Katrina Victims Take on Hurricane Tour Operators

October 5, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticle1 Comments

Some New Orleans residents and city officials are pushing back against tour operators who bus out-of-towners into the city’s Lower 9th Ward, where Hurricane Katrina unleashed a wall of water that pushed homes off foundations and stranded residents on rooftops when the levees failed.

About 9 million people visit New Orleans each year, mostly to see its stately homes along oak-lined avenues, dine at its renowned restaurants and take in the jazz and ribaldry of Bourbon Street. But Katrina’s devastation in August 2005 unleashed an unexpected cottage tourism industry, drawing a daily parade of rubbernecking tourists for a close-up look at the city’s hard-hit Lower 9th Ward.

Worried that a flood of tour buses and vans would interfere with clean-up efforts, the City Council approved an ordinance in 2006 banning them from crossing the prominent Industrial Canal entering the neighborhood that received Katrina’s fury. Now, tour operators are crying foul, claiming the ordinance had been thinly enforced until recently.

They say a business that is bringing them and the city tourist dollars is being hurt.

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Colorado Wildfire Victims Returning to Homes

April 3, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

The Lower North Fork wildfire in Jefferson County, Colo. is nearly 100 percent contained, and with all remaining evacuation and pre-evacuation orders lifted on Tuesday residents were returning to their homes.

The fire, believed to have been started by a prescribed burn by Colorado State Forest Service and fanned by high winds on Monday, consumed 4,140 acres and destroyed 25 structures. It also killed three people.

At one point the fire had forced the evacuation of 900 homes, and required more than 700 firefighting personnel, plus numerous aircraft and helicopters to drop fire retardants and water.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has been assisting with funding and firefighting activities. FEMA Urban Search and Rescue had been conducting a search for one person still missing in the area. That person was later found dead in a burned down residence.

There are no estimates available yet on insured losses.

If the Forest Service is found to be responsible for starting the fire, under a Colorado law, which limits liability for the state and its taxpayers, the state would only be liable to pay up to $600,000 total.

Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetCategories: West NewsTopics: Colorado State Forest Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, Liability, Lower North Fork wildfire, wildfireHave a hot lead? Email us at newsdesk

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