It's about goddamned time!

The WSJ is finally writing the stories that our sleepy-town local media should be all over.

Nearly two years after Katrina, city officials are toughening enforcement of an ordinance giving them the power to bulldoze homes and businesses that remain smashed, moldy or abandoned. Last month, the city published more than 1,700 notices filling 25 newspaper pages in the Times-Picayune. The tiny print announced that the properties had been classified as a “serious, imminent and continuing threat to the public health, safety and welfare” — and would be demolished after 30 business days.

City officials, trying to step up the struggling city’s comeback, have said they plan to flatten 10,000 hurricane-ravaged properties this year.

But the bulging list of doomed buildings includes some that weren’t damaged much by Katrina or that have already been significantly repaired — with building permits to prove it. Often, these property owners don’t even know they’re on the demolition list, because warning letters that are supposed to be mailed to them never arrive. City officials also are required to post a sign at every property on the list, but some owners say that hasn’t happened.

The result is a bewildered scramble to save historic narrow shotgun houses, Creole cottages and a hodgepodge of other buildings officially deemed unsalvagable. Owners race to City Hall, send pleas to preservationists and erect “DO NOT DEMOLISH!” signs that they hope will look convincing to bulldozer crews. For many, the effort comes on top of months spent wrestling with soaring insurance costs, searching for a building contractor and the frustrating slog of post-Katrina life in the still-devastated city.

Karen Gadbois has been compiling photos of the properties on this insane demolition list here.

Meanwhile... the topic of conversation on WWL this morning is all about how New Orleans's population isn't coming back because we have too many of the "wrong type of people" here and are addled by a "lazy mentality"

I'm angry and I'm cranky.. and now I'm late for work.

Update: Check out the WSJ multimedia page that accompanies this story.

Also: Check out the appropriately themed Suspect-Device comic.