Time Running Out for New Orleans Residents?

I recently came across a very troubling article from the Associated Press titled "New Orleans Residents Bailing Out". The article discusses a survey conducted by University of New Orleans political scientist Susan Howell. Howell found that 32% of the New Orleans residents polled are considering leaving the city within two years. Howell summed up the feelings of many New Orleanians perfectly when she said that, "People are in a state of limbo. They're asking, `Is it worth it for me to stay? Is it worth it to invest?' If you don't feel safe, from crime or the levees, and you see destruction every day when you drive, it becomes discouraging."

The article also mentions that figures from three of the country's largest moving companies show that more people left the New Orleans area moved in last year.

It is clear that if the federal government does not take significant action to strengthen the levees, and the state and local governments do not get their acts together with programs such as Road Home, then New Orleans' recovery will be seriously jeopardized. Who is going to start a family in a place where bickering between state and city officials has precluded distributing half of the$750 million in federal money allocated for badly needed infrastructure projects? What business is going to invest in a city that has, at best, hurricane defenses that leave it as vulnerable to hurricanes and floods as its predecessors that failed during Hurricane Katrina?

The Democratic Congress needs to keep its promise that New Orleans will be a "front-burner" issue and finance the construction of a Category 5 hurricane and flood protection system. At the same time, the state and city governments need to implement the bureaucratic changes that will give Congress the confidence it needs to allocate the large sums of money that are needed for such a project.