Why the Good Times Aren’t Rolling

I’m sitting in a hotel room in New Orleans, after seeing the most unimaginable destruction of neighborhoods and the President of the U.S. is on TV fighting for a constitutional amendment against (omigod!) gay marriage.

What’s wrong with this picture?

With 80 percent of New Orleans still up to its butt in mold and rotten sheetrock without, in large part, electricity, drinking water, grocery stores, or gas stations, our self-described Decider has decided to abandon this historic city completely, and use his bully pulpit (and I do mean bully) to warn America that if they don’t write discrimination against gays into the Constitution NOW, the apocalypse is coming. Guess what. It already happened in New Orleans.

So here I am, back in this devastated city, having been to a book conference here three weeks ago. Now I’m here with the National Trust for Historic Preservation and its National Main Street organization.

On my last trip I stayed in the French Quarter, sold books, ate crawfish and bought t-shirts. We heard about the horrible affects of Katrina, but the Quarter seemed to be coming back.

Today, though, I saw the unholy mess left in New Orleans neighborhoods for myself and now I’m mad as hell. In fact, as furious as I am at Decider-in-Chief for trying to rally his bigoted base with a strictly for show Constitutional Amendment banning same sex marriage—a fools mission in every sense, I’m just as mad at him for abandoning New Orleans and the whole gulf coast.

Let’s face it, he toured the same neighborhoods I just did; he saw muddy water lines up tosecond stories in ruined neighborhoods; street after street of homes with holes in rooftops where people had to be cut out of their attics; homes where people died.

And what did this compassionate conservative do? He posed for photo ops in the only neighborhood still intact and then walked away to obsess about (gasp) same sex marriage. If he’s a compassionate conservative I’m that bitch Ann Coulter.

Back in the French Quarter, as we dined and listened to great musicians, we heard the same plea over and over: go back and tell people how bad it is…that we must rebuild New Orleans and preserve its special culture. Tell people the truth.

So here I go.

What Katrina’s wind did is being repaired. What the rain wrought has been sopped up. But the havoc that the broken levees and burned out pumping stations caused is not fixed. Yes, the levees are being repaired and built to slightly better standards. But the neighborhoods flooded by this man-made part of the disaster are not back, in any way, shape or living form.

The best way to describe what I saw is this: a hurricane hits Rehoboth Beach. And two days later, when people think the emergency is over, a swift-moving flood from a storm surge on both Rehoboth Bay and the ocean inundates much of the area. Rehoboth Avenue and three or four blocks on either side of the tourist area are dry. But South Rehoboth, Country Club Estates, West Rehoboth, The Pines, Henlopen Acres, North Shores, The Glade, the Outlets, gas stations, grocery stores and restaurants on Route One, Bay Vista and all the neighborhoods along Old Landing Road are completely flooded.

Picture it. Picture the flood itself. Rehoboth neighborhoods, rich and poor alike, up to their eaves in mucky water, ruining furniture, appliances, books, photo albums, clothing, computers and cars. Killing over a thousand people we know. And not just the poor neighborhoods where people had no transportation out. No, lots of people stayed to ride it out, because the levees around Rehoboth Bay had never ever failed before.

Now picture the scene eight months later, when NONE, I mean NONE of the neighborhoods have come back to life. There’s nobody living in the Pines, or Rehoboth Shores Estates; everything from mobile homes and one story cottages to $500,000 houses sits rotting from the water and virulent mold. There are Mercedes, BMWs and Lexus SUVs left to rust in washed out driveways. Shrubs and trees are dead, killed by saltwater and neglect. Beautiful homes have crude writing on them, at the 12-ft. mark, noting that they have been checked by the police and animal rescue teams. Sometimes the writing spells out the terrible things rescuers found inside. Sometimes the writing warns looters to stay away; sometimes it carries the message, "We’ll be back!"

There are square holes in roofs where rescuers sawed into the attics to save the occupants. The roofs with jagged holes are where the occupants chopped and clawed their way out.

But my god, it’s eight months later. The neighborhoods are still dark and deserted. Why aren’t people fixing up their houses? Well, a very few are, if they managed to be on the short list for a FEMA trailer to park in their yard. First they get rid of all the debris that once was their belongings, then they gut the house to fight the mold and water damage. Oh, they must supply their own generator and water, because no utilities are connected in the neighborhood. There’s no Safeway open. No gas stations. No restaurants. Contractors are overworked, materials impossible to come by, and it’s dark and scary at night because no streetlights light up Route One.

But these are the lucky people. They either had money in the bank to start to repair their properties, or they settled with the insurance companies. I say lucky, because most of their neighbors are still in the middle of a boxing match between homeowners insurers and flood insurers with each group insisting the other is responsible for this particular disaster.

But humans are resilient. And folks in Rehoboth fight to bring back the community they love. In fact, area musicians, chefs, police and fire officials all go back to work despite their homes being uninhabitable. Most of them drive to work in downtown Rehoboth from rental apartments in Laurel, Seaford or Dover.

And our wonderful neighbors work together to help their friends and family, tell their elected officials that Rehoboth deserves to be rebuilt and must not be forgotten. And they send a special message to legislators from other areas of the country who don’t want to rebuild a city between the coast and a bay. They tell them that Rehoboth must be rebuilt— for its people, its culture and its future.

Well, that’s what New Orleans is doing. And, just like Rehoboth residents would do, New Orleans folks are trying to get the word out, telling people to come back to New Orleans, spend money in their city, visit Bourbon Street and let the good times roll so the city can come back to life.

So there, I’ve done what they’ve asked. I’ve told their story. And I really hope Letters readers will consider a New Orleans vacation soon. You’ll have a grand time and will be greeted and entertained by very thankful people. You can do a good deed and have a great vacation at the same time.

And meanwhile, with Americans (and Iraqis) dying overseas, polar ice caps turning into giant slushies, the national debt exploding, gas at $3 a gallon while gas execs get $30 million dollar bonuses, our president is spending capital, political or otherwise, on banning same-sex marriage.

Not only am I mad as hell, but I have to tell Senator Santorum that if those naughty activist judges really do manage to legislate same-sex marriage, the next fight is NOT, I repeat, NOT a push for marriage between lesbians and squirrels or whatever his demented fantasy is.

Hopefully it’s a push to get our national priorities right—so we can let the good times roll.