PenceBlog: Progress and Piles of Debris: New Orleans One Year Later - U.S. Congressman Mike Pence : 6th District Of Indiana

By Congressman Mike Pence

As our plane approached the New Orleans airport, I didn't know what to expect on my first journey to this fabled city nearly a year to the day after the worst natural disaster in American history.

Thanks to the hospitality of local Congressman Bobby Jindal (R-LA), we were treated to lunch and a briefing of that fateful day, August 29, 2005 when Hurricane Katrina devastated this city. Rep. Jindal and his staff have been extraordinarily effective in making the case for relief funding in a fiscally responsible manner.

Our first stop was the infamous 17th Street Canal where the levee broke, devastating homes and businesses for miles. I remember watching from Kuwait City as the Army Corps of Engineers labored to close the massive gash in this waterway.

Today, where there was once millions of gallons of water, there is a new levee and an entirely new pumping station. Both are operational and secure. Some of the very same Army Corps who labored in vain that day, showed us the new restrained waterway with pride and expressed confidence about the future.

The one thing that surprised me as I drove through the areas of New Orleans affected by Hurricane Katrina is the sheer, geographic scope of the disaster just in this city. We passed street after street of abandoned homes, with waterlines showing up to ten feet on their siding. Each and every home was still showing the spray paint of the search and rescue teams who used an ‘X’ marking to indicated people recovered from that site, dead or alive. Many roofs still showed the large holes through which thousands of Americans were airlifted to safety.

While Congress has appropriated more than $12 billion to rebuild these homes, the State of Louisiana has not released a significant portion of these funds to the local citizens and it shows. In nearby Mississippi, most of the housing funds have already been made available but, for reasons lost on me, not so here.

The next site we visited was the Industrial Canal breach, the place where we all saw sunken homes surrounding that school bus crushed by a massive coal barge. Where less than a year ago nature was victorious, now stands a massive concrete levee that seems to stretch for more than a half mile.

When we made our way into the city, through the French Quarter and into downtown, the traffic was heavy and the streets were bustling. While the local Charity Hospital is still bravely operating out of what used to be a department store, much of downtown New Orleans looks like many major American cities, shops open, cars honking, tourists strolling. Not surprisingly to any who know the character of the people of the Gulf Coast, New Orleans is coming back.

We left the city as storm clouds began to blow in from the sea. Some local residents expressed anxiety about a tropical depression forming in the Caribbean. Others said that many former residents were waiting to see how the new levees managed this hurricane season before coming back. Only 30 percent of the population on this city has returned. While I share the hope of local officials that most will return, I could never comprehend the hardship they endured. It would be hard to come home after Katrina.

New Orleans is many things today. She is piles of debris and miles of broken homes. But she is also new levees, new pumping stations, a bustling downtown and alluring French Quarter. I hope they show the progress along with the challenges as the media, the President and dignitaries descend on New Orleans for the anniversary events next week. And if they don't, go see it for yourself. If you do, you will be proud of the people of this city. I know I was.

Mike Pence
New Orleans, Louisiana

posted by Pence Press Office # 3:47 AM