25 Questions About the Murder of New Orleans

[NVMojo]

Sept. 30, 2005

We recently spent a week in New Orleans and southern Louisiana interviewing relief workers, community activists, urban planners, artists and neighborhood folks. Even as the latest flood waters from Hurricane Rita recede, the city remains submerged in anger and frustration.

Indeed, the most toxic debris in New Orleans isn't the sinister gray sludge that coats the streets of the historic Creole neighborhood of Treme or the Lower Ninth Ward but all the unanswered questions that have accumulated in the wake of so much official betrayal and hypocrisy. Where outsiders see simple "incompetence" or "failure of leadership," locals are more inclined to discern deliberate design and planned neglect--the murder, not the accidental death, of a great city.

In almost random order, here are twenty-five of the urgent questions that deeply trouble the local people we spoke with. Until a grand jury or Congressional committee begins to uncover the answers, the moral (as opposed to simply physical) reconstruction of the New Orleans region will remain impossible.

1. Why did the floodwalls along the 17th Street Canal only break on the New Orleans side and not on the Metairie side? Was this the result of neglect and poor maintenance by New Orleans authorities?

2. Who owned the huge barge that was catapulted through the wall of the Industrial Canal, killing hundreds in the Lower Ninth Ward--the most deadly hit-and-run accident in US history?

3. All of New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish east of the Industrial Canal were drowned, except for the Almonaster-Michoud Industrial District along Chef Menteur Highway. Why was industrial land apparently protected by stronger levees than nearby residential neighborhoods?

the rest are here:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051017/davis

[malaise]

1. Great questions

Will we ever get honest answers?
Last night I watched Jim Cantori on Storm Stories as he presented details on the Great Florida hurricane of 1928. The parallels are amazing.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

2. This is the best

array of questions I have seen. New Orleans needs to demand answers to every single one of them. Possibly there are sensible answers to all. Possibly. But someone's feet must be held to the fire. This city failed its people. And from there you can follow the questions right into Baton Rouge and DC.

I'd add another question: Why, when all the animals at the acquarium survived the initial weather and first few days, was the generator allowed to go dead and all 6000 specimins die? This was a HUGE tourist site in an area that was not heavily damaged and could have been one of the first to welcome back tourists... AND THEIR MONEY... into the city. Surely there was some fuel somewhere?

[Maraya1969]

3. I just sent this to a few news organizations from other countries. Please

do the same. It is sad when a nation has to get answers from other countries who actually have free speech. Put some pressure on.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. From your link..... this is perty awesome.

http://www.hydrationtech.com/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=RHTI&Category_Code=XPR

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