Theres nothing easy about the Big Easy anymore...

Just about a month ago, I was down in New Orleans for a “last hurrah” with a good friend of mine from high school. He was moving out of town after finishing law school at Tulane University. It just blows my mind to look at pictures of the city under water… not to mention the Superdome, the French Quarter, the bridge across Lake Ponchartrain, etc. Excluding the time living in North Carolina, I would visit Nawlins at least twice a year – my next visit was scheduled for the Falcons-Saints game in October.

I would drive around the city – sometimes to places I had no business really going – and realize that some of the worse parts of Atlanta don’t hold a candle to some areas of New Orleans. After my first trip, I pledged never to take my own car down there again because of all of the damage I had to fix after my first trip. Between the news coverage and all of the pictures, needless to say New Orleans is no Peachtree City (ask me if you don’t know about the PTC).

There was no way in the world that I would have guessed that at the end of July, I would have been on my last trip to the Big Easy. I am certain that they will rebuild – that is pretty much a given – but I say that this was my last trip because New Orleans as I know it is gone. The people (residents or not) of the city are being taken away by the bus, truck, even boatload. Not since the City of Atlanta closed the housing projects in the city have developers been literally drooling as they wait for the water to be pumped back into its forced place. With that in mind, I honestly have to decide whether or not I will be returning to the New-New Orleans.

I can already envision a rebuilt city looking (and costing) something like Agrestic (check out “Weeds” on Showtime). A city without the character that all of the people provide – good and bad. The problem is shipping all of the perceived negativity out of town is not going to solve the real problem. I recall hearing rumors about the City of Atlanta giving the city’s homeless one-way tickets out of town before the Olympics. In essence, this is what they are doing to the poor people of New Orleans. Of course, your city looks all nice and utopian, but those people you have moved are still homeless and not in a position to provide for themselves. I do not mean that they should just be given handouts for the rest of their lives – I’m the first person to pull out the old saying, “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day – TEACH and man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime”.

In a previous blog, I mentioned something about the chickens coming home to roost – and this is yet another case. The devastation in New Orleans is the culmination of several things that I don't feel that I am qualified to speak on, but someone needs to all the same. I hope for the best down in the Bayou, but as usual, we need to prepare for the worse since FEMA doesn't seem to know how.