Help Us Continue Our Recovery, President Obama

The Editorial Board – Times-Picayune

Welcome back to New Orleans, President Obama. Thank you for coming here to honor all we lost when the federal levees broke during Hurricane Katrina and to celebrate what we have rebuilt in the decade since the disaster….

President Barack Obama waves to supporters after delivering remarks at an event commemorating the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Aug. 27, 2015.(AP)

FEMA has helped pay for repairs to water and sewer lines, pumps and pumping stations, and the city is getting $150 million from the FEMA Hazard Mitigation program to shore up the S&WB’s century old power plant.

But it will take much more to repair the system, and it is essential for the city to be reimbursed fully for the damage done by the federal government’s broken levees.

That is a big number for the Sewerage & Water Board — more than $1 billion in outstanding FEMA funding. It is crucial, Mr. President, for your administration to get this issue settled.

New Orleans: Tougher, Feistier, Cooler 10 Years after Katrina

Opinion Roundup – CNN

Even 10 years later, my memories of the time are crystal clear. Some things you are unlikely ever to forget. But my most powerful recollections have far more to do with the lives saved than those lost, especially at the hospital many called “Big Charity.” ….

Three days after Katrina first stuck New Orleans, the Charity team, out of options, planned a rescue mission.They paddled dozens of patients across flooded roadways and then carried them up seven flights of stairs to the top of a parking deck to wait for a chance to evacuate the critically ill. It was nearly 100 degrees with unbearable mugginess, and yet the Charity team stood there, with scrub shirts drenched in sweat, and squeezed silicone bags full of air into the lungs of patients who could no longer breathe on their own. They did this for days on end.  Dr. Sanjay Gupta

I have proudly called New Orleans home all my life, even for the four years I went to college at Louisiana State University and the following year, when I took up my job as the first female sportswriter at the American Press in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

But now that I’m back rooted in the Crescent City as a sportswriter at NOLA.com, I’ve again seen close up how the Saints still contribute to the city’s recovery, a decade after the storm….

The word on the statue of former Saints safety Steve Gleason blocking a punt on the night the Superdome reopened says it all — “Rebirth.” I’ll never forget being in the Superdome that night as a 17-year-old in the front row, tears streaming down my face as I soaked in the emotion of the city and its people after that remarkable play. The way Coach Sean Payton and the Saints dominated the Falcons echoed how the city itself would never succumb to the ravages of a hurricane. Rachel Whittaker

Watch President Obama’s Speech in New Orleans:

It’s the 10th anniversary of Katrina, and I Don’t Know How to Feel

 Anne Gisleson – Los Angeles Times

We’ve mourned loved ones, gutted houses, started nonprofits, navigated an ever-morphing school system and cleaned up plenty of messes….

But what is the right tone? Some consider “anniversary” too celebratory and “commemoration” too elegiac. Even in a city known for jazz funerals, it’s confusing. Obviously we need to remember and to remind. And obviously we need to be grateful that we’re still here. But I’m at a loss over how to feel….

With the anniversary has come the hard data and research that reveal a troubling truth behind these divergent narratives. Not everyone has benefited from the recovery. A majority of blacks think the quality of life is the same or worse since the storm, while a majority of whites think it’s better. Black men are making 50% of what white men are making, and half of the black men in the city are unemployed. Gentrification is displacing scores of people from their longtime neighborhoods.

This combination of Sept. 11, 2005 and July 29, 2015 aerial photos show the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans flooded by Hurricane Katrina and the same area a decade later. (AP)