Cleaning Up The Mess

An article about the identification process for victims from Katrina in Louisiana starts off with a not too subtle dig at government officials who have not paid a visit to the facility in St. Gabriel, but then veers off into a discussion of how and why some of the victims may never be identified. In between, some tidbits into how the process has worked thus far.

And then, passing one by one through a frigid postmortem assembly line, there are the collected "individuals" -- the staff does not call them "bodies" or "corpses" -- that as of Friday numbered 842. They, too, are visitors, but it is unclear how long they will stay.

Of the bodies, 294 are "complete unknowns," and 82 have offered clues that officials think might reveal the identities. Only 132 individuals had been released to families, and 128 are waiting to be released once relatives can be contacted.

In other words, just over 30% have been positively identified. Part of the problem with the identification process is that the dental records used to make identifications have been very difficult to come by - many of the records were ruined by the flooding and/or were inaccessible. DNA testing may reveal more information, but if a whole family was lost, there may not be any way to know unless other blood relatives can come forward.

Once again, Mayor Nagin provides more cannon fodder for his early retirement.

In that light, the proclamation issued by Mayor Ray Nagin to suspend the authority of city agencies that are supposed to sign off on demolitions of historic buildings is disturbing.

The mayor apparently has not signed the proclamation to bypass the Historic District Landmarks Commission, its Central Business counterpart and the Housing Conservation District Review Committee, and he shouldn't. Such a move would be bad policy, and there is no reason to take such a drastic step.

The city has the power to tear down buildings that are in imminent danger of collapse without going through a review process. Inspectors can determine which buildings are about to fall down and are therefore a hazard to the public. If a historic building is not in danger of crashing in on itself, it shouldn't be demolished without going through a review process.

Demolishing homes and structures that are unsound is going to be necessary for public safety, but that doesn't mean that you simply can knock down the structures without investigating whether it is feasible to rebuild/renovate them instead. I sense another about-face from 'whiplash' Nagin on this.

Earlier, he sought to enforce an imposed curfew on the French Quarter, but reversed himself when businesses got annoyed at the fact that the curfew would eat into their business profits (which means tax revenues for the city that faces a cash crunch). He's also called for casino development in New Orleans to spur further development in and around town.

Meanwhile, Gov. Blanco has announced a Hurricane Recovery Authority to oversee redevelopment after the back-to-back hits by Katrina and Rita. It provides a list of goals for the next 7 days, 30 days, and 100 days. We'll be watching.

The members of the Authority are as follows:

Dr. Norman Francis,
Chairman

Walter Isaacson,
Vice-Chairman

Dale Atkins
Donna Brazile
Philip Burguières
Rene Cross
James Davison
Donna Fraiche
Tom Henning
Sibal Holt
Linda Johnson
John Landry
Laura Leach
Walter Leger, Jr.
Dr. Calvin Mackie
Mary Matalin
Sean Reilly
Virgil Robinson, Jr.
Dr. Mary Ella Sanders
Matt Stuller
Susan Taylor
David Voelker
Rod West

If you're looking to rebuild and want to coordinate and facilitate reconstruction, you'd want to make sure that you have input from within your organization from folks who know specifically about your locality and the politics. But, as we've all come to know and expect, LA and specifically NOLA politics is bass-ackward and all sorts of political mischief has undermined basic service provision.

Paul at Wizbang wonders what took Gov. Blanco so long. The City Council and the Mayor of New Orleans have already established their own groups.

UPDATE:
UFO TOFU posting at LGF notes that the bus company involved in the deadly fire that killed 23 elderly evacuees from the path of Hurricane Rita has been shut down. The driver is facing charges, and there are all kinds of shennanigans involved with the vehicle itself (the bus, whose registration had expired, was displaying tags taken from another vehicle, according to the Dallas County Sheriff's Department).

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