About, we did have a lot of water. The lowpressure gas lines were affected. Although you may not have had water in your neighborhood or in your house, because of the design of the gas system, it is a network system, built like a spider web. The water can enter the system from an area a mile away. Want to get there, it is a process we use where we have to tap into the main, and stuck the suck the water out. In this case, we have a lot of water. Under our houses next to mine that have gas. The lady to the right has gas. The good news is, if the houses near you are getting gas, you are not far behind. What they do, they call it chase water trouble. Apparently the area you are being served by is a low point preventing gas to get to your area. I dont know exactly, if you can see me and give me your specific address, i will go ahead and get the information specifically for your area to let you know what the eta is. C. Ray nagin we will try to accommodate you. I am a senior, you said you were worried about them. I have a house leaning on mine. C. Ray nagin it is still leaning . Yes. C. Ray nagin let me get your address again. Give that to me before we leave. I will personally follow that. Good afternoon. Who am i . I am a new orleans at citizen who has a vested interest in the recovery. It is hard to believe the United States is spending nearly 1 billion per week in iraq and here, in new orleans, the United States, we are being neglected. Why do we have to beg and plead with our elected officials that we need help. [applause] this is the United States of america. The young lady mentioned earlier, we did revealed japan after destroying it. This is new orleans, a specific cultural design. I love new orleans. Secondly, we as new orleans citizens, our first step is to show the country that we are rebuilding. When you go to the highrise and you come down, there is no signs of rebuilding. We need to clean up those roads. The state will not do it, we need to do it. Get some prisoners there. Pick up the trash. We need to show them that we are actively participating in our recovery. [applause] 15 seconds. The person who handles the wardens, get out there and pick up the litter. Show them that we are trying to start somewhere. Right where it stands now, new orleans, United States of america, we are citizens, we demand that our president steps up. Step up and be there for us. We have paid our taxes. Thank you. C. Ray nagin thank you. [applause] good evening. My name is eloise, as a community activist, mr. Mayor, you do not see me too often, but i am there to say look at my community. Right now what i see i do not like. Katrina has passed and gone, but we are still living in debris. We organize to move all of this out of the way so work can be done. It is months now. I have been home i came home on the fifth of november. To this day i am trying to get my utilities back. Cox cable sent me a bill. You know what im saying . We need to stop playing games. Stop playing thanking everyone is naive. I dont want to pay Energy Anything and say i will wait later for them to pay me back. They will not. I am not looking to pay no 200 upfront. I was not at the party that told you not to have money. I was not there. I am not going to be responsible for anything that is not my doing. Mr. Mayor, i want to say to you, thank you. I got on the bus, no fare. I could not believe it. I said, thank you mr. Mayor for that. There is a whole lot of things that are keeping us from functioning properly. I have a home, my home was not damaged, but a little bit. Because of the debris and all of this, i cannot get anything done. C. Ray nagin you said you live in algiers . In the cut off. C. Ray nagin see that lady behind you, give her your address. We will get the debris taken care of. All right, thank you. Mr. Mayor, i am reverend howard. Can you get closer to the microphone. Dont cut me off. Two minutes. [laughter] i am here because i am appalled. First of all at fema. Mr. Mayor, you gave them your plan for the trailer parks. I have seen one. My question is, what does fema need to have to put those trailers where the requests were made . Where are they . What is wrong with you . Does that mean that you are that incompetent . All of our citizens want to come back home. Speak for yourself. I cannot find a place. I even requested a trailer be placed on my home. That was in october. I have not heard from them. And then for energy to come up with some foolishness that you have to put in what . To get power . Why have them call for help to put the power back on the lines, like parrish avenue. What is wrong with you . The citizens want to come back, but what are you doing . Sitting on your behind. I am tired. I am hurt. I am hurt at this representative who submitted legislation to the state letting the state take over the School System where our citizens are suffering in new orleans. Where was your common sense . We are suffering. Dont take that lightly. I want the assistance i am supposed to get. I have not gotten it yet. I have to get out of the hotel room by the third. I have been waiting on the trailer since october. The measurements have not been taken. It is unfair. Mr. Mayor, demand a Public Service call for help. Those people in those communities did not mind helping one another, just like here. You need help. You cannot do it by yourself. C. Ray nagin reverend, if you could, lets get fema to help you. If you could come on the side. You are a little fired up right now. I trust, he is a reverend. It will be all right. Next question please. Good evening i am not a reverend, but i am fired up because you said all of all of the debris hauling is going out to people from new york, chicago, california. Anytime a man bring a truck from that far, you know there is money involved. We as local people did not get any of that. It is a doggone shame that a man lives in the city of new orleans , house is paid for, we dont get nothing. That is a shame. C. Ray nagin i agree. I will get you with Don Hutchinson and see if we can help. Another thing i want to say, all of the contracts in november, they went out to the politicians friends, cousins, state representatives, city council people. That is not right. [applause] at a labor rally in baton rouge, she asked me to have a truck that loads from the rear, if i had the contract, i couldve had that truck, it did not matter. We need the contracts. It is not right. You are talking about new orleans coming back, my house is paid for. If we live like this, it is not right. C. Ray nagin lets see if we can do to help. I will get you with Don Hutchinson. We have been able to help some businesses. Maam. Good afternoon, i have a home in algiers. I have lost food. Fema put us in apartments with no refrigerators. Another thing, bring people back to new orleans. Where will the kids go to school . 90 of new orleans has kids. On Algiers Point there is a school open in good condition, they fired 30 teachers at one of the toprated schools here. They asked me to reregister a 10yearold adopted child. She is going to stay in jefferson parish. Rta drivers are driving at will. I got picked up after two hours on a bus. She was driving slowly and not picking up passengers. Lastly, the people coming in from baton rouge on the bus is terrible. They need to leave them in baton rouge. This morning i got off of the bus, i had to step over bags of clothing that they just throw from canal street all the way to tulane. It is a disgrace. Our future is our children, if they do not open the new orleans School System it will be a disaster. No one will get Social Security past 2006. C. Ray nagin thank you. It is my understanding the School System is starting to open up some schools. Five days from 10 00 until 2 00. C. Ray nagin all right. Thank you. I was here before and at the last meeting. I was instructed to talk to the derailment, i have never heard back. In the meantime, i was waiting on him to get a job, i bought a truck. Explain to me about those zones. The reason i am saying this is i pick up the debris in front of my house. Theres microwaves, dishwashers, im in my house, picking up my washer and dryer. A gentleman pulled up and said you are in the wrong district. He said, this is my zone. I said yes, this is my house. The fact is, that was my washer. I am going to make the money off of it, not him. Explain to me hi go across the street from where i live, it is a zone. Somebody from mississippi. Somebody from maryland, somebody from washington dc, because i am in their zone that is federal property, they go to jail. Enough is enough. Who sold new orleans . When did this happen . Where did the zones come from . How can Big Companies come in, big trucks come in and i have microwaves and dishwashers piled up to the ceiling. I lost everything. I am saying, i cant pick up a washing machine, if i pick it up, i go to jail. I have to pay a license to the city to pick up trash . Who gave them permission to zone off new orleans . No one can explain it to me. Thank you for your question. C. Ray nagin are you ready . The debris pickup is basically being managed through federal contracts that come through the core of engineers. This is my understanding. I believe, dont quote me on this, there were four or five major contracts left. As they were left, they divided the city up into zones. I think there are four zones. Each contractor was given the responsibility for the pickup of the debris in that particular zone. I think that is what you are running into. There is no scenario that i can think of where if you are picking up debris, you would go to jail for violating a zone. I laughed at him. I called the police for him. What i am saying is, how in the world can you tell me you have a zone. C. Ray nagin let me make sure you understand the situation that were in. The city has no revenue. We are reduced to begging for loans from the federal government, and chase bank, all of the money that is being used to clean up the city is being controlled at a whole other level. All we can do is say we want this lady to participate. We are having some success, we dont have other success. That is what is happening. That is how the zone thing happened. [indiscernible] c. Ray nagin i wish i could pay you to do the work. You are not hearing me. They are getting half of what i make. I get half of that. C. Ray nagin it is a little deeper. What can we do to help . I should be able to go anywhere. C. Ray nagin dawn, can you help her get through the bureaucracy of the debris cleanup. She knows what she is talking about. My name is k fallon, i would like to thank you and the members of the council that are here today for all of your efforts. At times it seems like a thankless job. These are difficult times and i am proud of everyone that is works for the city and us. I am hoping you can help me with my problems, they are minor compared to others. My house did not flood. Our neighborhood where i have been living for a number of years, the crime there is bad. I am not getting a lot of help from the police. There are people that have moved into dilapidated houses in my neighborhood. These are people who are not working. They are drunk in the morning, at night. Theyre selling drugs in front of my house. I have called the police. I have been referred to different sergeants in the department to call. I have called them, i have left my name, number. I have gotten no response. One night last week a group of these guys living in this one night last week a group are having a major party with a bonfire. They were shooting off firecrackers, bottle rockets, this was before the rain. I called the police, they said they will let someone know to driveby. I waited, nothing happened. The other issue is trash, there is a ton in our neighborhood not getting picked up. It is really, really bad. The marigny triangle. I have called police, left messages, and not getting a response. The only response i got was, oh, how do you know they are selling drugs . When you look at your front door and see someone selling crack, it is obvious. C. Ray nagin get this young lady your address so they can get that to the police chief. We will get action going. Thank you. Go ahead. Good afternoon, my house is on mandeville street. We have a unique problem because as you said earlier, if your home is in the flood zone and you have 50 or more damage you have to raise your home. As you may know, most of the homes are on slabs. The 30,000 that fema is allotting is not enough. It is simply a drop in the bucket. Our only hope seems to be having our damages estimated at below 50 , which is becoming a logistical nightmare. Even with proof, i myself have been to the permit office four times. I have gone with everything they have asked for, pictures, estimates, everything to prove my damage is not above 50 . At one time i checked and they said they put it below, when i checked again they put it back above. Most people in the area are on average between 51 and 55 estimated damage. That means we will have to elevate our structures. We are also being told if we do not do this, we cannot get insurance. I have not found any law on the books, the only thing i have found says that if you have four or more claims, that exceed 5,000, then, and only then can you be denied coverage. If we could get some clarity on that, maybe some help about these, a lot of it is petty. People can very easily get below that. We have elderly people, raising their houses is not an option. [applause] thank you for your question. C. Ray nagin your question deals with the process of appealing the 51 damage . Of that, and where we can find a law that states if we do not, if we have had the situations i spoke about earlier, that we will be denied coverage. Every house there was built in the early 1900s to the mid1950s. C. Ray nagin i will let greg answer that. Greg on the fema thing, that is not a city thing. That is the federal Flood Insurance act of 1975, anything built after 1975 to get Flood Insurance, the federal government mandated that all cities had to buy into the program and say you had to build the flood elevation. The law is that 1975 act. That said, when it comes to 50 , it is more of as the mayor stated, it is more of an option to help you do what you need to do. What i mean is, if you are over 50 and thereby are below flood elevation, it is a good time with fema here they can match that up to 30,000 to raise that or 28,000. For a slab house, 30,000 is a drop in the bucket. That 30,000, i have a slab house, i would spend more than my house is worth to raise it. That is not feasible. I am not wealthy, most people are working class. Maybe we need to look at some other standards. Perhaps we could look at whether or not your structure is sound. Whether or not your foundation is good. We have people in those situations. The fact that they have to gut their houses, we are not talking about people who voluntarily wanted to remodel, this is not what this is. Maybe we should look at it from another angle to help people get below that. Even with the raising, people have 10 feet of water. That would not have helped. Greg i think we can help. We are not the ones arbitrarily deciding that percentage. That comes down to the foundation and the formulas that fema gives us. If you are in that gray zone, and in your case, if the city can supports the citizen, we will. What we will do this week, if youre on that cusp, if you think there is a mistake, we will allow you to send that in a feedback page. We will have something in the same section where you can internally appeal that. We can take a second look. It is about the reality of what happened. It is not an arbitrary decision. Can i say one more thing . We have a lot of elderly people that are not well versed in the internet. Some dont even have it. They cannot get this information. Greg you can also call or fax. They dont have phone service. Is there something in the neighborhood they could read . Something practical. Greg i get it. C. Ray nagin he tried to put it in city hall, we will come out to the community and see we can get it to more people. Thank you. Next question. How are you doing . First thing, a couple of comments, for you, youre doing a good job. The word on the street, that man stayed with us, when he did not have to. Come on now, get with it, whats wrong uncle sam, are you drunk . Come on, you need to go to rehab, brother. You need a spanking. Your people need you. Come on with the nation. Now that i have that out of the way. [laughter] im a poet. My question is for my brother, asides the storm, i lost two brothers a year ago. My mom was born here. I am trying to get my family together. My brother is a painter, i cant get them here if we dont have anything to go on. He didnt speak spanish so he was unable to work. I have i need work for my brother and family, but i could bring my family back together. My grandfather laid his grounds here. C. Ray nagin are you are looking for work . Im looking for my brother. C. Ray nagin we are helping people find work. I am a local attorney, and a young businessman here. I appreciate you going to different cities and making the rest of the country aware of the situation. You need to do that all of the time. The rest of the country has forgotten us. You need to keep letting people know our situation. [applause] another thing i want to say is the people that are back here like me and other young businessman and attorneys, how long can we stay . No people, no business. We need people that. We have mortgages coming up, everyone will be dealing with mortgage companies, we need help. Had we bring people back . When he trailers, a electricity. We need to tell the people from out of state, you can come back. Do we have to wait for fema to bring trailers . Can we get the state to provide money to private Trailer Companies to put trailers up right now, and have fema reimburse the state. We need to do that now. We cannot wait. As far as energy, you guys are in trouble, and you declared bankruptcy, we need power. No good are trailers without power. If i cannot do my job, i get replaced. If energy cannot do the job, we need other Power Companies from the country to come down here and get the job done. [applause] if we can have mardi gras, while the people of new orleans they cant come back are stuck in houston, dallas, and new york city, how can we have mardi gras . The people of new orleans can not even come home. [applause] eight days of tourism is great, we dont have housing for the people of new orleans but we have housing for tourists . Come on. Lets speak up for the people of new orleans. They are our people. When they come back they bring revenue every day for the rest of their lives. Not eight days for mardi gras. I love my girl. Gras. Ove mardi we will get back