16337535   
   XPost: la.general, soc.culture.african.american, alt.politics.bush   
   XPost: alt.politics.democrats.d   
   From: clitteigh@yahoo.com   
      
   No surprise here, but even with its citizens being the least educated   
   among the 50 states, one has to question why:   
      
   a)   They'd choose to reside in a city, Noo Ahluns, and a state, whose   
   land is more than half below or at sea   
   level ?   
      
   b)   Why so many of these dimwits move back to where their houses   
   (mostly trailer shacks) have been wiped out due to hurricanes and   
   floods ?   
      
   ======================   
      
   "Isaac caught up to those who fled Katrina"   
      
   By Manuel Roig-Franzia   
   August 30,  2012   
      
      
      
   LAPLACE, La. — New Orleans, in those anguished days just after   
   Hurricane Katrina, felt like a storm-cursed city to Frank Williams, a   
   place to escape for good.   
      
   The house he and his wife owned in Gentilly Terrace, an oak-shaded   
   enclave of middle- and upper-middle-class African Americans, was   
   ruined. They needed to start anew. They looked west, jumping to buy a   
   comfortable rancher in LaPlace, a quiet community 25 miles outside New   
   Orleans that bills itself as the Andouille sausage capital of the   
   world.   
      
   But on Thursday, the house they bought — the place they’d lovingly   
   spruced up with new carpets and a fresh paint job — rotted in mucky   
   water that climbed 31 / 2 feet up the walls. They had escaped one   
   flood zone and found another, exactly seven years to the day that   
   Katrina chased them from New Orleans. “This is like deja vu,” said   
   Williams’s wife, Cynthia Thibodeaux.   
      
   For Williams and Thibodeaux, and others like them, the suburban   
   flooding triggered Wednesday and Thursday by Hurricane Isaac — which   
   was weakening as it moved north to less-than-tropical-storm strength —   
   carried with it a special cruelty. What they had fled seven years ago   
   came looking for them again.   
      
   It found Patrick and Detria Hutchinson, too. They had escaped in   
   another direction, packing what little was left after their Upper   
   Ninth Ward house in New Orleans was destroyed and trekking to the   
   northeast, across Lake Pontchartrain to the city of Slidell. On   
   Thursday, 60 miles away and at opposite ends of Lake Pontchartrain,   
   the Hutchinsons were faced with the same crisis as Thibodeaux and   
   Williams: a house they needed to flee.   
      
   “We weren’t expecting this — not out here,” Patrick Hutchinson said   
   Thursday after an armored personnel carrier plowed through flooded   
   streets to evacuate him and his wife from their home.   
      
   The flooding in LaPlace and Slidell was all the more mind-bending for   
   so many here because New Orleans was barely touched by Isaac, except   
   for a smattering of downed trees and streetlights. Huge new   
   floodgates, super-sized levees and powerful pumps did exactly what   
   they were supposed to do — they kept the city from turning into a   
   lake. But in these other cities, these places that once seemed like   
   such refuges, the water rose. And rose. And rose.   
      
   A flash flood sent water pulsing into Slidell’s streets, forcing rapid-   
   fire evacuations of dozens of residents, one of the more startling   
   developments on a day when tens of thousands of residents in   
   Tangipahoa Parish were ordered to leave because of fears that a dam   
   might fail. A sneakier, slower-moving flood plagued LaPlace, pushing   
   more than 2,000 people from their homes. Army National Guard troops   
   loaded hundreds of residents onto buses outside a church-turned-   
   shelter Thursday. The crush of people — far more than were expected —   
   was too great. The facility inadequate. The buses bound for far-off   
   places — Alexandria and Shreveport. It was an exodus that brought back   
   uncomfortable memories of Katrina.   
      
   The New Orleanians who found homes in suburbs such as LaPlace and   
   Slidell were supposed to be the lucky ones. They weren’t part of the   
   great post-Katrina diaspora that flung thousands of the city’s   
   residents — most of them African Americans — around the country never   
   to return. Old neighbors of Williams and Thibodeaux now call Atlanta,   
   Dallas, Houston and Portland home. And the couple misses them.   
      
   But Williams, a self-employed real estate broker, and Thibodeaux, a   
   state social worker, were firm. They were staying. This region, they   
   decided, was not just their lifelong home, it had whittled into their   
   soul. LaPlace, though it lacked the hip urban vibe and culture of New   
   Orleans, seemed like an acceptable alternative. They celebrated their   
   new life by buying Thibodeaux her dream car, a snazzy charcoal gray   
   Range Rover with gray leather seats. Now the Range Rover’s interior   
   looks more like a swimming pool — ruined, she’s sure.   
      
   The Hutchinsons couldn’t envision a life away from this place either.   
   Safe, or so they thought, in Slidell, their thoughts were more focused   
   on their big plans to host a barbecue for the New Orleans Saints’   
   season opener. Patrick was fixating on the menu — fried chicken, ribs,   
   “the works” — not escape routes. Isaac just didn’t seem as if it could   
   touch him. And he was spreading a new coat of paint on the walls. As   
   he worked, he often thought to himself how much he loved it here.   
      
   The 48-year-old disabled former Pillsbury plant worker lost a pickup   
   truck, a Jeep and a car to Isaac’s storm surge. But his two dogs — a   
   mutt named Muffin and his pit bull Jada — were by his side, safe in   
   traveling kennels that police officers helped him lift into an armored   
   personnel carrier.   
      
   Now both couples will have to decide what to do next. The Hutchinsons   
   hope to return to Slidell — the water wasn’t rising enough to destroy   
   their home. But Williams and Thibodeaux were contemplating another   
   move, something they discussed with their neighbors as they waited for   
   a relative to pick them up. Everyone wanted out of LaPlace, Williams   
   said. “They think it will happen again — and I know it’s going to   
   happen again,” he said.   
      
   Then the conversation turned to all that new infrastructure work in   
   New Orleans — the levees and floodwalls and the like. That storm-   
   cursed city was looking as if it may gradually become blessed.   
      
   Williams looked at his wife, and she looked back at him. There was no   
   doubt in their minds, not one little bit of hesitation. As soon as   
   they can, they’re moving. Moving back to New Orleans.   
      
   http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/new-orlean   
   -spared-major-damage-as-isaac-floods-some-suburbs/2012/08/30/205   
   78f6-f2a4-11e1-a612-3cfc842a6d89_story.html   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)