Some Words...

I've been reading so many editorials about whether or not we should spend the money to rebuild New Orleans. The facts are that the city sits 6 feet below sea level and sinks 1/3 of an ich every year. By 2007 the city will be a full meter below sea level. The levies which hold back the water were so worn that they couldn't withstand a category 3 hurricane, the city was hit by a category 5 hurricane. Hurricanes come every year, sometimes they miss, sometimes they don't.

It's a hard question and most likely one that cannot be posed to the natives of the city, of course they will say, 'rebuild it.' I guess if I was from there, if I had just lost everything, if that city was all that I knew, I'd have to agree to rebuilding. But, I'm not from there. I'm not sure that makes me any more qualified to answer that question but, it does make me less bias. The city had one of the poorest and least mobile populations in this country. If they rebuild it, are they going to rebuild the slums too? Or will they rebuild everything nice and shiny and new and make it too expensive for the 67.3 % of the population who could barely afford to live there before? Do you really think that after they rebuild the thousands of people that have been forced to move somewhere else, get jobs, send their kids to school, make new 'temporary' lives, will actually return? Or will the people that return be only those that had insurance, those that have money, those that can afford to lose it all again? I suppose when you strip it all down (which Hurricane Katrina did pretty well), you have a piece of land that will always be a big bulls eye for disaster. Do we drop billions (not millions) of dollars into something that we know will most likely be destroyed again? The question isn't 'If'' a hurricane will hit again rather 'when' it will happen. I'm a true believer that things happen for a reason. It sucks that those people were displaced, that they suffered, that some lost their lives, but maybe someone that sits up higher than we do and has a better view of what's going on is trying to tell us, "If you build it, they will come, the hurricanes, the flood waters, the devastation." Maybe it's time we actually listen....and build it somewhere else.