Sports sinking in New Orleans
Exactly two years ago Wednesday, Hurricane Katrina roared across the Gulf Coast.
If you think back, the images are not difficult to re-create. The people stranded on rooftops, holes cut in their shingles where they escaped their attics. The folks floating down flooded streets on mattresses. The concrete slabs, the only thing left where houses once stood.
In Oklahoma, of course, we were reminded more often of Katrina after the Hornets relocated to Oklahoma City for two years.
And yet, I suspect none of us can fully comprehend what New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast region endured then — and what it still endures today. Some of my co-workers have been to New Orleans since the storm. I have not. But today I am reminded of the people who lost their lives and the struggle that still remains after reading “Two Years After Katrina,” an Alexander Wolff piece in Sports Illustrated.
The story recounts the place the sports has played in the recovery of New Orleans as well as the struggles that athletics faces in the rebuilding process. It asks the question — how can millions of dollars be spent on athletic facilities when so many other areas must be addressed? It also asks — how can millions not be spent on sports if New Orleans is to recover?
It’s a lengthy read but well worth the time.
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Can you picture what the City of Houston has endured as thousands of felons from the crescent city have traversed there sending their homocide rate to dizzying heights? Ask ANYONE in Houston about this problem. Yes, we are all sad for Katrina and for the thousands of good people it ravaged. May God assist them all. But those thugs who went to Houston and did this should be eliminated. Houston has its own problems. The Flotsam that was pushed their way was a tragedy in its own right. Many good and innocent Houstonians have been terrorized by these cretins. More needs to be said and done about this. Who really cars about the Hornets in relation to these problems?