How Does a Hurricane Wreck a Sewer System?

From Harry Shearer

That's the question that comes to mind when you read Leslie Eaton's NYT piece on the former leader of St. Bernard Parish, Junior Rodriguez. On the plus side, it's probably the first MSM look at Da Parish, a standing rebuke to the media meme that "Katrina" mainly hurt black folks. It's also nice to see the little details Eaton picks up, like Benny Grunch and Wop Salad and the temporary battle for the post of Parish President between Junior and, well, Junior Jr. But, starting from the headline and continuing repeatedly through the article is the hoariest mass-media error of the "Katrina" story: the notion that a hurricane did all this. It reaches absurdity at this graf:

But the sewer system has not been rebuilt, whole neighborhoods remain abandoned, and rows of white FEMA trailers still cover acres.

How does a hurricane wreck a sewer system? It doesn't. What happened to St. Bernard Parish is what happened to New Orleans, the failure of a system of levees and floodwalls that resulted in more than half a hundred breaches, driving a foot-high (or higher, in some areas) wall of water through the table-flat Parish.

Did Leslie Eaton ever wonder why the nearby Mississippi Gulf Coast, which did indeed get whacked by a hurricane, didn't have to rebuild its sewer system? If not, she continues to miss, along with most of her colleagues, the story of what Dr. Bob Bea of UC Berkeley calls the "greatest man-made engineering disaster" in the history of the country.

New Census Data Shows Louisiana Rebound

Louisiana appears to be rebounding from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, gaining 50,000 residents in the year ending July 1, according to new Census Bureau state population estimates released Thursday.

After the storm hit in August 2005, the bureau estimated the state lost 250,000 residents. Despite the most recent gain, the state is far from returning to its pre-Katrina population level of 4.5 million.

The Census Bureau estimate is reached by measuring births, deaths and migration into and out of each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

In Louisiana, the Census estimates a net increase of people moving into the state from other states of 29,000, accounting for more than half the jump.

The fastest-growing states continue to be in the Rocky Mountain region and the Southeast. Texas also is still attracting new residents at a rapid rate.

Nevada regained the title of fastest-growing state, having increased in population by 2.9 percent to 2.6 million. Nevada had held that title for 19 years in a row before being bumped off by Arizona last year. Arizona is the second-fastest-growing state according to the current estimate, with a population increase of 2.8 percent to 6.3 million.

Only two states lost population. Michigan's population dipped by three-tenths of a percent and Rhode Island saw a decrease of four-tenths of a percent. Ohio's growth was virtually flat.

Florida, a state whose economy has been fueled largely by a steady stream of retirees crossing the border each year, gained in population but at a slower rate than usual. Florida was the 19th-fastest-growing state through July 2007 compared with the previous year when it ranked ninth.

Florida's population increased by 1.1 percent to 18.3 million as of July 2007. The previous year the rate of increase was 1.8 percent.

''If there's one state that's a little surprising, I would say it's Florida,'' said Greg Harper, a demographer with the bureau.

Besides Nevada and Arizona, other Western states that made the top 10 list for fastest growth were Utah (third), Idaho (fourth), Colorado (eighth) and Wyoming (ninth).

In the Southeast, Georgia was fifth nationally, North Carolina was sixth, and South Carolina was 10th. In the Southeast, Georgia was fifth nationally, North Carolina was sixth, and South Carolina was 10th.

Texas, meanwhile, had the seventh-fastest growth by percentage, and tops numerically, having drawn about 500,000 new residents.

California remains the nation's most populous state with about 37 million people. It gained about 300,000 new residents, second to Texas numerically, but 25th fastest by rate of growth, the same ranking as last year.

The total U.S. population was estimated at 301.6 million last July 1.

The bureau will release county population breakdowns in the spring, which should give a clearer indication of exactly how many residents have returned to the parishes in and around New Orleans.

Earlier this week, urban planning consultancy firm GCR & Associates estimated New Orleans' population at 300,000, or about 65 percent of its pre-Hurricane Katrina size, which was around 455,000.

GCR chief executive and New Orleans native Greg Rigamer said people have been coming back to the city at a rate of 3,000 to 4,000 per month, which includes in-state migration. Things are looking up, but the city still suffers from failing infrastructure, poor health care and educational services and a ''horrific'' criminal justice problem.

''Things are not all well in New Orleans,'' he said. ''They are clearly getting better. It's no time to be popping the champagne corks.''

The Constitution requires the Census Bureau to count the population every 10 years. The results are used to allocate seats in the U.S. House of Representatives as well as electoral votes.

This year's state population estimates are consistent with previous years that show high-growth states like Texas will likely gain seats in Congress, while slow-growth states such as Ohio will likely lose seats.

Recovery of Northshore wildlife refuges after Katrina

Wildlife refuges north of Lake Pontchartrain are slowly recovering from the damaging effects of Hurricane Katrina

Even Katrina couldn't wash away the pull of home

With no gas service at her eastern New Orleans home, Patricia Noel boils water in four crock pots to take a bath and sleeps under a pile of blankets to ward off the December chill.

She erected an 8-foot-high chain-link fence to keep people from cutting through her yard on nearly deserted Corinne Street, where debris piles and weeds are more prevalent than Christmas lights and decorations.

But despite the hardships, the single mother of two adult children insists it has never felt better to be home.


After spending the past two holiday seasons in apartments in Memphis, Tenn., and Baton Rouge, Noel is overjoyed to be celebrating her first post-Hurricane Katrina Christmas in her rebuilt home.

She has even embraced the idea of cooking Christmas dinner for her children and grandchildren on an electric hot plate; her brand new gas stove is out of commission.

"I'm cold, I'm tired and the idea of taking a hot shower is a cruel joke," said Noel, 47. "But I thank God that I'm back in my house with my family in time for Christmas. It feels so good to be back together in a place where we shared memories that even Katrina couldn't wash away."

It's a sentiment shared by all too many New Orleans area families whose post-Katrina journey home for the holidays was much longer and had more twists and turns than expected.

Santa suit survives

Milton and Jamie Shultz said their contractor promised that renovations at their home in St. Bernard Parish would be completed by the summer of 2006. But after a series of delays, the house still wasn't ready by last Christmas, which they spent in a rented house in Baton Rouge.

"We had a small celebration, but it just didn't feel like Christmas because we were in limbo," Jamie Shultz said. "We didn't even have a tree."

A year later, the Shultzes still have a FEMA trailer in their front yard, but they have moved into their house in Meraux and are planning a big Christmas celebration that will double as a homecoming party.

Jamie Shultz, 57, is eager to break out the velvet Santa suit she sewed nearly 30 years ago. She said it was like a Christmas miracle in the middle of the summer when she found the suit virtually unscathed months after Katrina swamped their home with 12 feet of water.

After she tossed the suit in a washing machine with a little detergent and pine oil, it looked nearly as good as when Milton Shultz wore it to celebrate their oldest child's first Christmas in 1979.

Every year thereafter, a different relative or family friend wore the outfit and played Santa on Christmas Eve until Katrina interrupted the tradition.

"Everybody usually says they don't want to be Santa at first. But once they put that suit on, they always have a good time. I guess the Christmas spirit takes over," said Jamie Shultz, who used a British accent to disguise her voice when it was her turn to be Santa several years ago.

This year, the couple's son-in-law, Christopher Miller, will play Santa to mark the first Christmas for his 6-month-old daughter, Gretchen, who is the Shultzes' first grandchild.

Like many other families preparing for their first post-Katrina Christmas at home, the Shultzes said there was a silver lining in the storm's devastation: Because they had been stored in attics in relatively water-proof plastic containers, most of their Christmas ornaments and decorations could be salvaged.

Jamie Shultz was so thrilled that she hung every ornament on the tree, leaving nary a branch unadorned.

"I had to kind of cram them in to get them all on there," she said "We lost so much in the hurricane that it means a lot to me to still have my children's first Christmas ornaments."

But not everything was saved. A cherished mechanical Santa that had been in the family for nearly 50 years was lost to the storm.

"It was a big deal every year to put the batteries in and see if he still worked," Shultz said. "The last Christmas before Katrina, he had quit walking, but his eyes still lit up and he rang his bell."

The toy Santa has been replaced by a singing and dancing snowman that sends little Gretchen into joyful gyrations every time it's turned on.

"I'm hoping it will become one of our new traditions," Shultz said. "If there's one thing Katrina has taught us, it's to be able to adapt and accept change."

Love for Lakeview

Katherine Chepolis, a lifelong Lakeview resident, said Katrina showed her that the meaning of home is not necessarily tied to a particular structure but can be attached to a whole neighborhood.

Before Katrina, her extended family owned a dozen Lakeview homes, all of which flooded.

"We thought it was so great that we all lived within two miles of one another, but then the hurricane wiped us all out and we had no one to lean on," she said.

She and her husband, John, tore down their house on Louis XIV Street with the intention of rebuilding, but they eventually sold the lot and bought a renovated house on Memphis Street a few months ago.

"We may not live in the same house, but we're back home in Lakeview," she said. "I feel settled and content for the first time in more than two years."

Chepolis said it was mentally and emotionally exhausting to always be thinking about the next step in the family's recovery. With that weight lifted, she finds herself as excited for Christmas as the couple's two daughters, ages 4 and 2.

"When people ask me what I want for Christmas, I tell them I already have what I want because I'm finally home," she said.

'This is my everything'

Noel's journey home included weekly trips from a Baton Rouge apartment for a year to oversee renovations to her house while serving as her own general contractor.

She said she fired a plumber after he demanded more money for work for which she had already paid him. As a result, the gas couldn't be turned on because an inspection application the plumber submitted at City Hall was voided because he is no longer on the job.

Noel said she needs to find a new master plumber to vouch for the other plumber's work and submit a new inspection application. Meanwhile, the lack of gas for heating and cooking has prevented her from taking in three foster children.

"I'll deal with all of this after the holidays," said Noel, who was named 2005 Foster Parent of the Year in New Orleans by the state Office of Community Services. "Right now, I just want to enjoy being back for Christmas. I can't tell you how good it feels."

That's not to say that being away from home the past two holiday seasons was all bad for Noel's family.

One of the highlights was when her young grandchildren got to experience a white Christmas in Memphis in 2005.

But Noel's daughter, Rickelle Noel, said she never felt so homesick as when she asked a Memphis grocery clerk where she could find some file powder for the Christmas gumbo.

"She had no idea what I was talking about. She told me, 'Ma'am, I don't know. Maybe you better go check in the pharmacy,'¤" she said.

Patricia Noel said there will be no gumbo this Christmas because she has had to plan a more modest meal without a working stove. Instead of turkey or ham, she said she'll serve Cornish game hens.

"We'll season them and run an extension cord outside to deep fry them," she said. "They'll be delicious. Trust me."

Noel said friends often question why she moved back to the still-devastated neighborhood where she has lived for 18 years.

"People say I should just walk away, but I can't because this is my home. This is my everything," she said.

Besides, she joked that with a name like Noel she feels a responsibility to try to spread a little Christmas cheer in her struggling neighborhood.

"Lord knows we can use it," she said, standing outside her home, where her twinkling Christmas tree was the lone bright spot on a block of mostly abandoned houses.

Occupancy of FEMA trailers dwindles

Over the past year, tens of thousands of people living in FEMA trailers across Louisiana have moved out of the tiny, metal dwellings, including more than half of trailer residents in New Orleans and the vast majority of Jefferson Parish occupants.

The number of occupied travel trailers statewide dropped by more than two-thirds, from 86,838 last December to 29,654 on Dec. 19, according to figures provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. People are moving out of group trailer parks and trailers on private property, while the number of trailers on commercial trailer sites rented by FEMA and on industrial property has declined significantly.

The decline of trailer occupancy in group sites maintained by FEMA isn't a surprise, as the agency announced plans last month to completely dismantle those parks by May 31, clearing them out in time for the next hurricane season. Several local governments in the New Orleans area also have pushed for the move, saying they want the parks shuttered as soon as possible.


In Louisiana, group site trailers dropped from 8,089 last December to 2,059 last week. Just 603 trailers in New Orleans group sites were still occupied in the third week of December, while agency contractors hauled trailers out of the parks across the city.

Most people who have been living in these group parks have found other places to live, said Ronnie Simpson, a FEMA spokesman, who added that the agency has tried to help people with their rental searches.

Housing advocates have questioned this assertion, saying they fear many people leaving the parks are moving in with relatives or friends because they are unable to find stable homes of their own.

There also has been a marked drop in the number of people living in FEMA trailers on private property, typically on the lawn of a flood-ravaged house. The number of occupied trailers on private property dropped from 69,219 last December to 23,743 last week, according to numbers provided by the agency.

This drop can be seen as a sign of progress in the metropolitan area, a signal that people are moving back into their rehabilitated homes, Simpson said.

"It is mostly folks who got their Road Home money, settled with the insurance company and finished their rebuilding," he said.

Although Michelle Enriques is still in a trailer on Focis Street in Metairie, near the 17th Street Canal, she said she hopes to be back into her renovated house by the end of the year, a good thing because code enforcement officials from Jefferson Parish government told her they want the FEMA trailer on her property ready to be hauled away by that time.

Enriques, who has been in the trailer with her 4-year-old daughter for almost two years, said difficulties getting people to finish the work have delayed her move-in date. But this holiday season, she said she hopes to celebrate inside a house, not a trailer.

"I plan on having Christmas lunch in the house, even if we have to sit on the floor instead of around a table," Enriques said.

A 57-year-old man living alone in a trailer near the corner of Pontchartrain Boulevard and Harrison Avenue in Lakeview said many of his neighbors have moved from trailers into their finished homes, including one family just two doors away who had the trailer hauled off Friday morning. But the man, who asked not to be identified, said he will remain in his trailer for some time because he just received his Road Home grant last week.


Larry Havard, just a few blocks away living in a trailer on 12th Street, said he doesn't see much evidence of progress on his block, where just a few houses or trailers are occupied.

"With half the houses in here, people are not even attempting to do anything," he said.

Havard said he hopes to finish the majority of work on his one-story brick house in the next few months, doing a lot of the work himself, while also waiting for his electrician to show up to finish the wiring. Once enough work is complete, Havard and his rat terrier, Maggie, will finally be able to get out of the trailer, which he said rattles every time a car passes.