By TAMARA LUSH, Associated Press Writer –
Mon Jun 1, 12:08 am ET
LEHIGH ACRES, Fla. – Mike Manikchand points toward his neighbors — a half-dozen empty, foreclosed-upon homes, sitting on weed-strewn yards — and he wonders: What will happen if a hurricane slams into southwest Florida this year?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/stress_map_hurricane_foreclosures
Homes as Scrapnel, the American Dream as Collateral Damage.
I read this story and a chill ran down my spine.
That’s true.
This isn’t a techie issue, the kind that I usually tackle. But it’s an important one.
I’m stil shaken by what happened in New Orleans. I’ve never lived there, but it’s a city that means a lot to me. I was married in New Orleans and I went back 2 years after the Hurricane Katrina and there were things that were still wrecked – that still looked like Kat had passed through the night before.
That sucks. And we should be ashamed. and W, should hang his head everytime the city is mentioned – ever.
But the idea that the homes lost in foreclosures, the abandoned homes that honest folk can no longer pay for are now a weapon is terrifying to me.
The year after, I thought about all those people whoe were essentially squatters on their own land. Housed in inadequate trailers supplied by FEMA and sleeping every night in large, furnished “Dirty bombs.”
There was a lot of worry that if major hurricanes hit the region, these makeshift shelters would just supply scrapnel to the raging storms and result in more needless, senseless death.
Now, we have a new crisis – built on top of the old for many in New Orleans and surrounding areas – an economic crisis that has caused many a families home to be blown away in a new kind of storm.
Can you imagine the horror of sitting in your home, while a storm rages outside unable to go to a safe spot. And knowing that you are made all the more vulnerable because the neighbors you had hosted BBQs with, the neighbors you had chatted about weather and local politics with, couldn’t weather the financial storm and aren’t around to secure their old homes or properties. Do you wonder if that tree house the guy down the block built for his kids will somehow wind up in your 2nd floor bathroom.
The winds of change, indeed.
Concernedly,
Editor M
I read this story and a chill ran down my spine.
I’m stil shaken by what happened in New Orleans. I’ve never lived there, but it’s a city that means a lot to me. I was married in New Orleans and I went back 2 years after the Hurricane Katrina and there were things that were still wrecked – that still looked like Kat had passed through the night before.
That sucks. And we should be ashamed. And W, should hang his head everytime the city is mentioned – ever.
But the idea that the homes lost in foreclosures, the abandoned homes that honest folk can no longer pay for are now a weapon is terrifying to me.
The year after, I thought about all those people whoe were essentially squatters on their own land. Housed in inadequate trailers supplied by FEMA and sleeping every night in large, furnished “Dirty bombs.”
There was a lot of worry that if major hurricanes hit the region, these makeshift shelters would just supply scrapnel to the raging storms and result in more needless, senseless death.
Now, we have a new crisis – built on top of the old for many in New Orleans and surrounding areas – an economic crisis that has caused many a families home to be blown away in a new kind of storm.
Can you imagine the horror of sitting in your home, while a storm rages outside unable to go to a safe spot. And knowing that you are made all the more vulnerable because the neighbors you had hosted BBQs with, the neighbors you had chatted about weather and local politics with, couldn’t weather the financial storm and aren’t around to secure their old homes or properties. Do you wonder if that tree house the guy down the block built for his kids will somehow wind up in your 2nd floor bathroom.
The winds of change, indeed.
Concernedly,
Editor M