Bulldozing the Dead in New Orleans
January 5, 2006
Buried Lives, Big Easy Profits
Bulldozing the Dead in New Orleans
By SCOTT BOEHM
Joyce Green died on the roof of her Lower 9th Ward home as her New Orleans neighborhood flooded during Hurricane Katrina. Helplessly, her son watched her die as the water rushed dangerously below them. Just last week he was able to return to their collapsed house on Tennessee Street for the first time, and found her skeletal remains amidst the ruins. He was able to identify them because they were wrapped in the clothes she was wearing the day she died.
During Katrina, the Lower 9th Ward was deluged due to breaches in the Industrial Canal levee. Additionally, an enormous barge that was illegally left in the canal was launched into the neighborhood, destroying lives and property during its reckless trajectory. Four months later, many questions remain unanswered regarding the destruction in the Lower 9th Ward, including the question of possible criminal negligence. However, before those questions have been fully investigated, let alone answered, the City of New Orleans is rushing to bulldoze much of the neighborhood–without informing homeowners.
On the eve of the holiday season, Greg Meffert, the city’s chief technology officer, revealed that the city would immediately demolish about 2,500 “red-tagged” homes in the Lower 9th Ward. Before Meffert’s announcement, a red-tag merely meant that a home was unsafe to enter. The City of New Orleans website specifically states in bold italicized text that “a red sticker does not indicate whether or not a building will be demolished, only that the structure is currently unsafe to enter.”
Yet the City decided to bulldoze red-tagged homes without informing homeowners of the new meaning of the red tags or the demolition order. This is a clear violation of due process, guaranteed under federal and state constitutions, which protects property owners from the unlawful destruction of their property. It is also a clear, opportunistic attack on the Lower 9th Ward community, whose historically black roots run deep in the neighborhood. Boasting the highest level of black homeownership in the nation, the area is also …
Devans00:
Eeek! What a horrifying welcome home. To find your mother like that. What kind of half assed search did they do on the neighborhood?
It’s also BS that the people who were spread around the country only had 1 month to find a way to get back to their houses to check them out. What’s the big rush?
I’m sure the next stories we’ll here will be that with landmarks missing, people won’t have a way to figure out what property is rightfully theirs.
Of course, the mass media is silent on this topic.
9 January 2006, 5:02 pmL Crow:
The mass media has been silent on this topic for much to long. It is a shame that some of the founding families of the south have to be treated like dogs – No I take that back – My dog has been treated better, at least he has a home.
The mass media hasn’t bothered to show all of the mobile homes parked on the airport in Hope, Arkansas or along the side of the highways in Prescott, Arkansas. The City can buldoze “red-tagged” homes but can’t seem to find a spot of land big enough to make a mobile home camp for these people.
We need to BRING OUR TROOPS HOME NOW and concentrate on the things that are so near and dear to Americans – “Their Own”!!!!
9 January 2006, 7:23 pm