Sun Herald reporters Josh Norman and Mike Keller started a blog before Katrina hit to share the experiences with their readers in real time. Little did they know that Dancing with Katrina would prove to be a lifeline for people seeking information about people in Biloxi, Gulfport and surrounding areas.

I started reading their blog in early September when New Orleans was still under water and no one was talking about Mississippi at all. Their blog was gripping and real — what they didn’t say in newspaper articles was put on the blog. Their outrage at the apathy and sluggishness of FEMA and the feds at large was inspiring, and convicting.

Josh and Mike are closing their blog. The happy ending to their story is the award of a Pulitzer prize to the Sun-Herald and the Gold Medal award to them as individuals (for public service).

A hearty congratulations to both of them. They were strong voices in a din of confusion and I will miss their occasional updates.

Josh plans to start a new blog — Biloxi Banter for personal stories about life in Biloxi, if you’re interested in following him there.

Even though their blog has reached its natural conclusion, Katrina’s devastation is nowhere near such neat and tidy resolution, sadly enough. Tim is still blogging about life in New Orleans and the challenges associated with rebuilding. Just today, his already-devasted-by-flooding-home caught fire and burned, highlighting the ongoing concern about all of the empty rotting homes in New Orleans and the dangers they present.

Kmilyun just visited Mississippi and saw the devastation firsthand, just as fresh as it was on August 30th even though it’s six months later, sparking inspiration to keep talking about reconstruction efforts (or lack thereof).

The 2006 hurricane season is predicted to be worse than 2005. Levees in Sacramento are swelling and some are breaking; the levees in New Orleans will not be shored up or rebuilt to withstand better than a Category 3 storm. Instead of applying creativity and the best minds in the country to the problems associated with Katrina’s aftermath and the larger problem of aging levees, rebuilding infrastructure in New Orleans and Mississippi and reinforcing infrastructure elsewhere, the Bush administration is focused on eavesdropping on our Internet activities, bombing Iraq, and lying to us all. I shudder to think what this country will be like when he is done with it.

Technorati Tags: biloxi, new orleans, hurricane katrina, reconstruction, FEMA

(Weirdness tonight — in the middle of a post my connection just completely went out and this post went up halfway with the wrong categories, none of my edits and strange formatting…if you read feeds, please forgive me)

A heartfelt post about what Katrina has done to his New Orleans:
Michael C. Hebert, MD - Journal - When Azaleas Last In the Backyard Bloom’d
When your home town is wrecked by a hurricane it tends to rob you of something. Some have compared the damage of a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina to a rape, but I don’t see that. For me, it is more like losing a brother.

A brother is someone who shares your history and upbringing. There is a deep emotional bond, but not necessarily a financial one. When your brother dies, you march on in your life and career, sometimes more successfully than ever before, but to a rhythm that has a lesser meaning. There is a part of your past, a person who can bear witness to what you are and how you got there in a way that no one else can, that is gone.

That is how I feel about New Orleans. I was very lucky; I lost very little financially, but my emotional loss is very close to a loss of identity.”

Technorati Tags: hurricanekatrina, neworleans, loss, brotherhood

Their Levees - Our Levees

It can be done.

…but this one hits closer to home. Denise linked to Cowsill.com, which at present is a huge Barry Cowsill memorial page. News reports from earlier this week indicate that he was another victim of the Hurricane Katrina aftermath.

The Cowsills lived around the corner from me when I was growing up, during their “Hair” fame. They were a really nice family with really nice kids, and it’s a shame that this happened. My condolences and prayers go out to them.

Tim is shouting out for bloggers to amplify faeriebell and Michelle’s message:

It’s not enough to restore the levees to what they were on August 28th. They need to be improved along with the entire hurricane system to withstand a Category 5.

This Californian adds: If buildings, highways and bridges here can be retrofitted to withstand a theoretical magnitude 8.0 earthquake, surely engineers can figure out how to make the levee system stronger in New Orleans.

This isn’t just about New Orleans. They need it first, but levees are all over this country. There are concerns about one near Sacramento causing destruction; one was compromised near Reno drowning 400 sheep. This time it was sheep, next time it could just as easily be homes.

So blog — Voices rising up in unison is a powerful thing.

Photos, furniture, walls, floors, now covered in mold and mildew. In another post, I linked to photos taken from a distance. These are stark, in-your-face documentation of what standing water can do your memories, your past, your life.

Bush went to the Gulf today. It was nothing more than a token move to give the impression that he cares about New Orleans. Where is our creativity, our passion, our innovative spirit? Surely there are some engineers out there who can come up with creative ways to shore up the levees so that there’s incentive to rebuild these neighborhoods!

Technorati Tags: hurricanekatrina, neworleans, flooddamage

Just start this chant and pass it on, make it a meme, sing it on the bus in the morning:“THE TERRORISTS BOMBED THE LEVEES”

Say it over and over again until you believe it. Maybe then the Feds will hear it too….

If you’re wondering why a native Californian is so passionate about New Orleans, it’s because of my passion for jazz and my deep family roots in Mississippi and Louisiana. And because of blog entries like Tim’s recent…just look at your newspaper’s US section tomorrow morning. I’ll betcha there’s not one single article about a) Plans to redesign and rebuild the levees to sustain a Cat5 hurricane or b) updates on the cleanup and beginnings of the Gulfport/Biloxi/New Orleans resuscitation.

But damn, they’re awfully fast when it comes to Florida, or LA, or San Francisco.

(PS — Tim, use her initials or a nickname. “The Wife” does sound a bit arcane….)

Technorati Tags: hurricanekatrina, levee, neworleans

In days of vigils over Ariel Sharon and trapped miners, both important and compelling, it was good to be reminded that New Orleans is hurting and still in much the shape they were in 3 months ago.

From Tim’s Nameless Blog, a returning friend writes:

I have now returned to my apartment in New Orleans. To assist the Corps with building Cat 5 levees, I brought the five cats, although they don’t show any signs of being willing to work.

My neighborhood is OK, but the city is hurting. “We’re all in it together,” has given way to the old, “Every man for himself,” as the NIMBYism over FEMA trailer siting shows. Developers are champing at the bit to build condos for the rich to use a couple times a year, but almost nobody is interested in affordable housing.

SlidellforLife wrote this on the Pugvillage Forum:

I grew up in New Orleans, so I was excited to see it since the storm, 4 months ago. I am sad to say that much of the damage is just as Katrina left it, mainly upside-down and in the street.

My extended family (everyone but me) lives in the area. All of the locals have one messages “Things are not better here. Things are getting desperate, but people don’t know it outside the gulf coast.”

There are lots of photos on the Web, but for me, the most haunting were these and these of Biloxi/Gulfport.

It’s easy to forget, but let’s not, because these areas can be an opportunity to create something great out of the rubble of a hurricane, but not without the eyes and ears of the people outside of their cities watching and helping.

Technorati Tags: katrina, neworleans, mississippi, biloxi