Magyar News, 2005. szeptember-december (16. évfolyam, 1-4. szám)

2005-12-01 / 4. szám

All the furniture in a room that was under water up to the ceiling is totally damaged. It is questionable if the walls could be saved stately boulevards, great architecture. It was heart-rending to see so much of this being destroyed. All along the streets the flood level was marked by the dirty, oily water mark. Two, four, six, ten feet. Many areas had the water up to the eaves of the ranch homes. The wide esplanades have a mounded landscaped strip at the center. People parked their cars on this high ground, hop­ing that they will escape the flood. No, the water was much higher, these cars were all destroyed. All together the city is slowly removing 150,000 abandoned vehicles. Add to this the refrigerators that line up all along the streets to be taken to landfills. They were ruined not only in the flooded areas, but everywhere as the power was lost for weeks. Rotten food, mold, bacteria made these refrigerators unusable. The mountains of fallen trees, building debris from approximately 100,000 homes add up to 500,000 truckloads to take to landfills - an estimated 22 million tons of debris. This is 15 times more than what was generated by the World Trade Center collapse. Of the approximately 100 Hungarians liv­ing in the city about half of them left, many for good. As the Universities are temporar­ily relocated, practically all young people are gone. Not having family or property ties they were the most mobile. Not with­out regret. “This was a hasty decision” - said Kati Gyulay who left for a job in Lafayette, a smaller city 100 miles away. She is going back to New Orleans during weekends, to the place where “the action is”. Dr. Gergatz also assumed that he needs to find a job elsewhere, since all the hos­pitals closed . His place, however, the Ochsner Clinic, is now back in business - the only health care institute remaining in the city. Dr. Gergatz and the other Hungarian doctor, the for­mer Olympic fencing champi­on Dr. Janos Kalmar, started seeing patients in the Ochsner Hospital and Clinic again. The tragedy of New Orleans is a story of neglect, governmen­tal ineptitude, and greed. The city’s police chief and the administration’s chief procure­ment official had to resign, but hundreds of companies operate without competitive contracts. The street comers are full of advertising signs offering all kind of services (at inflated prices) and legal assistance to sue. Class action suits against anybody you can think of - a sign of total desperation. “Sadly we can no longer trust government to adequately prepare for and respond to such disasters as Katerina.” - wrote David Helvarg, editor of “The Ocean and Costal Conservation Guide”. If there will not be a better response, there will be another hur­ricane to make the case.... Life is slowly getting back to the city. While most of the streets are quiet, Bourbon Street is lit up and the evening crowd is lively. City police are supple­mented with outside forces, like New York State police. Emergency vehicles are seen with license plates from practically every states, even from Europe too. Four more months, but New Orleans will be ready for the next Mardi-gras. The American Hungarian Federation donated $2000.00 to Arpádhon to help restore damages to the museum and school. Hopefully our readers could help ot too. Send to Hungarian Settlement Historical Society: HSHS P.O.Box 1909 Albany, LA 70711 Houses were covered with broken trees in Arpádhon Imtgariatt DECEMBER 11, 2005 SUNDAY 4:00 PM St. Emery’s (ílirifitimui Church Hall 838 King’s Highway Fairfield, CT Budapest March 11, Saturday. 2006, is looking for young ladies to be debutants at the annual dinner dance Call 203-373-9958 Page 5 1

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