New Orleans - Jewish Community Fearful As New Hurricane Season Begin
New Orleans - For the last eight months, Joel Colman has lived in a 30-ft trailer parked on the grounds of New Orleans’ Temple Sinai.
It’s convenient to his job - after all, Colman is the synagogue’s cantor - “Quite frankly, living here there’s not a lot of separation between work and not work,” said Colman the 48-year-old cantor, whose house was severely damaged by last year’s Hurricane Katrina, and proudly showing off the mezuzah affixed to the trailer’s entrance.
Colman, knows he’s one of the lucky ones he only had to wait a few months for his $70,000 trailer, which is parked at Temple Sinai because there’s not enough room on his front lawn. Yet Colman won't be so lucky if even a weak hurricane strikes the Gulf Coast during the 2006 hurricane season, which officially began on June 1.
Like everyone else here, the Jews of New Orleans worry that the 2006 hurricane season could bring more unpleasant surprises.
Especially vulnerable are people like Colman, who are stuck in flimsy FEMA trailers not built to withstand hurricane-force winds. “The trailers are a huge issue. No one believes they'll stand up to anything, not even in the wake of a 25-mph wind,” says Adam Brownstone. “People aren't meant to live in them for a long time, but obviously people have, in the absence of housing and delays with insurance and getting contractors. All that has inhibited people from moving back to their homes.”
In fact, says Brownstone, only 65 percent of New Orleans’ 9,500 Jews have returned to the city in the nine months since Katrina’s devastation.
It’s convenient to his job - after all, Colman is the synagogue’s cantor - “Quite frankly, living here there’s not a lot of separation between work and not work,” said Colman the 48-year-old cantor, whose house was severely damaged by last year’s Hurricane Katrina, and proudly showing off the mezuzah affixed to the trailer’s entrance.
Colman, knows he’s one of the lucky ones he only had to wait a few months for his $70,000 trailer, which is parked at Temple Sinai because there’s not enough room on his front lawn. Yet Colman won't be so lucky if even a weak hurricane strikes the Gulf Coast during the 2006 hurricane season, which officially began on June 1.
Like everyone else here, the Jews of New Orleans worry that the 2006 hurricane season could bring more unpleasant surprises.
Especially vulnerable are people like Colman, who are stuck in flimsy FEMA trailers not built to withstand hurricane-force winds. “The trailers are a huge issue. No one believes they'll stand up to anything, not even in the wake of a 25-mph wind,” says Adam Brownstone. “People aren't meant to live in them for a long time, but obviously people have, in the absence of housing and delays with insurance and getting contractors. All that has inhibited people from moving back to their homes.”
In fact, says Brownstone, only 65 percent of New Orleans’ 9,500 Jews have returned to the city in the nine months since Katrina’s devastation.
posted by VOS IZ NEIAS @ 6/05/2006 09:53:00 AM
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