With a nod of appreciation to the Tragically Hip for the title of this post.
One of the nice things about my summer vacation was that I missed most of the news, had no internet access until I got home, and only was peripherally aware of what was going on in the world.
The hurricane that has simply become known as the disaster named Katrina did a lot of damage, including to the levies that protected New Orleans.
New Orleans was once a beautiful city. It's too bad that I didn't have the opportunity to visit before its essential destruction.
But here a comment; to the mayor of New Orleans, the governor of Louisiana, and the US feds, who have all said "we will rebuild!", don't.
Don't dig out the mud and toxic sludge that was once a city. There are times to wipe the slate clean and start again, and this is one of them. The New Orleans of old is gone. The French Quarter is destroyed, rebuild it above sea level.
It won't cost any more to build anew than to rebuild, and it will be better. Let the sea wash away what's left and build on higher ground.
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2 comments:
Actually, as it happens, the French Quarter was not flooded but suffered only some wind damage. The real catastrophe, to my mind, is the human tragedy. There are some appalling events still taking place there...which I will not blog about in your Comments section, but which surely deserve to be written about. :-/
Others have written more and far more eloquently than I could about the human tragedy.
While it's true the French Quarter isn't literally destroyed, I still honestly think they should start from scratch. Move/rebuild the French Quarter as part of a New New Orleans.
I sure as heck wouldn't want to move back into the zone that's under all that toxic sludge...
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