August 29th brings the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, with all the reminders of the destruction, devastation and death that came rolling in with her and our failed levee system. The one that still isn't repaired.

A year later, I am like so many others in my beloved city, still trying to get a handle on things and dealing with some type of post traumatic stress disorder. It all becomes so overwhelming and discouraging at times that I can scarcely take in a full breath of air.

It's like the rest of the country expects us to have moved on and picked our selves up by the boot straps and dusted ourselves off by now. We should just hush about all this hurricane damage and get on with our lives like nothing ever happened. Get over it! I mean, I know that there are people out there that do understand and all, but it just "feels" like the majority have forgotten already what it was like to see the flood waters filling 80% of our city, the homes that had stagnant waters for weeks and weeks in them while all of New Orleans just waited...and waited...and waited. That is, until the fires started, and then there were all the new fears to worry about. And of course, there were all the families that had loved ones missing, parents that were separated from their children, or aged parents. It was horrible. Some are still looking for them.

It feels more often than not like the politicians have moved on and forgotten us as well. Some of them had decided even then that we didn't deserve to be helped but others fought for us in the beginning, but they lack the luster they once had for us. They are quick to tell us that we are below sea level and fools to want to stay here and that it would be foolish on their part to spend the money to reconstruct our city or build the protective levee system that we were supposed to have had in place to begin with. The allocated funds that were promised to us are short in coming and are not going to be enough to cover the costs. Those same politicians are quick to point all of that out to us, but I just can't see us without a New Orleans. It's unimaginable to me. It's like trying to imagine if they'd tried to tell New York that it was too risky to rebuild it because it was a mecca for terrorist attacks in the future.

I think people have had such a tarnished view of New Orleans because of too many "Girls Gone Wild" videos filmed down on Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras, and see us as a partying town that stays liquored up and then of our history of "souther politics" with recent history like former Gov. Edwards, and they become fearful to help because of the way we've been marketed for so long. 

 

Sure, we are not perfect. We've had our mistakes, but are we any less valuable than any other American city, than say San Diego? Manhattan? Chicago? San Francisco?

When Pearl Harbor was bombed, we could have just left it like it was...thinking it would have been too much trouble, or the same as with New York, and clearly the Pentagon wasn't as safe as it was thought to be, now was it? San Diego is a prime spot for a terrorist attack, face it, and think of the influential people that live in Manhattan, and the trade that occurs in Chicago...and San Francisco could fall off the continent with the next earthquake, but it is part of America, and if it was worth making part of America, then it is worth rebuilding it! So is New Orleans, and the people damn sure are. We are not perfect. We are prideful, we are southern, we are not the richest, we are not even primarily white,  and yeah, we might even find the simplest things in life to celebrate, but we are pretty damn fantastic and we...by we, I mean the people that have stayed and dug their heels in and gotten their hands dirty in the muck of cleaning up (despite the lack of insurance paying on our claims) have stuck together and helped each other and want to make our city even better than it was before. Please don't judge us by those that hold political offices here, not all of those of us in New Orleans voted for them.

Even with all of this, what can we even hope for though? The crime rate continues to climb. Even with the National Guard in to help monitor the outskirts of the less congested areas, to allow the NOPD to concentrate on the more intense areas, murders are taking place every single day. Universities and colleges can't even attract candidates in to the sports program because they (in their words) "can't compete with CNN" and the negative publicity the city is constantly under. We have a fire department that struggles to keep it's men and women in spite of the fact that they face more deadly fires that injure, mame, and kill, and don't get the benefits of the city's raises. Yet the ones that stay are dedicated, to each other...and to their city.

One day the newspapers are talking about positive progress and how the likes of Donald Trump and other big money philanthropists are investing in New Orleans in big projects like hotels, multi-housing facilities, etc. and the next week, you hear how because there are not enough city workers (they need either 30 or 40 and only have 8) they cannot possibly meet the required deadlines to have the permits and work started to get the tax breaks for Hurricane Katrina areas that are granted through 2008. Because of this, Donald Trump and others are likely to bail out of the deal because it will fall through.  There just went billions of dollars of revenue for our city and jobs for it's residents, and another chunk of it's future. 

I end up with a general malaise about my beloved city, and that hurts me to have it, and in an odd way, it creates guilt for me to even have that. Let's not forget, guilt is my emotion, I own it.

Still, work on the exterior of the house is completed, and a great deal of the interior work is done, so I should feel somewhat relieved, and I do. Hurricane season is already upon us, however, so already feeling edgy and nervous and generally depressed over that, we have to have a reminder of it all come slamming home with Hurricane Ernesto brewing south of us, just taunting.

I've started stocking up on supplies, because I do not plan on leaving this time unless it is a class 5 zeroing down on New Orleans, and I've been told that I will not be considered "essential" at my new job for this first year since I am in orientation this first year, but that was per my boss that was just terminated, and who knows what the new one will require.

I know one thing. If New Orleans comes through this year without a hurricane, then businesses should come back and she should be about to do something with the grant money that has been allocated, but if we get hit with another one....that will likely be the end of my beloved city, and I just don't know what I would want to do. The fear comes welling up in me when I think on this too long. I can't breathe. The air is too heavy.