How will the oil spill affect us?
This year marks the fifth anniversary of the levee failure in New Orleans and you know what someone asked me yesterday? “Is New Orleans doing okay? Is it coming back?” I was a little surprised because I got these questions a lot in the first couple of years and my response was pretty standard – “You can come to New Orleans as a tourist and not even know that something big happened.” So when people ask about the oil spill and how it will affect us, I just shake my head. Already I’m hearing that people are avoiding seafood from the Gulf, that vacationers are canceling trips to Florida and Alabama beaches, and this is only month two of this horrible catastrophe.
The one thing I can tell you is New Orleans is doing just fine and there are many of us who believe that having gone through the levee failure of 2005 made it easier for us to go through the historic downturn in the economy. There are some that believe that this oil spill is making us scrappier and tougher and that we will survive this like we have past events and we will come out of this better – with a plan for our energy consumption, with a plan for Louisiana’s wetlands, with a plan for a different way.
Hope dies last.