Hurricane Katrina 5th Year Anniversary

Moving away from a city one has lived in all his life is not the same today as it was pre internet. I keep up with what is happening in New Orleans through reading parts of the same New Orleans newspaper I have read all these years, have book marked some local New Orleans web sites and radio stations and make a point of following stories of "unfinished business" in New Orleans. The number one unfinished business is the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Augst 29, 2010 was the five year anniversary of the storm that changed that city forever.

At the focus of many events surrounding the memory of the storm, in the French Quarter under (ironically) a light rain residents (and some tourists) attended a ceremony commemorating the hurricane, gathering at St. Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square on Sunday afternoon to remember the event and speak words of optimism for the future. A 45 minute ceremony in the cathedral on Jackson Square attracted clergy and members of eight world religions in New Orleans, each offering a short prayer from his or her own tradition.

Barrack Obama was in the city to make his promises of help (promises are something politicians have often made to New Orleans, but rarely followed through on after the speeches were made). And other celebrities and dignitaries were there as well and TV networks have been delivering endless retrospectives on the storm and city. But what of New Orleans five years after the storm? I left even though I loved many things about the city and know it will always be my true home, though I am learning to embrace a new one.

Despite the absurd cheer leading clue less and dishonest speeches of Barrack Obama praising the rebirth of New Orleans and the areas to the east and west of the city that were equally destroyed. Problems abound there today. Higher unemployment, substance abuse and housing instability, for example contribute to a three fold increase in heart attacks among residents and what the Journal of American Child and Adolescent Psychology studies showed is a huge increase in the instances among kids of depression, hyperactivity, eating disorders, fears, or those who had learning difficulties due to the trauma of the storm and the suffering and decrease in lifestyle after it.

Essentially, there is a sense of helplessness, the idea that the fate of the city is out of the hands of the residents, given the poor conditions of levees protecting the city, and the loss of wetlands that has put the Gulf of Mexico on the edge of the city itself and made flooding a surety when the next big storm hits. The latest disaster for the area, the BP oil catastrophe has reinforced that those who live in New Orleans have no control over what will happen to the city. Corrupt politics at the state and local levels and apathy beyond words from the federal government add top the problem.

I think New Orleans needs to be "lucky" to be revived fully. Even though people who live there love it far more than most people love their cities elsewhere, another huge storm before the city is protected could be the death knell for it. In some sense New Orleans is already dead as a "big American city". It is now a city remembered as great one, and not a large or great city anymore. How long a city can endure based solely on the reputation of it's last charm and greatness alone is problematic.

New Orleans has always been the mysterious lady....."The City that Care Forgot", the voodoo and ghost city, the city that looks like and has people like no other in the world, the place of a population poorly educated but enormously talented in music, literature, art, and cookery. It's the enigmatic city, so I suppose we are never going to be able to predict its future with any more certainty than as to where the next hurricane in the ocean will land