Three years later and still a disaster

HURRICANE GUSTAV evacuees returning to New Orleans through New Orleans East could see the damage: broken windows, houses without roofs, fences that had been blown over.

The sad reality, however, is that most of that damage was caused over three years ago by Hurricane Katrina, not Gustav. Thousands of homes all around the city have yet to be repaired.

New Orleans looks like it was just hit by a hurricane. Gustav knocked down some trees, scattered trash cans and did serious damage to a few buildings throughout the city, but mostly, the hurricane damage that's obvious throughout the city is still leftover from Katrina in 2005.

Hurricane Gustav worked out perfectly for all the politicians whose reputations were battered by Katrina. We're not saying that Bush, Cheney and McCain, et al., were hoping for a storm. They would probably just as soon not hear about New Orleans again until they are safely out of office, considering how Katrina exposed so many years of neglect and incompetence.

But three years later, they are hoping that when people think of hurricanes, they'll think of Gustav, not Katrina. Although Gustav caused severe damage across central Louisiana, it did so without the enduring images of misery and despair in Katrina's aftermath. There were no rooftop rescues in New Orleans, no pleading for help at highway overpasses, and no teary broadcasts from Geraldo.

It was sickening to watch Cindy McCain and Laura Bush crying crocodile tears for Gustav victims during the first day of the Republican National Convention. Where was their compassion in 2005, when President Bush shared John McCain's birthday cake the day after Katrina hit?

The truth is that no matter how much effort these politicians put into looking "concerned," all they really care about is protecting their reputations.

The thousands of evacuees, whisked away as part of the Gustav evacuation, will still come home to a city with no public housing, no public hospital, no public education and a skeleton of a public transportation system.
Alden Eagle and Gimena Gordillo, New Orleans