With federal aid money wasted or tied up in the bureaucracy, and post-Katrina recovery promises left unkept, New Orleans remains an "open wound" and many of its residents are suffering from homelessness and a lack of basic services.
"Welcome to the Lower Ninth Ward. You won't find much holiday spirit here. In every direction, as far as it is possible to see, is devastation. Whatever you've heard about New Orleans, the reality is much worse. Think of it as a vast open wound, this once-great American city that is still largely in ruins, with many of its people still writhing in agony more than a year after the catastrophic flood that followed Hurricane Katrina. Enormous stretches of the city, mile after mile after mile, have been abandoned. The former residents have doubled-up or tripled-up with relatives, or found shelter in the ubiquitous white trailers of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or moved (in some cases permanently) to Texas, Mississippi, Georgia and beyond. Some have simply become homeless."
"The recovery in New Orleans has gone about as well as the war in Iraq."
FULL STORY: America's Open Wound
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