Tourists pose where Katrina victims died

[virgo]

Sad, sad story. (http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/28/green.update/index.html)


NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Every day, twice a day, the tourists come. They smile -- striking poses on the severed porch just yards from where Robert Green says Ditty died with his two kids strapped to his chest.

Seems that man thought he could save his babies from the 20-foot current that surged onto Tennessee Street in New Orleans, Louisiana, after a levee broke during Hurricane Katrina. But he couldn't.

Clean up crews found the three mummified bodies months later. The folks whipping out cameras likely don't know about Ditty. But Robert Green does. It's his street. Ditty was his neighbor. It's part of his story.

Green stands on the curb in front of his FEMA trailer and watches the gawkers. They've paid $47 a pop to ride down the street where Green's mother and granddaughter died in the hurricane. Along with getting charged for a street light on his block, the tourists' antics are just one more thing to rub in just how far from normal his life is.

"They have video cameras, and the children get up there and play," Green said about his neighbor's porch with the mangled, wrought iron railing. "It's disrespectful to the person whose property this is, and it's disrespectful to the situation of what happened to us," said Green.

Two years ago, Robert Green and several of his family members told CNN.com how Katrina killed their matriarch, drowned a toddler, created a camp in a cemetery and launched a mother on a mission to save her son.

Their lives in 2007 are as varied as what Katrina took from each of them. DNA and a determination to live in New Orleans are the only things these survivors share.

[jojobeans1120]

Indeed it is quite sad that more and more people are able to disassociate themselves from the tragedies of what has occurred both in Mississippi and New Orleans. Those that do not live in the areas and were not affected by the hurricane can't relate to the situation first hand. It is much like the tsunami situation. We all have hearts and felt horrible for the victims, but many cannot relate to their loss until they are touched by something that is equally as tragic as the devastation the tsunami, as well as that of Hurricane Katrina dealt to those in thier paths. :(

[mac]

What kind of tour are they paying $47 for? Who runs the tour? Are they there just because that neighborhood is an interesting sight to see?

[Kitty]

During a business trip to Dallas last year, I witnessed people lying down in the street at Dealey Plaza to have their photo taken at the exact spot where President Kennedy was assassinated.

Not one person. People, as in more than one doing this.

So sadly, this Katrina story does not surprise me. :(

[virgo]

Kinda makes me think of Ground Zero. Sadly, I was one of the tourists to take pictures. Its the damn journalist in me.

[Fish-Bait]

What a bunch of stupid F's.

[Guru]

Since most parts of the city have now been relatively cleaned up, which means the debris in masse has been moved and you can drive around, the tourist trade has begun to filter back into New Orleans. What do tourists want to see? The latest and greatest big happening which means any destruction left to see of Hurricane Katrina.
Tonight one of the Katrina documentaries is playing on PBS. It had to be an abbreviated version, most that I have seen lasted longer but then again I just finished working outside and came in.
Unless you were stuck in the city for the storm I don't think many people got the birdseye view that I did in the weeks afterwards. Why? Because I was on one of the re-entry teams. I saw it in the city, I saw it down the river toward Buras / Venice, I saw it down the bayou toward Grand Isle and I saw it on every little short cut side street you can name involving Slidell, Mandeville, Covington, down the back way from Bogalusa and of course skirting all through the city trying to get through. It was just a mess. One night I stopped and took a whiz over the side of Interstate 310 just parked in the middle of the interstate and I was the only vehicle to be seen, most spooky.
I've got a lot of mixed feelings over this. I think I could write a book comparing Mississippi and Louisiana alone on recovery and re-entry. Just on his merit for after storm preparedness, Haley Barbour should be President in my opinion.
It gets me really PO'd because all the hype over New Orleans compared to the Coast. It gets me really PO'd about the squawling that Mayor Nagin of New Orleans and Governor Blanco of Louisiana did during all this. They may have forgotten how they reacted to everything but I haven't, and all of this is documented. Given, this was the storm-storm for New Orleans and on the road south along the river and it was really something I don't think anyone could have been prepared for but hey ... don't try to shift blame on everybody else, just say you were overwhelmed and you did the best you could. There were other undelying problems but I won't get into that. Buracracy is .......
Boil it all down? New Orleans is a welfare city to an extent. Of course not all over but those folks that had means took off and got out before the storm got there.
For the others left you can't wait a day late and then order evacuation if people have no way to evacuate. Face it, a very great amount of the population is waiting for somebody else to do things for them already, they don't have a way to evacuate unless you evacuate them. Few have cars, few have credit cards, few have ready cash.
Wanna know something that I got an eyeful of on my third trip back home afterwards? I finally got to travel back over the Industrial Canal bridge (the big one that broke) close to Chef Menteur and what did I see when I looked over the edge? A parking lot as big as 10 football fields full of buses that were all turned over sideways that were sitting there to get caught in the overflow of the levee water break. Those buses weren't pushed over sideways going to evacuate people, they were just left there doing nothing because they weren't used.
So ... don't believe everything you hear a government official say about New Orleans and Katrina at face value. And don't get too emotionally carried away if you get to see one of the documentaries giving the view and angles of the person who is footing the money for it, they are telling it like they want you to see it; not necessarily how it was.

[dream member]

They can drive down Hwy 90 for free...but, I couldn't bring myself to do what those tourists are doing. They're treating it like a freak show..."everyone smile"...they should be on their knees praying to God and saying thank you for not having to go through it...a said time indeed!