The French Quarter, relatively untouched by hurricane Katrina, is bustling, and businesses are being courted to New Orleans, but a good deal of the rest of the city and the Gulf region remain devastated. Awash in corruption, cronyism and incompetence, the reconstruction effort is a mess. Billions of money designated to the effort is not getting to those in need — 42% of funds set aside for rebuilding and relief has not even been spent. The federal H2B “guestworker” visa program was set up for employers to hire people for the rebuilding effort. Because of the lack of oversight, abuse or workers, kidnapping and even modern-day slavery is occuring on the Gulf Coast.
To get a true sense of what it is like two years later, go to Voices from the Gulf from ColorofChange.org — unvarnished video perspectives from the region.
The Institute for Southern Studies has published Blueprint for Gulf Renewal: The Katrina Crisis and a Community Agenda for Action.
On September 15, 2005, President Bush pledged that our nation would “do what it takes, and stay as long as it takes,” to rebuild the Gulf Coast. Yet over 60,000 people are still in “temporary” FEMA trailers, and houses, hospitals and schools across the region remain shuttered. For thousands of people, the Katrina recovery has failed.
The study, published in collaboration with Oxfam America and the Jewish Funds for Justice, looks at 80 statistical indicators and draws on interviews with more than 40 Gulf Coast leaders to identify roadblocks to recovery, and ways federal leaders can tackle critical needs in the region like housing, jobs and coastal protection.
The study also features “Where did the Katrina money go?” — an in-depth analysis of federal Katrina spending since 2005. The Institute reveals that, out of the $116 billion in Katrina funds allocated, less than 30% has gone towards long-term rebuilding — and less than half of that 30% has been spent, much less reached those most in need.
26 Responses to “Katrina, two years later”
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There was an interesting story in the New Orleans Times-Picayune yesterday about how Mississippi, with a Republican governor and through the efforts of Republican senator Thad Cochran, is getting a much much larger share, relative to damage suffered, than Louisiana with our Deomcratic mayor:
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-9/1188284619298400.xml&coll=1
There’s a weird feeling in N.O. here today. I don’t really know what I feel, as I look out my office window upon the sparkling-new-topped Superdome, next to the New Orleans Centre — formerly a shopping mall and office tower, which STILL sits here sporting hundreds of broken windows and shreds of curtains flapping in the breeze. At least it’s been giving our homeless a place to sleep, since we sorely lack any shelters.
um, “Democratic governor” I meant to say. States have governors, yes.
I can’t believe it’s been two years.
I remember the day it happened, at first not knowing how terrible it was, but sitting there watching television listening to a man describe how he held on to his wife’s hand and a tree until he could no longer maintain a hold on her. It was crushing. He was just wandering around looking for her.
I remember talking to my mother, crying in rage, ready to renounce my citizenship over this. (If I had a place to go, I might still be willing to do so).
I am ashamed to be an American. Deeply ashamed.
I don’t know if y’all have seen this, yet.
That sums it up perfectly for me.
Hmm…Looks like the image I tried loading didn’t work. Err, you can get it on a site that I post on here. I always feel shady linking to things that I work on, but the image itself is powerful.
This country’s values were turned upside down and obliterated.
Not talking about it won’t make it go away.
We are not okay.
Katrina happened two years ago, and New Orleans still hasn’t gotten the money it needs to fullly recover from the costliest storm in US history. It is a worldwide disgrace. Our federal, state, and local governments don’t care about anyone who is on this planet.
We do NOT need this so-called less government nonsense from our good-for-nothing leaders! We need leaders that will help the people!
I remember when the rains from Katrina made it up here to Maine, I was walking my pug. And it was such a warm, torrential, tropical rain- I remember thinking that it felt like a downpour of tears.
What really shocks me is the katrina refugees that over the last two years have been just left and forgotten in occasionally-toxic trailers. There is no apparent interest around in either what happened to these people, where they went, or whether they have a way to support themselves. When they do surface in the media, the impression one gets is largely that of people kept in cages.
Is anyone going to do anything to help restore normalcy to these people who, two years later, still qualify as refugees? Government? Private charity? Anybody?
I was in NOLA a month or so ago…I wouldn’t say the French Quarter is “bustling”, really. There are still many stores and restaurants that are closed, buildings boarded up, etc., and the musty smell permeates even the FQ. The things that hit me the strongest during my visit were the percentage of visitors vs. residents (so few residents in comparison to before the storm) and the lack of stray animals in the streets. I mean, I have NEVER been in a city where there were not stray cats everywhere. My friend & I didn’t see ONE stray cat while we were there. I guess they have just not repopulated the area yet.
On a positive note, the people of NO have a great “F-U” attitude towards it all…basically a belief that they are strong enough to survive anything after that disaster. And they have retained their sense of humor above all…I saw some great t-shirts, etc. with humorous slogans relating to FEMA, etal while I was there. It’s still a great city, just different than before the storm.
I remember him, MA Jeff- Charlie and I were equally horrified.
Interesting how the “run government like a business” meme seems to have completely disappeared from the republican vocabulary. Businesses, after all, have accountants and other mechanisms to keep their expenses down and their expenditures well targeted.
I guess when they elected an incompetent businessman dependent on handouts from Sheiks, they really were trying to drown government in a bathtub - and the people of the US as well.
I remember when those same warm rains hit MA. We were camping on Cape Cod - in a yurt, thankfully - and were driving back to Boston because the day was clearly going to be a washout and we wanted to check on our cats and retrieve a second bicycle as both kids had learned to ride solo in the previous days.
I remember driving through the upper cape in the driving warm rain, trying to keep the windows clear and listening to the local college radio station as they played every single cover version of Leonard Cohen’s “hallelujah” that they could find. Kind of set the mood, that.
In the past, I have always loved warm tropical rains like that and have often stripped down to frolic in them- but not that one. Not in a killer rain.
The Bush regime is deliberately sabotaging the recovery effort to promote its white supremacist political agenda and to make Louisiana a red state.
The current mis-administration is yet more proof that there are some people who are incapable doing constructive things.
For some of those people, being destructive as as good or better than being constructive.
We are being “lead” by some of the worst people ever.
“I am ashamed to be an American. Deeply ashamed.”
MAJeff, many of us feel the same way…
and, consequently, we have quite a rodent problem.
shartheheretic @9:
I’ve been reading too many political blogs; I immediately translated that into Friedman Units and thought, well Jesus, they’ve been waiting for 4 FUs and it’s not fixed yet….
I recently saw a CNN article discussing the $47-a-head tourist trade in bus tours through the neighborhoods that are still completely destroyed. It was pretty disgusting. I know that’s the emotional manipulation CNN was going for, but in this one case, I’ll play into their hands.
If global warming is a reality then what is the point of trying to rebuild New Orleans?
It will just suffer the same fate or worse in a few years time when the oceans warm up (they have cooled atm due to melting polar ice caps) again.
I remember driving through the upper cape in the driving warm rain, trying to keep the windows clear and listening to the local college radio station as they played every single cover version of Leonard Cohen’s “hallelujah” that they could find. Kind of set the mood, that.
That gave me chills.
I was in NO in May, and what struck me was the number of “Help Wanted” signs in the bars and restaurants in the ‘Quarter. It was stunning.
My brother and I disagree on whether, if you didn’t know something had happened, you’d be able to tell something had happened.
I maintain that yes, you would. No major tourist magnet has signs like that up in those numbers.
Let me guess, your White. My great grand mother died in her 90’s, and her mother was a slave. My family were slaves right until the civil war. Equating h2b visas to several generations of my family being owned like cattle is offensive, overblown, and typical of White liberals who see all minorites and their “plight” the as the same thing.
I know your trying to do a “good thing”, from your loft, but this one really offeded me and some of my family i showed it to
Not that you care, jus my two cents.
Rob, Pam is not white. Your offense should not be with her reporting of this, but with the folks at the Institute for Southern Studies. The phrasing used is theirs.
Louise, looking at Rob Taylor’s web site seems to indicate that he neither knows nor cares what Pam’s race is. He seems bound to be pissed regardless. He probably cares more about her being liberal (and lesbian?) than anything…
Agreed, MikeEss; I did look first and saw what you saw. But I also respect Pam very, very highly- she is among those people whose writings make me think.
actually I’m pro Gay rights and gay marriage, why should I care if this Pam was a Lesbian. What on my site implied that I was anything but pro-live their own life and anti-rely on the White establishment who doesn’t care about us.
If Pam’s Black, than to my “sister” I’d say it’s time we put our foot down and stopped letting White’s equate the Black American experience to any other groups supposed plight. It’s time we also stopped pretending that White Liberal largess was anything other than what it is, a pretention that hurts Blacks by creating a parent/child relationship rather than these Whites seeing us as equals.
I’m not pissed off by anything, but I am offended, whether Pam’s White or not, by the insinuation that 100 years of my family being owned by Whites is the same as shifty corporations shorting their workers money and services, than be called to account for it.
Rob Taylor, first Pam IS black, by the common conventions of this country, and she self identifies as such.
She also posted the same thread on AMERICABlog (where she has been a guest host), and on her own blog, Pam’s House Blend.
Not quite sure why you’re putting all your
angerpissynesswhatever on Pam - I seriously doubt she deserves it for simply pointing out that NOLA is still not fixed and there’s been a bunch of shenanigans going on with the money.Pam’s in NYC this weekend, but if you have a serious problem with her pointing out problems affecting the “black community” in the Gulf then I guess you can take them up with her when she gets back…
I do agree with what Rob said, albeit without a personal family connection as he has- there WAS an offensive and gross oversimplification in ISS’s comparison. And frankly, they SHOULD have known better, unless they were hoping to manipulate the emotions this phrasing evokes.
So it’s either (IMO) sloppy writing or exploitation. Neither is good and distracts from the problems they were trying to report about.