in the U S of A the richest country in the world, not some 3rd world country in Africa or the far east.

 

 

Black democrats which make up the majority affected in New Orleans are very low on Bush's priorities, had that been in Beverly Hills or whatever money would have been thrown at the area like confetti and all the residents would have been evacuated before the storms even began

 

Bush is racist without doubt

Black democrats which make up the majority affected in New Orleans are very low on Bush's priorities, had that been in Beverly Hills or whatever money would have been thrown at the area like confetti and all the residents would have been evacuated before the storms even began

 

Bush is racist without doubt

 

 

it would seem that way :angry:

Black democrats which make up the majority affected in New Orleans are very low on Bush's priorities, had that been in Beverly Hills or whatever money would have been thrown at the area like confetti and all the residents would have been evacuated before the storms even began

 

Bush is racist without doubt

 

Totally agreed, but beyond this however it is the Working Classes of New Orleans (mostly Black, but also many Hispanic, Asian and poor Whites) who have suffered as a whole, the affluent neighbourhoods and the commercial centres of NO are the ones getting all the help, the working classes are left to rot.... What happened at Louisiana State Prison was also an utter outrage, whatever you may think of the prisoners who were there, to be treated as less than dogs was scandalous, surely in a so-called 'civilised' society, treating anyone like that is beyond the pale....

Totally agreed, but beyond this however it is the Working Classes of New Orleans (mostly Black, but also many Hispanic, Asian and poor Whites) who have suffered as a whole, the affluent neighbourhoods and the commercial centres of NO are the ones getting all the help, the working classes are left to rot.... What happened at Louisiana State Prison was also an utter outrage, whatever you may think of the prisoners who were there, to be treated as less than dogs was scandalous, surely in a so-called 'civilised' society, treating anyone like that is beyond the pale....

What happened with the prision?

What happened with the prision?

 

There was a documentary about it on Channel 5 recently. Basically, the prison had no hurricane evacuation protocols and both prisoners and guards were left with no idea what the fukk was gonna happen when the hurricane hit or what to do about it. The particularly bullish Prison Head Warden basically said he had no intentions of releasing any of the inmates no matter how bad things got - he basically condemned a lot of them to watery graves.....