Howie Luvzus

I built this birdhouse after Katrina with stuff I picked up on the side of the road. I thought it was pretty cool.

It didn’t make it through Gustav.

Tuesday afternoon I tried to calm the lovely wife a bit by explaining that I would see where Gustav was the next morning, check on it at noon, check on it when I got home and not get obsessed over it. As I reflect on that conversation a bit (One reason we’ve lasted 24 years) I realize that my cavalier attitude was very inappropriate. The next morning, I gave the same little speech to a co-worker and she teared-up. Man, was I an idiot.

It’s not something that you can put in the back of your mind. Once you’ve had your life totally changed by something like the Federal Flood, there’s no going back. In fact, it’s so deeply embedded in your psyche that sleep is no escape. Since I worked as a case manager trying to help persons impacted by Katrina I have had nightmares about their plights. I had several last night. I admire those who have sucked it up and are ready to stick it out here even if we get another big one. I will not. I can’t afford to lose my job and stay here doing something I hate. I can’t handle any more health issues. I can’t handle being separated from my family for four months again. I can’t handle losing any more friends. I can’t handle the daily struggles of living in a place with so many frustrations that go on and on and on.

I’m not panicked. I’m sleepy, I’m apprehensive, and depressed. I’m angry that Katrina has become a big joke for outsiders and even some of my family members. I’m angry at most of the politicians and public figures that have failed us.

So we’ll head out tomorrow to spend a long weekend away. Hopefully we’ll come back to our home. But unfortunately, this serves as a reminder of how fragile our lives really are. Many people have grown stronger from the Federal Flood experience. God Bless em’!

I’ll know that I’ll be with two of the most important people in my life and that my two sons will be safe from the storm because they are away at college. This event reminds me that even though I love New Orleans and that it has given me great joy, my real joy is with the family. My real comfort is in the love they bring me. I know that at least I won’t lose that this week and that brings me great peace.

President Jimmy Carter shows the lack of progress after Katrina. He makes me proud to be a baptist!

HT: Schroeder

I thought having to do without my computer for 6 days was bad! I can’t imagine what a blow it must be for someone to be called a failure by someone from the Bush administration! OUCH!

Douglas O’Dell, federal recovery coordinator said the following about Mayor Ray Nagin’s recovery director, Ed Blakely:

“I’m basically asking Blakely, who’s probably getting paid a whole hell of a lot more money than I am, to do his damn job,” O’Dell said.

“He’s there not only to plan, but to execute. Not only to manage, but lead. He’s not an elected official, but as a nonelected official he wields enormous influence over the future of this city and the speed of its recovery,” he continued. “And he’s failing, in my view.”

Dang! Guess that’s why we haven’t seen any cranes in the sky yet even though Blakely promised them quite some time ago.

Wow! The members of the Excellence in Recovery Host Committee will present Ray Nagin on August 22 The Award of Distinction for Recovery, Courage and Leadership!

Feel free to click on their links and voice your support for a job well done!

The committee’s co-chairs are Dan Packer and Jackie Clarkson!

The committee members are:
Juli Juneau
Cynthia Morrell
Juan Lafonta
Donald G. Lambert, Sr.
Karen Carter Peterson
Richard Fiske
William Goldring
Father Michael Jacques
Coleman Adler, II
Joe Maselli
Wanda Davis
Barbara Major
Richard C. Lambert
Rabbi Edward P. Cohn
Mel Lagarde
Ashlyn Graves
Arnold Baker
Rev. Frank A. Davis, III
Ethel Kidd
Terry Williams
Chef Paul Prudhome
Al Groos
Ed Minyard
Effie S. Naghi
Rev. Cornelius Tilton
William Sizeler
Blaine Kern, Sr.
Joseph Jaeger, Jr.
Rev. John C. Raphael
Keil Moss
Dawn Leslie
Ralph Fonicuberia
Rev. Fred Luter, Jr.
Steve Dwyer
Lisa Roth
Raoul Chauvin
Rev. Willie Gable
Henry DiFranko
Angela O’Byrne
Frank Nicoladis
Rev. Sam Johnson
Joseph Parrino
John Schackai, III
Rev. Richard Bellizan, Sr.
Prisca Weems
Hans Wandfluh
Rev. Reginald Nicholas, Sr
Ray Liuzza

I’d like to personally thank all the committee members for their excellent judgment in choosing Mayor Ray Nagin for this prestigious and fitting award!

I’m sure that my fellow bloggers would love to join me!

If you’d like to read more about our distinguished mayor’s award check out Adrastos, Eli, Schroeder, Mark, Jeffrey, and Loki.

New Orleans bloggers are so excited that we will probably attend this great event!

No I’m not talking about Adrastos! In fact, as someone who has been labeled a heretic, I don’t joke about hell. But if anyone deserves to go there it’s Stacey Jackson, former director of NOAH. Lee Zurich and Karen Gadbois have been exposing the corruption in the city-run Non-profit (yeah right!) that has milked the recovery effort and given the city a black eye.

Here’s the real kicker! Christian teenagers have been coming down here for years to gut houses and help our citizens rebuild their lives. The bad part of that is that today’s Times-Picayune article, which has been WAY behind the curve on this thing, informs us that NOAH contractors actually got paid for work that these sweet kids did to make our city a better place.

Holy Crap! Somebody better get on their freakin’ knees right now. As I said above, I don’t take this lightly–but somebody better get ready to fry like a sausage in hell! You *&^%$@’s better be looking for asbestos wetsuits because you’re going to be treading water on the lake of fire for quite some time for this!

Damn. I hope Stacey and the Board of NOAH go to jail for a long time for this.

I drove by Elysian Fields Baptist Church this morning. As you can see, it’s gone. A lot of churches died due to Katrina. I was familiar with this one. My youngest son went to VBS there one summer. A lot of friends of mine did a lot of great work there. Each One, Save One used to have its office there. I know that the members and the staff have moved on to serve elsewhere, but it’s still a sad sight.

From the New Orleans Index published by The Brookings Institute:

Major challenges remain: The city may be confronting fully 65,000 blighted properties or empty lots. Rising rents, now 46 percent higher than before the storm, threaten the ability of many essential service workers to afford housing, as wages are not keeping pace. The labor market remains tight as the service and construction industries seek workers. The public service infrastructure in the city remains thin, especially public transit, which saw ridership grow by 45 percent in the past year. And, the latest maps from the Army Corps of Engineers suggest that a number of neighborhoods in the city remain at risk of six to eight feet of flooding from a “1 percent” storm, signaling the need to commit to a coastal restoration plan that goes well beyond levees.

The whole report can be found at The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center site.

I have not written about my work in the recovery efforts because I don’t want to give some knucklehead from Houston ammo to use against New Orleanians, but here goes…

After watching Lee Zurich’s report about NOAH and the corruption there I was very impressed with Karen Gadbois’ contribution to the story. Great work you guys!

However, this story forced me to have a flashback related to a job I had after Katrina. I was not working for the city, but the group I was working with had to work with city employees. We were supposed to be helping persons impacted by Katrina. In some small way, I think some of us did, but I still feel guilty about having to be a part of an effort that in many ways was demoralizing and many times simply exploited those who really needed help. Sure, my efforts resulted in a hundred or so folks getting refrigerators and beds and washers and dryers, but what they had to go through to get them was pretty awful. I still have nightmares about the people I dealt with. Sometimes it’s simply remembering their horrific stories of suffering during the great flood, but mostly they are about their suffering post-Katrina.

We “worked” with three city employees that ran the center. The leader, “Reverend LowDown,” as my colleagues called him was a local minister. He wore some great suits and always had some really cool shoes. He showed up about 10 or 11 am every day, left for a long lunch soon after and usually left early as well. There was a lady about my age that showed up to work on time most of the time and did a fairly descent job. Then there was a young lady that was the niece of one of Nagin’s top brass. She openly bragged about getting paid about $30,000 a year to “sit on her a$$ and do nothing.”

She probably left before noon about half of the time to go take care of her baby. She was never on time. Once, one of my colleagues joked about how she got away with murder. Her response was, “They can’t fire me! I may not make too much money, but I don’t do sh*t, and nobody can say anything about it!”

The biggest problem was that in order to do our job, the city employees had to do their job. When clients came to us without the proper documentation (which the city employees were supposed to tell them about), we could not process the requests. Any time we complained to our bosses, they would try to speak to Reverend LowDown, but it would sometimes take two days to locate him. Then they would get all defensive about it. Nothing was ever done. You can’t expect city employees to do their job. There’s no accountability. I do think that most of the very attractive clients we had got taken care of very well. I became known as someone who was pretty efficient so the Rev would bring them to me and say, “Hey Doc, take care of this nice young lady for me. She really needs our help.” When the did not receive the refrigerator or whatever in a timely manner, the Rev would come to me and say, “Our girl hasn’t gotten her frig yet Doc. You know how bad she needs it.” It was interesting that they had his cell number.

One day, a poor old client of ours just broke down and began to cry. It was her third trip to the center. She had sat in freezing weather for two hours to wait on a bus to get to the center. When she was asked by one of our folks if she had brought her paperwork, she said that she brought what the young lady told her to bring. Unfortunately, we couldn’t process her request. She had to make another appointment. She was escorted to the city employee to set up another appointment. As she walked toward the exit after setting up her appointment, the city employee said so that everyone could hear, “I told that stupid bitch what she needed to bring. It wasn’t my fault.”

The client, probably in her 90s, stopped in her tracks and began to cry. One of my colleagues noticed her and went to comfort her. Unbelievably, the client came back a few days later and hopefully got what she needed.

The city employee was never reprimanded. Reverend LowDown told our boss that he couldn’t say anything to the young employee because it might tick off her Aunt and he’d lose his job.

That’s why I might leave Orleans Parish. My tax dollars are spent on crap like that. And on crazy cops salaries. And on and on and on…

Joe’s a friend I met through the New Orleans blogosphere. He attended New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. We actually got to meet once. Unfortunately, Joe’s moved to Texas to continue his studies. Pray for him. For a lot of reasons! Here’s what he recently wrote:

See, since I moved to Texas, I’ve had two guys tell me the city is a cess pool. I’ve had one SWBTS church planter tell me how easy it must be to plant in New Orleans. And overall I’m convinced the entire concept of Katrina is completely lost on the people I meet. I get it. They weren’t here, and I can only imagine what it was like in Indonesia after the tsunami. But the thing is, I have to get it into people’s heads that what happened is going to last with those of us involved here forever. It shapes who we are. I’m not going to get offended by every moron who never set foot in New Orleans but has a false opinion of what it’s like here. Maybe I can show them some photos and tell them some stories, and if I’m good enough at it, maybe I’ll give them a glimpse into my New Orleans.

I can’t imagine having to deal with knuckleheads who think they know, but as Jim Mora once said, “You think you know, but you have no idea.”

Check out Joe’s blog and pictures of New Orleans, they’re pretty great.

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