NYT: A full-page advertisement – set to appear in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call today – pleads with Congress to pay for stronger levees in the devasted city of New Orleans.
It also reminds the lawmakers that things are far from normal in a city where block after block remains ghostly and dark.
“Since the breakdown of the New Orleans flood protection system on August 29, 2005, we have lived like refugees in our own country,” the advertisement says. “The residents of Lakeview and countless other displaced New Orleans communities are sending you this holiday wish in one voice – ‘We want to go home.’ ”
The advertisement was born of desperation, said Nancy McSwain, who helped put it together. Ms. McSwain, whose Lakeview home took in over eight feet of water and has been looted three times since, is now living in a one-room apartment in Jackson, Miss.
The advertisement cost nearly $10,000, which was collected online from Lakeview residents, organizers said.
