I’m home.  I’ve returned to Louisiana after an 8 year departure.  The Prodigal Son returns.  I’ve been here since October 17^th.  I can’t decide if I’m loyal, crazy or just plain stupid, but I’ve been in New Orleans for almost 2 months now trying to help bring this city to some sense of normalcy. 

My family lives 45 minutes from here and I’ve seen them 3 times since the day I arrived.  We’re working 7 days a week 12-16 hours a day.  I’ve heard nothing but scalding criticism from people about the company I work for.  I can’t name names other than to say it’s a large construction/engineering firm.  We’ve all been working unbelievably hard to try and do something to help.  Every single member of our team is here because we genuinely want to be and because we care.  Nobody is getting rich off these projects and in fact our company will most likely lose money as the City itself is for all intents and purposes is bankrupt.  We’re all aware of that.  Our CEO is aware of that, yet still we remain and not letting up.  Even amidst death threats, massive fatigue, long days, and an at times overwhelming feeling of hopelessness, we remain.  Because if Louisiana’s own won’t do it, who will?

See this State was forsaken ages ago.  We’ve been written off as the poorest, least educated, most corrupt, ignorant, backwater, coonasses that don’t have enough sense to get away from the floodwaters.  But what most don’t realize is that it’s really the fault of the US Government we’re like this.  The Government is responsible for making the levies weaker than they ever should have been.  The sheetpiling that stops the floodwaters from seeping under the levies was only 10 below sea level instead of the 35’ it should have been.  That’s the US Corp of Engineers.  Not the LA Government.  They hired a Texas firm to build levies in Louisiana.  We’ve never gotten the federal funding we requested over and over again to build and maintain them to sufficient strength.  And then when the floodwaters came, the US Government didn’t react.  That’s not the fault of the people of this state.  Yes we should have done a better job of evacuating, but the blood of those who died a week later is on the hands of GW Bush and Michael Brown.  Noone else.

Enough of the blame game.  It serves no purpose now.  There’s so much to be done.  I’ve stood in the middle of the 9^th ward and cried for it’s citizens.  I’ve watched the excavators and cadaver dogs pick through the debris piles looking for more bodies and finding them.  I’ve watched the CIA, DEA, ATF, NY State Police, NOPD, Secret Service, US Army MP’s, Kentucky State Police and private security firms all standing on the same street corner.  This state was already so poor.  We’ve lost our rice and crawfish to China.  We’ve lost a lot of our oil, gas, seafood and chemicals to Mexico and Canada thanks to NAFTA.  Now we’re losing our Sugarcane to Central America thanks to CAFTA.  So basically we’ve got no industry left.  We’ve got the lowest paid teachers in the US because the local governments don’t have the economy or tax base anymore thanks to industry leaving.  And now Katrina and Rita have obliterated the one reasonably thriving city we had.

Baton Rouge is a city that did NOT need the population influx it gained 3 months ago.  I would have rather driven through Atlanta than Baton Rouge before the storm.  Now an additional 200,000 cars on the interstate each day has made it impossible to come or go. 

People want to just bulldoze the city.  “Why live in a flood zone or rebuild when it’s just going to flood again?!”  Well, my friends, there are two fundamental problems and one reminder I’ll share with you.  The first, this is a state where some people go to school on a boat.  I kid you not.  An overwhelming majority of this state is under sea level.  San Francisco was built on fault lines, but I don’t recall anyone ever saying after the last great earthquake, “Hey why don’t we just turn it into a parking lot?!  It’s just going to happen again!!”  Hell why don’t we just go ahead and drop a couple of wedges into the California State line and drop it all into the Pacific because it’ll wind up there eventually anyway!  See how stupid that sounds?  The second major problem is that New Orleans is a major port of entry for shipping and commerce for Louisiana.  Hell it’s the only real commerce Louisiana had for the most part these days.  So to eliminate that, you’d might as well just destroy the entire state.  Why not though?  We’re all backwoods dumbasses anyway…right?  I’ll remind each and every one of you, however, that without New Orleans being built when it was, there would have been no Louisiana Purchase and without that, many of you wouldn’t have homes where you do, and this great country would not have the history it does.  How quickly we forget.

This is my home and these are my people.  My heart breaks each and every day that I wake up and look out my window.  Everytime I walk into the French Quarter and see the “Opening March 15, 2006 due to storm damage” signs in restaurants that once flourished.  I remember walking down Bourbon Street weeks ago and seeing more refrigerators than people.  I have the photographs to prove it.

The good news is that photographs from my site WWW.WJLockardPhotography.Com are doing really well.  There is a “Katrina Series” that are mounted with Mardi Gras doubloons.  All the proceeds are going back to the city and I’m not making a dime of profit.  Please take a look and spread the word.  They’re beautiful prints and the mats are superbly cut and mounted.  They are black with a Mardi Gras Purple border.  All hand signed and sequentially numbered for a limited edition.  I’m really proud of them.

Pray for us all.