It is not often that I will relay to my readers the many emails I receive after writing an article, but in this case I must. After I wrote Life is anything but easy in the ‘Big Easy’ my email box flooded with responses to it.
These are just a few responses that did touch my heart and I even chose to include the only negative response directed to those who survived Katrina. I felt in the interest of being fair and balanced, I had to.
I do not enclose their responses in which many of them thanked me for my self-edification, but their expression of gratitude that at least someone is listening to them and giving them a voice. Since I have a podium via my blog and as a contributing writer for OpEdNews.com, I felt the need to elevate their voices.
Katrina showed all of us the ineptitude of the federal government’s response to this natural disaster and it leads me to ask; just how will they respond to subsequent ones? In the case of Greenville, Kansas that was recently wiped off the face of the map by tornados, the governor of Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius said of this ineptitude to meet her state’s needs “that the state is missing vital National Guard equipment because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Usually the state has approximately 70-80 percent of its equipment at any given time, but it currently has just 40-50 percent. She added that these shortages “will just make it [recovery] that much slower.”
In speaking of this government’s ineptitude, on November 20, 2005 Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson (former Chief of Staff to the former Secretary of State Colin Powell) appeared on CNN's 'Late Edition' and opined this, “If something comes along that is truly serious, truly serious. Something like a nuclear weapon going off in a major city or a pandemic, you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that will take you back to the Declaration of Independence.” What he failed to mention are natural disasters such as Katrina, tornados and earth quakes.
Without further adieu, I now give you the voices of Katrina as they continue to suffer. They are after all, your fellow Americans. As a side note, I have taken out their full identities and their email addresses with the exception of one person’s response in which he sent me his web link.
While these responses primarily speak of New Orleans, we must not forget that states such as Mississippi and Alabama were hit.
Jimmy writes:
I live and work near New Orleans and it’s a shame what is going on I was lucky I only had 15k worth of damage and feel ashamed when I say that to others when they ask how I made out, so many have lost so much. It was not the hurricane that destroyed us it was the federal government they built the levees they told us you can build here its safe they told the insurance and mortgage company's that flood insurance was not required in a lot of the areas due to the levees we have. They were wrong this was a man made disaster caused by a natural one.
Thank you thank you thank you please get the word out we need help here and it seems we are the forgotten city. Insurance has sky rocketed, I was paying 1000.00 a year now its 1800.00 and I'm happy to have it cause you can’t buy insurance in this state!!
Keep up the good work
New Orleans thanks you and all the people that have helped us
THANK YOU, THANK YOU FOR THE GREAT TRUE ARTICLE!!!!
Karen writes:
Thank you. I read your article and just couldn’t believe someone out there knows about us. As a Katrina victim, to drive along my streets and communities to see things still as it was two years ago, turns my stomach. Such a major city, destroyed totally. I was born and raised in the French Quarter and to drive by there to see it not as it used to be two years ago. I cry, yes cry every, every day. I have been crying for two years now and still no help. I can’t believe it myself and I’m living Katrina daily, as so many of my neighbors on the Gulf Coast. I don’t know if we will ever recover. I now live in the St. Bernard area. The entire Parish was under water. No home was spared. My neighbors work on rebuilding 24/7. That sickens me also. To see all of us working and trying so hard to get back to some kind of normal life with billions of dollars sitting there to help and no one will send it to us. I am 55 years of age and have been working since I was 18, paying taxes all those years, and now when we truly need help; WHERE IS MY GOVERNMENT??????????????????? THANK YOU AGAIN FOR SPEAKING UP.
Larry writes:
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