Thursday, August 9, 2007

Normalcy Long Overdue in Katrina-Ravaged Region

by Ana Maria

Two days ago, Mississippi voters in the Democratic Primary ousted Insurance Commissioner George Dale, whose cozy relationship with Big Insurance became his electoral albatross. Surely less than a year ago, Dale anticipated his re-election bid to retain the normalcy he had experienced over the last three decades of running for office.

The campaigns for newly-elected Democratic nominee Gary Anderson and his Republican opponent will recuperate from the primary, then redirect their efforts for the usual hustle and bustle of a general election, which will be held this November. Even inside the chaotic nature of every election campaign, there is a sense of normalcy to that chaos—at least for those of us who’ve been in a few.

Here inside the Katrina-ravaged region, we’re still struggling to return to a sense of normalcy. At Katrina’s ground zero, we still have Wal-Mart as our only grocery store for at least a 30 minute ride in any direction. Insurance companies continue to low ball, delay, and fight tooth and nail to break their legal contracts to pay on legitimate wind damage claims. Reliable, solid, and reasonably priced contractors to repair homes are still miraculous to find. FEMA continues to jerk around municipalities.

Jobs are scarce. More scarce are employees. More scarce still? Housing.

Even hotels are difficult to find. On reflection, that makes sense. When Big Insurance decided not to pay wind damage claims for its wind policy customers, it did screwed over all customers—including the hotels.

What is easy to find are the stories of how folks survived in those first few weeks after Katrina hit.

Read more at A.M. in the Morning!

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