Article

2007-05-31 Home Front: Politix

Mayor Nagin's State of New Orleans Address: Gimme

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Pappy 2007-05-31 00:00|| || Front Page|| [1 views ] Top

#1 progress so far has been largely driven by private efforts

Damn, I look stunification coldly in the eyeball.

Posted by Shipman">Shipman 2007-05-31 00:13|| 2007-05-31 00:13|| Front Page Top

#2 People will return if they think there is a hopeful future. If they aren't returning, ...

Posted by Whiskey Mike 2007-05-31 05:48|| 2007-05-31 05:48|| Front Page Top

#3 Visited New Orleans a couple of months ago. Residents lay a lot of blame for slow rebuilding on Nagin. They say whenever he opens his mouth, a different plan comes out. For example, he won't restore services to a area (water, power, police, fire, etc.) until a certain percentage of people move back in. Of course, no one wants to move back until services are restored.

We went on a tour of the major disaster areas, and there is a lot of rebuilding going on. Most of the houses have been gutted to the bare studs. They then have to pass a structural safety inspection, and they test the framework for water content. Only after they pass both can the internal rebuild start. Lots of people are trying to rebuild themselves, working nights or weekends. That's going to take a very long time, but they'll be back. Nagin won't.

Posted by Steve 2007-05-31 07:34|| 2007-05-31 07:34|| Front Page Top

#4 It took decades and generations to build the city. It's not going to be rebuilt overnight, in a year, in two years.....

Posted by Procopius2k 2007-05-31 08:42|| 2007-05-31 08:42|| Front Page Top

#5 Lots of obstacles to rebuilding here.
1) Bureaucratic inefficiencies (redundancy alert) in granting permits and performing inspections - MANY required for the simplest tasks.
2) Difficulty in obtaining financing - government programs mired in corruption and red tape; private funds hard to get because insurance is very hard to get, and development/flood protection plans uncertain.
3) Difficult to obtain tradesmen - plumbers, electricians, etc. - to do the work, especially the small jobs for individuals rebuilding their own homes one piece at a time. Finding laborers is easy (especially if you speak Spanish) but licensed AND skilled people are in short supply.
4) Criminals keep stealing the pipes and wires as fast as you get them put in. Sell it for metal value at scrap yards so they can buy their malt liquor. You spend $1000 (and weeks/months of waiting) to get a room wired or plumbed, then some bastard rips out the wire ($50 parts, $950 labor) and sells it for $5 scrap. I'd save him the work and give him the $5 just to not rip it out (or give him 50 cents worth of copper-sheathed base metal at 2000 fps if I catch him.)
5) Nature really doesn't want a big population concentration here - she's going to flush the toilet every so often just to keep the stench down.

Posted by Glenmore">Glenmore 2007-05-31 09:27|| 2007-05-31 09:27|| Front Page Top

#6 The damn place is a natural swamp and really is not safe or welcoming to human habitation. Beyond that, the insurance companies took a huge hit. First & last for most of them. If you haven't noticed, they have almost unamimously declined to write any further coverage for all the Southern coast areas, Florida, and much of the East coast. This goes for most major writers and the re-insurance underwriters. This really prevents a lot of commerce going forward and substantially depresses the land values in the affected regions. States themselves can be the underwriters, but this quickly turns to a debacle. Witness California. The insurers did this after the last So. Cal quake. No more coverage.You could buy it but you couldn't afford it. State came in with their coverage. Result: worse coverage & higher premiums than the privates. So most folks in Cal go without quake coverage now. Just cross your fingers.

Posted by Woozle Elmeter2970 2007-05-31 10:20|| 2007-05-31 10:20|| Front Page Top

#7 5) Nature really doesn't want a big population concentration here - she's going to flush the toilet every so often just to keep the stench down.

......5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - gawoooooooshhhhhh!

Posted by Besoeker 2007-05-31 10:50|| 2007-05-31 10:50|| Front Page Top

#8 If white folks there in New Orleans hate Ray Nagin's guts so much, why did they reelect him to office? My guess is, they figured if someone else was put in and the same things didn't happen, they wouldn't be able to bitch and moan like they're doing now. The so call "hate who you know, is better than hating who you don't" feeling of satisfaction.

Posted by smn 2007-05-31 11:21|| 2007-05-31 11:21|| Front Page Top

#9 Let the Mississipi move its mouth over to the Atchafalaya like it wants to, and build a new port/city there- New New Orleans. They will get 2 or 3 hundred years out of it before subsidence and siltation repeat the whole process.

Posted by Grunter 2007-05-31 12:55|| 2007-05-31 12:55|| Front Page Top

#10 "Mayor Nagin's State of New Orleans Address: Gimme"
I didn't know Mayor Al-Nagin spoke fluent Paleo...

Posted by USN. Ret. 2007-05-31 15:34|| 2007-05-31 15:34|| Front Page Top

#11 Because the funding has not reached the affected areas and the people, that promise is unfulfilled
Nagin needs to take the money out of his pockets and stop blaming Bush.
The money given compared to the amount of restructure and redevelopment is disgusting.

Posted by Jan 2007-05-31 16:58|| 2007-05-31 16:58|| Front Page Top

23:57 Zenster
23:44 Barbara Skolaut
23:43 Zenster
23:33 DarthVader
23:28 Mike N.
22:52 DMFD
22:51 3dc
22:50 RD
22:46 DMFD
22:25 Barbara Skolaut
22:23 trailing wife
22:12 Alaska Paul
22:05 Frank G
22:01 Captain Lewis
21:59 Mike N.
21:51 Alaska Paul
21:51 Frank G
21:45 SR-71
21:43 Nimble Spemble
21:37 Jan
21:37 Mike N.
21:32 DarthVader
21:30 Jan
21:26 borgboy2001