Well, I just came back from another trip to Mississippi for Katrina relief.  This was a pretty eye opening trip.  All three trips that I have taken south since the storm hit have been to the little town of Pearlington, MS.  It is a beautiful little haven along the Mississippi and Louisiana borders.  The Pearl river runs through the town and it has a few bayous surrounding it.  Though that sounds really nice for all of the fishing, other wildlife that it brings and the cooling effect it brings but that is where all of the water came to put Pearlington about 8-10 feet under water after the storm.  On my first trip I felt like there were very few bright spots in the town - just utter destruction.  Since then, I have been back two more times and have seen the growth of this resilient little town.  There is really a soft spot in my heart for the residents - old and new, as many people have relocated out of New Orleans and other affected areas to live in Pearlington - that live there.  The organizations that remain and still serve that community are amazing.  The Pearlington Recovery Center and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance and the local Baptist church have the biggest presence down there yet.  PDA alone has 70 or better project homes that they are working on in the immediate area around Pearlington.  The PRC has a ton of projects as well.  They have 11 people on staff at this point getting grant money in order and then the proper permits in place to continue working.  Last but most certainly not least the steady folks at the Baptist church continue to feed all of the volunteers every day for lunch.  What an amazing ministry that has been.  After this trip I almost feel like this little town might make it.  It’s a great feeling to be a part of that recovery.

On the other hand, a few of us went down to take a tour of New Orleans.  I was horrified!  The Lower and Upper 9th Wards, St. Bernard Parish, and Chalmette all still look pretty devastated.  I am amazed, there is still no real organized effort to rebuild any of these areas.  I know that the Lutheran and Presbyterian denominations have recovery camps there and are continuing to do as much work as they can, but there is just so much to do.  One bright spot is Habitat for Humanity teaming up with Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis to create a Musicians Village which is turning out beautifully. 

As we drove through the city there were blocks of rubble where cranes and bulldozers have gone in and knocked down every building in a 4×4 block area only to haul away the rubble and start over there.  We were told that the City of New Orleans is talking of filling in the lower 9th ward to get it to sea level or a little better and then sell it all of as commercial real estate.  I guess that would be possible because there are very few people that have actually made it back there.  The lower 9th was almost an entirely  black ward.  The statistic I was told was that New Orleans was approximately 70% black before Katrina, and now is approximately 70% white.  That would be the areas that are still devastated and not repopulated.  Those people are still living where they ended up after the storm (Houston, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, and Pearlington) because they cannot afford to get back to their home and then fight the legal system to get a new house built where their old one was.  Now with the plans the city has for this real estate, I don’t know if former residents will be compensated for their real estate, or if the city is just assuming the property as city wealth.  Who knows.

All I know is that the whole situation is sad.   I feel like the government really didn’t pay attention to the needs of the constituents in poorer wards of the city.  They were warned by the experts that the levee system would not hold, and it didn’t.

It seems odd, the government keeps talking about how we need to improve as a nation in our math and science scores nationally to be able to compete at an international level, but then they totally disregard those really smart scientists that we want to have to compete with the rest of the world when warned about things they don’t want to deal with - levees that won’t hold, global warming, renewable energy….

By the way - I was happy to see that the musicians village had an Obama for President sign in almost every yard.  Maybe there is some change on the way.