Tidal forces - Tsunami recovery outpaces Katrina rebuild, N.O. delegates say
Left, Pam Dashiell, Father Hungdung Van Lukenguyen and PHRF volunteer Viola Washington discuss their itinerary at Hope House in the Lower Garden District a few days before leaving for Thailand. (Photo by Frank Aymami)
It wasn’t supposed to be like this, said Viola Washington, a PHRF volunteer.
One year after Hurricane Katrina, her community was not supposed to be a ghost town. Yet when she walks out the front door of her Gentilly home, she is surrounded by abandoned houses and barren sidewalks.
Washington figured the promised federal aid would have lifted her neighborhood up by now. But not a single check from the $10 billion in “Road Home” funding has made its way into the hands of the residents of Gentilly, the Lower Ninth Ward or eastern New Orleans, where much of the devastation occurred.
With recovery moving so slowly here, Washington and a delegation of community leaders traveled to Thailand three weeks ago to study how Third World fishermen along the coast of the Indian Ocean rebuilt their villages in the wake of the 2004 tsunami that killed more than 350,000 people and destroyed 2.5 million homes.
Continue reading "Tidal Forces - Tsunami recovery outpaces Katrina rebuild, N.O. delegates say" by Richard Webster, New Orleans City Business
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