Ghost Town:Bush returns to a place forever scarred by the wrath of Katrina

[cal04]

By Rupert Cornwell in New Orleans


It was the storm that laid waste to an area along the US Gulf Coast about the size of England, in the process wreaking havoc on one of America's legendary cities. It also changed the perception of a presidency, perhaps forever.

Today George Bush returns to New Orleans, exactly a year after Hurricane Katrina, on his 13th visit since the storm, for an anniversary that has been designated a national day of remembrance. Katrina was not only the most expensive national disaster in US history, leaving an insurance bill for the devastation in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama of some $60bn £32bn). The total cost ­ human and emotional as well as economic ­ has been far higher still.

Some 1,600 deaths are now attributed to the storm. Some Gulf Coast communities were virtually wiped off the map. In New Orleans itself, half of the 500,000 inhabitants pre-Katrina have yet to return and many of them surely never will. Ray Nagin, the mayor, says population recovery will take five years, but that may be optimistic.

In some parts of New Orleans life has returned. The French Quarter is again aglitter with neon and sanitised sin, with signs proclaiming " Happy Hour, All Day, All Night."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1222344.ece

[Selatius]

1. I half-way agree with Noam Chomsky about the US being a failed state

He asserts the US is a failed state, that it is unable to protect the wellbeing of its citizens.

I say that it is unwilling, not unable, but it is rapidly losing that ability, and if things do not change, it will be both unwilling and unable within the next three decades. Then we will truly be in the twilight years of the Old Republic.

[stepnw1f]

2. Headline Should Read: Bush Visits His Latest Victim

Like a serial killer returning to the scene of the crime.

[shireen]

3. Katrina didn't cause the devastation at NOLA

It was greed, incompetence, stupidity, and disregard by people who were responsible for the safety and well-being of NOLA residents. It was criminal negligence.

[Disturbed]

4. The levees bursting were not "An Act of God".

Many people are to blame for that event yet how many have been held accountable?