New Orleans Port Cleanup

September 29, 2005 by Splatty  
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One month after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulfport area, the Port of New Orleans is now operating at 20% capacity. Experts estimate that the total cost to bring the port back to full operating capacity is 1.7 billion dollars and could take months if not years to complete the necessary repairs. Read the entire article here.

On a related note, cargo containers that were swept all over the Gulfport area are causing quite a stink. Hurricane Katrina blew containers, many filled with costly spoiled cargo, into housing neighborhoods and business areas. Residents of the areas are tired of the smell and the nuisance caused by their presence.

Restaurant owner Bill Vrazel, who hopes to reopen his damaged family business quickly, got fed up with the 14 containers clogging his parking lot. So he paid a contractor to rid his property of the hulking, stinking metal boxes.

City leaders want the companies to remove their own debris. Port officials say they can’t move equipment they don’t own. And a spokesman for one company said it only received permission Tuesday afternoon from Gulfport officials to start cleaning up.

So it remains unclear who will move the containers and when.

“There is so much to do, we don’t want to be slowed down,” Vrazel said. “That port ought to start one week ahead of time and move (the containers) to the other side of the tracks. This happened in Camille. There ought to be a lesson in this.”

Last weekend, a backhoe tugged and dragged containers away from Vrazel’s Fine Food Restaurant on Beach Boulevard. But a mangled container with mysterious rotting cargo still sits in an empty lot next to Bobbie Hawkins’ shattered home on Rich Avenue.

The container destroyed a neighbor’s house before landing in the middle of the road. It was later pushed into the side yard when the roads were cleared, Hawkins said.

“That came from the port. They should come get it. They have the trucks and the equipment,” Hawkins said. “It smelled so bad, I almost threw up.”

Looks like this problem will get worse before it gets better.

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