New Orleans has been 'œleft to die,' said New Orleans Times-Picayune editor Jim Amoss in a column in The Washington Post. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, President Bush personally vowed to 'œdo what it takes' to rebuild my beloved hometown. Yet three months after the storm hit, killing more than 1,000 people and flooding vast sections of the city, Bush and the federal government appear to have forgotten their promises. Beyond the historic French Quarter, which is showing signs of life and commerce, the rest of the Big Easy's neighborhoods lie abandoned, choked with garbage, wrecked houses, and crumpled cars. Only about 100,000 of this once-vibrant city's 500,000 residents have returned. Forty percent of the homes are still without electricity; a quarter of the residents have no drinkable water. 'œThe citizens of this entire region are in despair,' said Anne Boyd in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Americans, why have you forsaken us?
Don't expect a miracle from Washington, said Nina Easton in The Boston Globe. Now that the 'œemotion-pitched weeks' of Katrina's aftermath are a rapidly fading memory, resistance to the promised recovery effort has begun. Fiscal conservatives on Capitol Hill, alarmed by the mushrooming federal budget deficit, are pushing back against demands to spend more than the $70 billion already committed on paper. And even if all that money is someday spent, it won't be nearly enough to bulldoze 50,000 sodden homes, rebuild the levees, and resurrect New Orleans. Just rebuilding the levees alone could cost up to $32 billion, if they're to be made strong enough to protect New Orleans against Category 5 hurricanes.
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