Hurricane Housing: The World Katrina Made

The Associated Press has done a Herculean job of covering the long-term effects of the 2005 hurricane season, keeping it where it should be--in the forefront of our memory. Case in point: This heartbreaking story about the trailer park life. It's one thing to joke about that as the centerpiece of Britney and K-Fed's post-"PopoZao" life. It's another for the thousands of families who're actually living it.

If that were not enough, the work of gutting houses in order to assess them for rebuilding or demolition is getting a lot harder, because FEMA is inexplicably shutting down the bases people are working out of. "Insane" just doesn't cut it.

When I first started working on this thing, I never expected that I'd be chronicling the gradual destruction of an American region. Katrina and Rita were like cars hitting innocent passersby, who're now dying lingering deaths in hospitals, alone, uncared for, and often forgotten about.

And just in case you thought this was a new thing, folks who're still stuck in trailers from the 2004 Florida hurricane season will soon be forced to pay rent or be ass out. Somehow I doubt that anyone who's got the money to be paying rent would still be chillin' in a FEMA double-wide special.

Think about this the next time you follow the market's ups and downs.

Posted at March 26, 2006 06:00 PM

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The Associated Press has done a Herculean job of covering the long-term effects of the 2005 hurricane season, keeping it where it should be--in the forefront of our memory. Case in point: This heartbreaking story about the trailer park life. It's one thing to joke about that as the centerpiece of Britney and K-Fed's post-"PopoZao" life. It's another for the thousands of families who're actually living it. If that were not enough, the work of gutting houses in order to assess them for rebuilding or demolition is getting a lot harder, because FEMA is inexplicably shutting down the bases people are working out of. "Insane" just doesn't cut it. When I first started working on this thing, I never expected that I'd be chronicling the gradual destruction of an American region. Katrina and Rita were like cars hitting innocent passersby, who're now dying lingering deaths in hospitals, alone, uncared for, and often forgotten about. And just in case you thought this was a new thing, folks who're still stuck in trailers from the 2004 Florida hurricane season will soon be forced to pay rent or be ass out. Somehow I doubt that anyone who's got the money to be paying rent would still be chillin' in a FEMA double-wide special. Think about this the next time you follow the market's ups and downs.