mcolemanll7@hotmail.co.uk

Dear Friends

Greetings for 2007.1 had hoped to have this Newsletter sent out earlier but things have been complicated and technology - problem with email and computer - has not helped. The council met in December and have decided to go ahead with the Swanwick Conference. This will mean an awful lot of hard work and we hope that all members of the Marist Way will generously support us. The details are

GREAT NEWS After many failed attempts and much heart searching the Marist Way now has its own website - http//maristway.org - and a special Email address to go with it - webmaster@maristway.org. There have been some initial problems with the site and Paul, our Webmaster, has suggested the following to solve problems:

Adjust the browser settings on PC as follows:

1. click on START
2. click on Control Panel
3. click on Display icon
4. click on Settings and note your current settings.

Adjust your screen resolution to 1024x768 or 1152x864 and see if that fixes the problem. It all sounds very technical to me but apparently it does work!

Last week I drove through some of the areas that had been flooded the worst: Lakeview, the Lower Ninth Ward, Araby, Chalmette. Some houses have been demolished and cleared away. A very few are being lived in, or have trailers in their front yards indicating that people are living there and trying to rebuild. Most are empty shells. Saddest is the Lower Ninth Ward, which had been the home of mainly African-Americans, many of them economically disadvantaged. So many of the houses there are beyond repair—they had floated off their foundations, or are in a state or near-collapse, or had suffered severe wind as well as water damage.

Fewer than half the pre-Katrina population have returned to the city. People don't know what to do. Should they rebuild? Can they trust the levees? Will their former neighbors return so they can reconstitute their old neighborhoods? And where is the money the government promised to help them rebuild? Recently a 90 year old couple whose house sat in nine feet of water for six weeks were offered the grand sum of $525 by the "Road Home" program to help them rebuild— and then that was denied them because they had already received some money from FEMA! In some areas the local government is setting deadlines for people to get out of their trailers, but how can they when they can't get their homes repaired because workers are so scarce? The vicious circle perdures: insufficient housing available to lodge workers, so few workers can return and help repair damaged homes or build new housing.

The area of the city around the Marist house is pretty much back to normal (except for that downed telephone pole and the sagging telephone wire in the next block—they've been like that for almost 16 months now!). You still see a business or two that was damaged or looted and is left untouched or is still being repaired. But a visitor might not be able to spot much evidence of Katrine's ravages in our area. The most obvious lacuna is the St. Charles Avenue streetcar. It is the oldest urban rail line still in operation in the world (it began as a small train in the 1830's). But it has been out of operation since Katrina. Just this week they have restored service to a short downtown section of the line. The center section won't be in operation until Labor Day 2007, and the uptown section not until summer of 2008! The damage was extensive and they have decided to make a major overhaul of the line.

M. Coleman SM Marist Way Delegation Animator