Houston – Months of frustration and uncertainty turned to angry shouts and tears Sunday as Hurricane Katrina evacuees filled a church to confront New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin at a town-hall meeting.
It was one of several meetings Nagin is holding outside Louisiana to assure displaced residents that the city will survive and prosper.
But many of the hundreds who filled the domed sanctuary of Pleasant Grove Missionary Baptist Church clearly were not convinced, complaining of an unresponsive state and federal bureaucracy and conflicting reports on how and when one should attempt to reclaim homes and property in New Orleans.
New Orleans is coming back, but it will take time, Nagin said.
When he opened the floor to questions, two lines 50 people deep formed, and a meeting scheduled for two hours stretched into five.
Several people asked if the hardest-hit areas – such as east New Orleans and the Lower Ninth Ward – would be rebuilt.
“I don’t want to invest money gutting and cleaning my house and be told later it’s all over,” said Ingrid LeBlenc, 54, a day- care worker.
Nagin said all areas of New Orleans would be rebuilt.
Ane Coleman, 45, wanted to know who will guarantee that the levees – which broke after Katrina – will hold in the future.
“Why in the name of God would anyone move back to New Orleans if the same thing will happen next year during hurricane season and your house is destroyed again?” she said.
Congress is resisting the city’s billion-dollar requests to rebuild the city’s levees, Nagin said.
Malinda Boucree, a 38-year- old pharmacist, just wants to know how she can reclaim the life she loved in New Orleans.
“I’m living two lives – one in Houston and one in New Orleans,” she said. “The hurricane is over for people who watched it on TV, but it’s not over for us who lived through it.”
