One on One with Jim Amoss, Editor, New Orleans Times-Picayune
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
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SUSIE GHARIB: A somber anniversary today along America's Gulf coast as the region marks the second anniversary of the landfall of hurricane Katrina. President Bush was in New Orleans today, visiting the first public school to reopen in the city's hard-hit lower ninth ward. There were ceremonies in other coastal area cities as well, including Biloxi and Waveland, Mississippi. Katrina was one of the deadliest and costliest natural disasters in U.S. history. The category three storm claimed 1,600 lives and flattened everything along hundreds of miles of coast land. Eighteen months ago, I was in New Orleans to report on the city's recovery. Back then, I walked through the lower ninth ward with Jim Amoss, editor of the "New Orleans Times-Picayune," the city's largest newspaper. We saw firsthand the devastation Katrina had brought and the enormous challenges it would bring in the effort to rebuild. Joining us now with his observations about New Orleans recovery today, Jim Amoss. Nice to see you again, Jim.
JIM AMOSS, EDITOR, NEW ORLEANS TIMES-PICAYUNE: Good to be with you again, Susie.
GHARIB: Why don't you start off by telling us how you would describe what shape New Orleans is in today, two years after Katrina.
AMOSS: I would say that in the face of a halting and inadequate government response to a disaster that was after all, caused by the government's own admitted engineering failures -- in the face of that, that ordinary people in New Orleans, helped by legions of volunteers from around the country, have taken matters into their own hands, have rebuilt houses and neighborhoods. Businesspeople have taken the risk of opening their businesses and there's a remarkable contrast to a near ago in that regard.
GHARIB: How are businesses doing, big ones and small ones?
AMOSS: Anybody who gets to the point of being able to reopen is actually doing quite well and our newspaper's advertising columns are a good measure of that. Their pages are brimming with it. The difficulty is getting to the point of opening and one of the huge obstacles is being able to find affordable insurance, both for private homeowners as well as for small businesses and large businesses as well.
GHARIB: When the last time we talked, one of the problems in many sectors of the economy in New Orleans was the shortage of critical workers. How would you characterize the job recovery? Are people coming back to work?
AMOSS: Yes, but there's still a great shortage of labor in most businesses are looking for help. If you go to the average New Orleans restaurant, you can -- you can sense that people are stretched thin and I think that's replicated across the city.
GHARIB: I understand that a lot of big businesses have shuttered their operations and they're not staying there. Why do you think that major companies are not interested in investing long term in New Orleans?
AMOSS: Well, I'm not sure I entirely agree with that assessment. There are -- there certainly is a lot of construction, a lot of hotel building going on in New Orleans. If there's one major obstacle, aside from the insurance cost, it's -- it's the psychological element of whether we are, as a community, safe from another inundation and whether the Federal government will provide the kind of storm protection that will make our city thrive again.
GHARIB: Well, speaking of storms, we're in the middle of hurricane season. And know it's a great concern about the condition of the levees in New Orleans. How would you characterize the condition they're in? Are they in good enough shape to withstand a powerful hurricane?
AMOSS: I would say they are in good enough shape to not cause the exact same disaster that the exact same storm -- namely, Katrina -- would cause, but as we all know, hurricanes are utterly unpredictable phenomena and the system is not what it should be, although it's better than it was two years ago. It used to be that -- that Europe would look to America for innovation and can-do-ism. Now, it's I think, a fact that we look to Europe and specifically to Holland as an example of the way storm protection should be managed and by that comparison, we fall way short.
GHARIB: When you look at the situation of schools and hospitals, fire, police, transportation, are they back to normal yet?
AMOSS: It's a mixed bag. Hospitals are in terrible shape. We have about half the beds from 4,000 down to 2,000, that we need to have and especially in mental health. We're really hurting there. And that's an area where we need -- where we need physicians. We need psychiatrists. We need mental health beds. A lot of people under the stress of this disaster are suffering from it. Schools are a much brighter picture in the city of New Orleans. We have about 50 percent of our public school students back, but already 72 percent of our schools and there's a very strong reform movement. I think it's one of the brighter spots in the future of New Orleans.
GHARIB: We have just a little bit of time left. In your paper today, an editorial titled "treat us fairly, Mr. President," says that despite billions of dollars of Federal aid, it still hasn't been enough to rebuild New Orleans. What do you want now, Jim? What needs to be done?
AMOSS: Well, as I said, the most important thing I think is to create the conditions under which a big city like New Orleans can do well and that means a levee system that doesn't cause people to worry every time hurricane season comes around. And that, frankly, is an investment of billions of dollars, probably as many dollars as we spend in maybe three months in Iraq, but I think that's a worthwhile investment and one that New Orleans would pay back in spades.
GHARIB: All right, thank you so much for coming on the program and giving us an update. We really appreciate it.
AMOSS: It's a pleasure to be here.
GHARIB: My guest tonight, Jim Amoss, editor of the "New Orleans Times- Picayune."
