I'm with you, Mississippi

Posted August 28, 2006 at 9:06pm

As I've mentioned in the past, I read about 10 different news sites a day so I can keep up with world around me.

Nearly every day CNN has an article or two up like this one here detailing how difficult it is going to be to rebuild New Orleans. They usually spotlight one or two families from one end of the spectrum: they busted ass and rebuilt quickly or they haven't done anything because of building guidline sor insurance money.

Now, as a native, I love my city and never plan on leaving, even if they invent Category 6 to measure the next storm that comes through here. But I have to agree with Mississippi: where's their coverage? Gulf Port has like no buildings still standing. Granted, our buildings may as well be demolished, but the fact remains, they got effed up too.

Secondly, I'm just tired of seeing articles saying "It looks like Katrina just hit last week instead of last year." We get it. It was a mildly clever line when CNN used it 6 months ago. Let it die.

Now, I know I've said I want the rest of the country to always be aware that we need a lot of help here, and I still stand by that. But I think desasters should be handled like political campaigns: equal time for all parties involved. MS needs a lot more help still too.

Granted, they've received 20% more FEMA trailers than southeast Louisiana did, so they're on their way. And, they also didn't have to wait three weeks for water to drain before starting their recovery and rebuilding efforts. But the fact is, because our local and state government can't get along for 5 minutes to hatch out a plan, we're all sitting ducks.

Which brings me to another point. Federal government said yesterday: New Orleans is ready for another major storm surge. Later that afternoon the Army Corps said: We don't think the levees are ready.

Now, tell me again why the federal government is confused on this really major issue? So we have the feds confused with each other and we have Nagin and Blanco playing a round of who-hates-who-the-most.

God bless America.