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Katrina Didn't Knock Your House Down; But the Bulldozers Did
Topic Started: Aug 9 2007, 09:16 AM (334 Views)
QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
From the WSJ:

Quote:
 
IdaBelle Joshua worked hard to take care of her two-story house in the Lower Ninth Ward, even after Hurricane Katrina flooded it up to the roof and exiled her 150 miles away.

She spent $5,000 to have the brick house gutted, $275 to clean it and then went to City Hall on July 5 to make sure 2611 Forstall St. wasn't on a list of derelict properties here facing demolition because of storm damage. Two city employees assured her that the house was safe, she says.

Two days later, her nephew called. He had gone by to mow the lawn. But the house where Ms. Joshua and her late husband had raised three children was gone. It had been knocked down by the city. Since then, she has been trying to get an explanation, but with no luck.

"I'm a 79-year-old senior citizen, crippled and can't travel, and I can't pay anybody," she says. "I will be dead and gone by the time I get any recourse from the city. It's a travesty."

Nearly two years after Katrina, city officials are toughening enforcement of an ordinance giving them the power to bulldoze homes and businesses that remain smashed, moldy or abandoned. Last month, the city published more than 1,700 notices filling 25 newspaper pages in the Times-Picayune. The tiny print announced that the properties had been classified as a "serious, imminent and continuing threat to the public health, safety and welfare" -- and would be demolished after 30 business days.

City officials, trying to step up the struggling city's comeback, have said they plan to flatten 10,000 hurricane-ravaged properties this year.

But the bulging list of doomed buildings includes some that weren't damaged much by Katrina or that have already been significantly repaired -- with building permits to prove it. Often, these property owners don't even know they're on the demolition list, because warning letters that are supposed to be mailed to them never arrive. City officials also are required to post a sign at every property on the list, but some owners say that hasn't happened.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1186620456...us_inside_today
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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Jolly
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Geaux Tigers!
If it would have been left up to me, the city would have bulldozed the lower 9th a month after Katrina.

You can't make chicken salad out of chicken sh*t.

It's a waste of the taxpayers money, and it impedes real progress. A much, much better solution would have been to agree on a series of houses - economic, affordable, easy to build, reflective of the architecture of the region - and built the durn things. At this point, all of that housing could have already been replaced, and we wouldn't be having this discussion.
The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros
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QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
I guess the concept of "sentimental value" doesn't mean much to you, huh?

Me, I'm not a very sentimental guy. It wouldn't bother me, if my house were destroyed, to see it torn down and rebuilt from scratch. But a lot of the world feels differently, and those feelings are not unreasonable.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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Mark
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HOLY CARP!!!
So now the government can actually tear down your house whenever it feels it is OK to do so?

And we call this America?

:puke:
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o 0
When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
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Jolly
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Geaux Tigers!
QuirtEvans
Aug 9 2007, 12:11 PM
I guess the concept of "sentimental value" doesn't mean much to you, huh?

Me, I'm not a very sentimental guy. It wouldn't bother me, if my house were destroyed, to see it torn down and rebuilt from scratch. But a lot of the world feels differently, and those feelings are not unreasonable.

Quit showing your ignorance, you'll scare the paying customers.

I'll pay a lot more attention to you, when you can tell me how the Lower 9th came to be, what happened after Betsy, and why we shouldn't repeat those same mistakes.

Heck, you don't even know the difference between the response of wafer board and plywood to water immersion...
The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros
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QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
Jolly
Aug 9 2007, 01:29 PM
QuirtEvans
Aug 9 2007, 12:11 PM
I guess the concept of "sentimental value" doesn't mean much to you, huh?

Me, I'm not a very sentimental guy.  It wouldn't bother me, if my house were destroyed, to see it torn down and rebuilt from scratch.  But a lot of the world feels differently, and  those feelings are not unreasonable.

Quit showing your ignorance, you'll scare the paying customers.

I'll pay a lot more attention to you, when you can tell me how the Lower 9th came to be, what happened after Betsy, and why we shouldn't repeat those same mistakes.

Heck, you don't even know the difference between the response of wafer board and plywood to water immersion...

Yeah, that has a lot to do with sentimental value.

Because we all know that the interplay of construction methods and storm damage, and the particulars of Naw-lins, have a lot to do with the principles of property ownership, and with concepts of sentimental value, don't we?

Gee, I wonder how your wife would take it if you told her that the value of all her photographs was nothing more than the cost of the ink and the paper they are printed on.

Personally, I don't care if you pay attention to me. You're heartless. Your opinion doesn't matter.

It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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Qaanaaq-Liaaq
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And it doesn’t help that the poor woman lived at 2611 Forstall Street. It might as well be “Forestall” Street with all the bureaucratic red tape she’s going to have to put up with to get some recourse.
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Daniel
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HOLY CARP!!!
Qaanaaq-Liaaq
Aug 9 2007, 11:34 AM
And it doesn’t help that the poor woman lived at 2611 Forstall Street. It might as well be “Forestall” Street with all the bureaucratic red tape she’s going to have to put up with to get some recourse.

I lived in New Orleans for a year and a half and that pretty much sums up why I left.
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Mikhailoh
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
Get thee behind me, Satan.
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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The Devil Himself
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Junior Carp
Here I am! What can I do for you, Mikhailoh? I'm afraid strength to avoid temptation is not one of my more popular offerings.

And you do know, do you not, that the only sure way to rid yourself of a temptation is to yield to it?
Please allow me to introduce myself
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Mikhailoh
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
Well, yes. There is that.

But, enough for one day. It would be misinterpreted anyway.
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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AlbertaCrude
Bull-Carp
Last year, at our annual Remediation Technology Symposium we featured a presentation from the Head of USEPA Region 6 on the clean up following Katrina and Rita. The level of heavy metal and highly toxic chemical contamination in addition to bio-hazards in New Orleans boggles the mind. While it is sad to hear that people's homes have to be bulldozed, it is probably the only means by which a thorough remediation process of the area can be initiated.

Public health has got to placed before sentimentalism. I am surprised that it has taken this long for the bulldozers to be sent in to these affected areas.
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QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
AlbertaCrude
Aug 9 2007, 03:14 PM
Last year, at our annual Remediation Technology Symposium we featured a presentation from the Head of USEPA Region 6 on the clean up following Katrina and Rita. The level of heavy metal and highly toxic chemical contamination in addition to bio-hazards in New Orleans boggles the mind. While it is sad to hear that people's homes have to be bulldozed, it is probably the only means by which a thorough remediation process of the area can be initiated.

Public health has got to placed before sentimentalism. I am surprised that it has taken this long for the bulldozers to be sent in to these affected areas.

I could accept that explanation, but that's not the explanation being given. At least according to the article, they are not saying we have to level the place for public health reasons. They are saying that anyone who rebuilds is exempt from demolition.

If thorough toxic remediation is the issue, and wholesale demolition was necessary, they designed an idiotic process ... they should have told people up front that rebuilding wasn't an option until the remediation was completed, and that wholesale demolition was required.

If they are willing to let people rebuild without wholesale demolition, they've implemented the plan in a spectacularly buffoonish way.

Either way, I don't think the planners get very high grades.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
QuirtEvans
Aug 9 2007, 10:16 AM


She spent $5,000 to have the brick house gutted, $275 to clean it and then went to City Hall on July 5 to make sure 2611 Forstall St. wasn't on a list of derelict properties here facing demolition because of storm damage. Two city employees assured her that the house was safe, she says.

Two days later, her nephew called.

Something is wrong with the time line. She paid for all the work, and then got some officials to say it was OK, and two days later her house was gone????

It was already in the works, obviously. It does sound like either she wasn't directly informed (I don't like the idea of having to read a legal notice in a paper to see if your house is going to be demolished), or else she missed it or was in denial about the whole thing.

Poor lady. I feel for her.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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AlbertaCrude
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QuirtEvans
Aug 9 2007, 02:49 PM
If they are willing to let people rebuild without wholesale demolition, they've implemented the plan in a spectacularly buffoonish way.

Either way, I don't think the planners get very high grades.

Isn't that what Jolly already wrote in his first post?
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QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
AlbertaCrude
Aug 9 2007, 04:23 PM
QuirtEvans
Aug 9 2007, 02:49 PM
If they are willing to let people rebuild without wholesale demolition, they've implemented the plan in a spectacularly buffoonish way.

Either way, I don't think the planners get very high grades.

Isn't that what Jolly already wrote in his first post?

Nope. You added the layer of reasonable rationale (heavy metals and other toxins) to Jolly's usual heartlessness.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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Frank_W
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Can we smash her CAR next? :excited:




oops.... She can't travel. Maybe someone already got to it, first! :baby:
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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Phlebas
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Bull-Carp
Frank_W
Aug 9 2007, 01:36 PM
Can we smash her CAR next? :excited:




oops.... She can't travel. Maybe someone already got to it, first! :baby:

How about unloosen the bolts in her wheelchair.
Random FML: Today, I was fired by my boss in front of my coworkers. It would have been nice if I could have left the building before they started celebrating. FML

The founding of the bulk of the world's nation states post 1914 is based on self-defined nationalisms. The bulk of those national movements involve territory that was ethnically mixed. The foundation of many of those nation states involved population movements in the aftermath. When the only one that is repeatedly held up as unjust and unjustifiable is the Zionist project, the term anti-semitism may very well be appropriate. - P*D


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Phlebas
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Bull-Carp
QuirtEvans
Aug 9 2007, 01:35 PM
AlbertaCrude
Aug 9 2007, 04:23 PM
QuirtEvans
Aug 9 2007, 02:49 PM
If they are willing to let people rebuild without wholesale demolition, they've implemented the plan in a spectacularly buffoonish way.

Either way, I don't think the planners get very high grades.

Isn't that what Jolly already wrote in his first post?

Nope. You added the layer of reasonable rationale (heavy metals and other toxins) to Jolly's usual heartlessness.

Nah, that wasn't heartless for Jolly. If it was his usual heartless self, he would have said the houses should have been bulldozed while the owners were still in them. :D
Random FML: Today, I was fired by my boss in front of my coworkers. It would have been nice if I could have left the building before they started celebrating. FML

The founding of the bulk of the world's nation states post 1914 is based on self-defined nationalisms. The bulk of those national movements involve territory that was ethnically mixed. The foundation of many of those nation states involved population movements in the aftermath. When the only one that is repeatedly held up as unjust and unjustifiable is the Zionist project, the term anti-semitism may very well be appropriate. - P*D


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Frank_W
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Phlebas
Aug 9 2007, 04:39 PM
Frank_W
Aug 9 2007, 01:36 PM
Can we smash her CAR next?  :excited:




oops....  She can't travel. Maybe someone already got to it, first! :baby:

How about unloosen the bolts in her wheelchair.

GOOD IDEA!! :clap: :excited: :devilgrin: :shifty:
Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin."
Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!"
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Jolly
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Geaux Tigers!
QuirtEvans
Aug 9 2007, 03:35 PM
AlbertaCrude
Aug 9 2007, 04:23 PM
QuirtEvans
Aug 9 2007, 02:49 PM
If they are willing to let people rebuild without wholesale demolition, they've implemented the plan in a spectacularly buffoonish way.

Either way, I don't think the planners get very high grades.

Isn't that what Jolly already wrote in his first post?

Nope. You added the layer of reasonable rationale (heavy metals and other toxins) to Jolly's usual heartlessness.

Time for your history lesson, numb-nuts.

The Lower 9th was built on land where cypress trees grew. In case you don't know, please do a little research on the water needs of cypress trees.

After the canal was built down there in the 1920's, they chunked in a little fill dirt, and sold lots for a working class neighborhood. But the ground is low, even for New Orleans. After Betsy, which flooded out the Lower 9th, (but Betsy didn't have as good a PR man as Katrina) the Feds threw money with both hands into the Lower 9th. Some folks took the money, and built back some decent homes. Some folks took the money, threw up plywood shacks, bought a new Cadillac and drank the rest...thus, the eclectic housing of the Lower 9th.

The best description of the Lower 9th after Katrina, was it kind of looked like a brown Hiroshima. Water and mud came up in the attics of many of the houses, not just a few inches up on the walls. With the scope of devastation, it was beyond stupidity to try to piecemeal build the neighborhood back.

The Corps of Engineers proposed the best solution, it just wasn't politically correct. The Corps wanted to 'doze the whole mess down, use the refuse as fill, and haul dirt in on top of that. It would have accomplished much of what was truly needed - to raise the ground a little closer to sea level, and to give reconstruction an even playing field....everybody who has ever had work done on a house knows the difference between a remodel job, and new construction. New construction would have been much, much faster.

No, we have bleeding heart dickheads who place sentimentality above a true common good, and jackass politicians chasing a vote, both of who have knowingly, or unknowingly conspired to create a situation where A) the monies are insufficient for reconstruction, B) costs will have to be born by some of those who can least afford it and C) have managed to drag everything out to the point of insanity.

In all their combined wisdom, they could even screw up a wet dream.

Habitat can put up a nice, livable home for $55K. That's somewhere around 18 houses a million. With the kind of money we're talking here, we're talking over a thousand new homes...and if people wanted something a little nicer than the base houses, let them pony up the difference for an enhanced home.

With my way, a large percentage of the people who used to live in the Lower 9th would be back there today.

With your sentimental BS, they're still all pointing at each other like a Mexican firing Squad.

And nothing gets done.
The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros
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