The vacation that never happened
An entry at What if no one's watching? reminded me of what I missed out on. It doesn't compare to the devastation that the victims of Katrina have in their lives, but I'll still take a moment to regret the vacation that never happened.
I always said I'd get down to New Orleans, but I never seemed to have time and money (at the same time at least) to get there. I wanted to see the historic old buildings, and those probably won't survive this. I feel guilty that I want to cry over some old buildings when so many people are homeless or dead, but I still wish I had visited last year (or all the years before that) like I wanted to.
I will go when they rebuild, and not just after everything is done. The city needs tourism dollars to convince them to save as much as possible. If no one wants to travel there for years until the rebuilding is complete, they won't be able to. Chain hotels and restaurants can handle some lean years, but the cool places like hole-in-the-wall restaurants and family run hostels or B&B's won't be able to afford all their repairs if they don't get customers. I'm hoping the infrastructure is done in 6 months, so that in a year hopefully those small places will start coming back to life. (and if you think they can get the power, water, and other services back to full capacity in less than 6 months, I hope you are right) The power to the oil companies is done, god forbid that some SUV's have to wait in line for gas. It will take a lot longer to get every little house powered up after the water is gone. The last estimate I heard was that it will take 3 months to completely drain the water, and who knows how long to remove all that toxic slimy sludge after that.
I always said I'd get down to New Orleans, but I never seemed to have time and money (at the same time at least) to get there. I wanted to see the historic old buildings, and those probably won't survive this. I feel guilty that I want to cry over some old buildings when so many people are homeless or dead, but I still wish I had visited last year (or all the years before that) like I wanted to.
I will go when they rebuild, and not just after everything is done. The city needs tourism dollars to convince them to save as much as possible. If no one wants to travel there for years until the rebuilding is complete, they won't be able to. Chain hotels and restaurants can handle some lean years, but the cool places like hole-in-the-wall restaurants and family run hostels or B&B's won't be able to afford all their repairs if they don't get customers. I'm hoping the infrastructure is done in 6 months, so that in a year hopefully those small places will start coming back to life. (and if you think they can get the power, water, and other services back to full capacity in less than 6 months, I hope you are right) The power to the oil companies is done, god forbid that some SUV's have to wait in line for gas. It will take a lot longer to get every little house powered up after the water is gone. The last estimate I heard was that it will take 3 months to completely drain the water, and who knows how long to remove all that toxic slimy sludge after that.
posted by two bits @ 9:50 AM
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