Isolated in the burbs

At least he's home

Evacuees face urban-dwellers' nightmare: suburbia
Without cars they struggle to live in remote complexes

By Asher Price
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, November 21, 2005

Peering out from a white-fenced balcony that looks out on nothing much, Katrina evacuee Stephanie Gleason said, "To tell the truth, I don't know where we live."

There is no bus stop here. The nearest supermarket is a $20 cab ride away.

It's a long haul with groceries for 8-year-old Tatyana Thompson. She and her parents take a $20 cab ride from their Eagles Landing apartment on Decker Lane to a Wal-Mart to stock up on food. Many evacuees landed in Austin without cars and are now far from services.

Gleason's cookie-cutter apartment complex, Eagles Landing, feels more like a bird cage than a nest.

Flushed out of their city — one of the most dense and most vibrant in the country — many of the New Orleanians who came here car-less find themselves living amid Austin's car-enabled sprawl.

Asmany as 7,300 hurricane evacuees are now in the Austin area, and many live along the city's newest fringes in apartment complexes that, for the very reason of their remoteness, had vacancies before the evacuees came along.
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As time passes and the chances of returning to New Orleans dwindle, many of the residents here have grown restless, bored and homesick.

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The bus into town is a harsh walk more than two miles away, past car dealerships, along roads without sidewalks and under a highway.

"New Orleans felt more like the city where you could walk to the store and buy nachos or pickles," said Joyce Peters, an evacuee living with her husband, daughters and grandchildren.

At the Polo Club, she relies on one of the complex's employees to give her a lift to the Fiesta supermarket, more than a dozen miles each way, so she can pick up some dirty rice and beans.

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Because Congress refuses to pay for this without politics and FEMA is disorganized, these people will suffer.

posted by Steve @ 12:28:00 AM