For about two years after Hurricane Katrina, not a day would go by without memories of the protracted nightmare interfering with my daily thoughts. I had grown up in New Orleans, and in a horrific four days spanning from August 29th to September 1st, 2005, most of what I knew about life had crumbled down. I stayed with my family, maybe imprudently, to ride out the storm in a decade-old hotel in the French Quarter. Vertical Evacuation in our own city, we thought, would be better than the ceaseless hours of bumper-to-bumper traffic to some squalid roadside motel further inland. We would all regret that decision later, as a surreal scene of food shortages, power outages, looting, unrelenting heat, and the post-apocalyptic landscape of New Orleans took ahold as our new reality.

Water began rising in the streets, and like a shot in the dark, we trekked back blindly to whatever would remain of our house in Uptown — anything would be better than the disintegrating conditions Downtown. The New Orleans Police, the Louisiana National Guard, the State itself had fallen into confusion and disarray. A radio station broadcasting from Baton Rouge warned of a scourge of criminals, gangs, and looters who were bent on mayhem. Nobody wanted to second-guess these reports, and a survivalist mentality fell over what we once had called the Big Easy.

Neighbors put up signs such as this one to ward off strangers who veered on to our block:

Our house had, by the roll of a dice, been spared from the devastation. We spent one gut wrenching night holed -up in the house before fleeing the city in a family friends’ ditched Toyota Camry.

We were the lucky ones. Others were not so lucky:

Ninth Ward, New Orleans

So many people I knew had their homes and neighborhoods inundated with up to 14 feet of water or otherwise skewered by falling trees, debris, and sheer wind.

Lakeview, New Orleans

Adding to it all was the failure of government officials at all levels to take the rebuilding of New Orleans seriously. (1115 has documented it well in the past six years).

With the East Coast reeling from the damage of Hurricane Irene, we can only hope that the new Disaster-Response line-up of President Obama, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and FEMA Director Craig Fugate have learned from the mistakes of their predecessors.

Of Interest: 1 Dead in Attic, Chris Rose

]]> http://www.1115.org/2011/08/29/six-years-after-katrina/feed/ 0 http://www.1115.org/2011/08/26/republicans-responsibility-and-natural-disasters/ http://www.1115.org/2011/08/26/republicans-responsibility-and-natural-disasters/#comments Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:15:47 +0000 nathan http://www.1115.org/?p=15128  

As we approach the six year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, funding for disaster preparedness and response has become somewhat of a non-starter for congressional Republicans. Leading the pack is Eric Cantor of Virginia who has previously demanded that congress offset spending for disaster relief in the wake of the deadly tornados in the Midwest earlier this year that killed over 100 people and leveled entire towns. This time, he has kept this callous opinion of federal involvement in disaster stricken areas and affirmed that any aid for property damage from the East Coast earthquake must be offset by other federal spending. In fact, he has gone so far as to blame the victims for not having earthquake insurance despite the rarity of such an event:

“There is an appropriate federal role in incidents like this,” the Republican said after touring the damage in his district. “Obviously, the problem is that people in Virginia don’t have earthquake insurance.”

This blasé attitude towards natural disasters has become a hallmark of Republican philosophy in the past few years. No longer does the idea of responsibility exist for them as government officials. A natural disaster is a random and unpredictable occurrence that can happen anywhere to anyone at any time. Eric Cantor, and many others in congress, just can’t find it in their hearts to, for once, stave off their individualistic libertarian ideology and perceive the human despair caused by catastrophe. After a natural disaster, the last thing anybody needs is coldhearted rationality.

Hurricane Irene is now barreling towards the East Coast and is inevitably going to affect tens of millions of Americans in one way or another. What level of destruction Irene will wreak is anybody’s guess, but I think it’s fair to say that we shouldn’t expect congressional Republicans such as Eric Cantor to go out of their way to make things better.

Since this is apparently (see, I don’t trust him about anything at all) the last time I get to poke fun at a Bush presidential press conference, I’m going to go over the whole darn thing, and underline every last statement that anyone with any sense would still be cringing about a week from now.

I’ve thought long and hard about Katrina — you know, could I have done something differently, like land Air Force One either in New Orleans or Baton Rouge.

After hours of introspective soul-searching, George W. Bush — the compassionate conservative, if you remember, who only on Sunday exhorted his party “We’ve got to be compassionate conservatives.” — can come up with only one thing he might have done differently in responding to Katrina, and that is to land Air Force One either in New Orleans or Baton Rouge? This man has a real talent for vividly evoking the same word over and over again in fresh and forceful ways: asinine.

Not having weapons of mass destruction was a significant disappointment. I don’t know if you want to call those mistakes or not, but they were — things didn’t go according to plan, let’s put it that way.

Dear George, nobody but you would even think of calling “not having weapons of mass destruction” a mistake. Not even “not finding weapons of mass destruction”. Invading Iraq, now that was a mistake. Insisting on cherry-picking and distorting the intelligence to convince America that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, that was a mistake. But finding that Saddam Hussein didn’t have weapons of mass destruction was just inevitable. Not only was it not a mistake, dear George, it shouldn’t even have been a surprise. And, you know, you really can’t call something you knew in your heart to be true all along a significant disappointment. Not without doing significant violence to both the English language and the truth. But you, of course, have always had a real talent for doing significant violence to both at the same time.

I strongly disagree with the assessment that our moral standing has been damaged. … And I understand that Gitmo has created controversies. But when it came time for those countries that were criticizing America to take some of those — some of those detainees, they weren’t willing to help out. And so, you know, I just disagree with the assessment, Mike.

Priceless, vintage George Bush. Because countries that criticize Gitmo are not willing to take some of the detainees, that proves our moral standing in the world has not been damaged. Another of his real talents on display right there: trampling on logic with hobnailed boots

I’ll remind — listen, I tell people, yes, you can try to be popular. In certain quarters in Europe, you can be popular by blaming every Middle Eastern problem on Israel.

Why, in certain states in America, you can be popular by blindly supporting Israel no matter what it does, by letting the Prime Minister of Israel order you around, by letting him tell you to tell your Secretary of State what to do. Only a colossally mega-dumbass American politician would invoke Israel as an example when trying to argue that he doesn’t go for cheap popularity.

And in terms of the decisions that I had made to protect the homeland, I wouldn’t worry about popularity. What I would worry about is the Constitution of the United States…

My sentiments exactly, Mr. President!

And some of them doesn’t like me, I understand that …

Grammatically consistent till the very end of his presidential tenure. But let the man finish:

And some of them doesn’t like me, I understand that — some of the writers and the, you know, opiners and all that. That’s fine, that’s part of the deal.

It’s not just the writers and opiners. Maybe you haven’t heard, but some 70% of us doesn’t like you, Mr. President, or care for what you did to the country.

And I built a team of really capable people who were there not to serve me, or there to serve the Republicans, they were there to serve the country.

A little verbal typo, there. He really meant to say “who were there not to serve me, or there to serve the country, they were there to serve Dick Cheney.”

Mr. President, on New Orleans, you basically talked about a moment ago about the photo opportunity. But let’s talk about what you could have done to change the situation for the city of New Orleans to be further along in reconstruction than where it is now. …

THE PRESIDENT: Sure, thanks. First of all, we did get the $121 billion, more or less, passed, and it’s now being spent. Secondly, the school system is improving dramatically. Thirdly, people are beginning to move back into homes. This storm was a devastating storm, April, that required a lot of energy, a lot of focus and a lot of resources to get New Orleans up and running.

This is surrealistic even for a Bush press conference. The question was what he could have done to speed up reconstruction in New Orleans. In misdirected response, Bush proudly points to the fact that people are beginning to move back into homes, almost 40 months after Katrina hit.

But Bush was nowhere near done spouting garbage about Katrina, and showing how deeply he has thought about Katrina over the years:

People said, well, the federal response was slow. Don’t tell me the federal response was slow when there was 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed. I remember going to see those helicopter drivers, Coast Guard drivers, to thank them for their courageous efforts to rescue people off roofs. Thirty thousand people were pulled off roofs right after the storm moved through. It’s a pretty quick response.

Could things have been done better? Absolutely. Absolutely. But when I hear people say, the federal response was slow, then what are they going to say to those chopper drivers, or the 30,000 that got pulled off the roofs?

No wonder he thought Brownie did a heckuva job. As far he’s concerned, the only role the federal government was called upon to play in response to Katrina was pulling people off roofs. (And shouldn’t the brave and fearless National Guard pilot know not to call the guys who fly helicopters drivers?)

Funny how he remembers only the helicopter drivers pulling people off roofs, and he forgets everything else about Katrina, forgets especially all the unforgettable images from the Superdome that made all of America cringe in shame for days on end.

But that’s George Bush for you. In his presidency, it was always “opposites day”. And he was, after all, the compassionate conservative who came to unite, not to divide us.

I feel a bit guilty because I’ll be shooting the Long Beach Blues Festival instead of New Orleans, but that’s life.

As a heads up, next week will be a bit slow around here as I’ll be traveling and Sarabeth is still out of internets range.

Some of my Katrina photos are going to be featured on Hardcore Sports Radio‘s Drive This show this afternoon. They’ll be discussing the contributions of pro athletes to New Orleans’ recovery with sports columnist Dave Zirin. The show is simulcast on The Score television network from 4-6pm EDT (1-3pm PDT), which is where the photos come in. So you can watch on The Score or online. They also do video podcasts if you miss it.

If you’re new to 1115.org, Katrina and the condition of New Orleans are big topics here.

My photos from the first and second anniversaries of Katrina can be found here. The posts that followed those trips are “A Victory Lap for Broken Promises” and “Two Years Later”. The rest of our Katrina-related posts are here.

Thanks to Aaron at Sirius.

Five damn days, five long days
And at the end of the fifth you walkin in like, “Hey!”
Chillin on his vacation sittin patiently
Them black folks gotta hope, gotta wait and see
If FEMA really comes through in an emergency
But nobody seems to have a sense of urgency

K-Otix – “George Bush Doesn’t Care About Black People”

Last year, as the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approached, I began noticing that national media accounts of conditions in New Orleans were emphasizing progress, and that made me curious. We had spent a lot of time here collecting reports that told a different story, and it became clear that if I wanted to know what was really going on, I’d have to check it out myself. I arrived in New Orleans and was instantly horrified by what I saw. Trips to the 9th Ward and Lakeview left me with photos and mental images that will be with me for the rest of my life. If you think I’m exaggerating, click the links.

I’m no stranger to decay and urban blight. I grew up in a dying steel town, and have been documenting the rust and rubble of Pittsburgh for years. But nothing I’d experienced before could even compare to seeing houses that had been swept off their foundations resting in the middle of streets. Or cars flipped over, stacked on top of each other, or crushed by runaway buildings. It only got worse as I stuck my head through doors and windows and saw peoples’ belongings, everyday items like sofas, televisions, and family photos in piles, covered by dried mud, mold, and insects.

As if I needed context, this photo provided just that:

The Katrina recovery debate has taken some bizarre, and frankly insane, paths, but for me, it all comes back to what it means to have a home, and be home. While some like to play “blame the victim,” and others take extreme rhetorical measures to justify the slow pace of aid or posit that said aid is both generous and undeserved – sometimes simultaneously – the fact remains that the areas affected by Katrina were places people called home. Gentilly was home. Lakeview was home. And yes, the 9th Ward was home. So it has always been a bit disorienting to watch those who were so outraged by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Kelo decision on eminent domain turn out to be the same people who want to ban rebuilding in the flooded neighborhoods. I don’t imagine the lunatics who issued death threats on the Justices and politicians are also fighting for the return of the Lower 9th.

Taking their cues from then-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, many on the right called for abandoning and “bulldozing” the entire city due to the fact that it is under sea level. Forget that New Orleans has always been below sea level. Forget that Italy, Holland, England, Japan and more have lowlands that to one degree or another are protected. Advocates of turning New Orleans into the world’s largest ghost town either don’t think that the United States, supposed greatest country ever, is capable of protecting one if its most unique cities, or don’t think it’s worth it. Rah! Rah! Go Team! Go!

So as I made my way back to New Orleans for the second anniversary of Katrina, I was sad to see which arguments were winning. My post last year, A Victory Lap for Broken Promises detailed all the ways in which the recovery had not lived up to the rhetoric from the President’s address from Jackson Square where he promised:

And tonight I also offer this pledge of the American people: Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives. And all who question the future of the Crescent City need to know there is no way to imagine America without New Orleans, and this great city will rise again.

In many respects, the second year post Katrina gave lie to this pledge even more than the first. While the administration is quick to brag about all the money they have set aside for rebuilding, people can’t live in set asides. The Road Home program designed to help uninsured homeowners has been rife with delays, no wonder since it was outsourced to a for-profit company. People still live in toxic FEMA trailers in gravel parking lots and driveways of their decimated homes. This isn’t an accident and it isn’t incompetence. No one need look any further than who President Bush originally chose to oversee the recovery/rebuilding: Karl Rove. And just like he did in the weeks after 9/11, Rove steered policy according to politics. Where patriotism was used to marginalize opponents and energize allies in 2001, veiled racism took over in 2005. The racist base of the Republican party is delighted by the condition of New Orleans, and if you don’t believe me, check out C-SPAN any time the topic is Katrina. And with upcoming Gubernatorial and U.S. Senate elections, the payoff will come at the ballot box: the poorest and blackest New Orleanians are still in Atlanta, Houston, Dallas and elsewhere. Heckuva job, Rovie!

While it’s fitting to blame Rove, at the end of every day, George W. Bush is still the President. He is responsible for setting priorities and moving the executive branch to action. The man who has ceded himself unlimited extra-Constitutional powers hasn’t done this. He constantly forces Louisiana officials to beg for the resources they need while granting every wish made by the Republican Governor of Mississippi Haley Barbour who in turn funnels the money to his lobbying clients and business partners. For a fraction of what we’ve spent to lose wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, New Orleans could be fully rebuilt complete with fail safe levees. Yet as war spending accelerates, money for the New Orleans hits one choke point after another. What remains in many areas is exactly what I saw one year ago, the only change further decay and taller weeds.

I understand that it’s hard to maintain a state of outrage for two whole years, but these pictures tell the story of an American city two years after a tragedy, not Bosnia in the middle of a civil war. If we lived in the great country the flag-wavers say we do, this wouldn’t be allowed to stand. Then again we wouldn’t have elected a barely-functioning retard to lead – or mislead – us.

What truly is American is the resolve that New Orleanians have, and that seems to have grown since last year. There is some progress, even a few new houses sitting beside the wreckage of what was lost in the flood. Population has gone from less than 50% of pre-Katrina levels to something like 60% now. But without federal leadership and money, this progress will either stall out, or result in a permanently different socioeconomic makeup than before. New Orleans’ diversity and its cultural mashup is what made it a great city. Not only do its citizens deserve their city back, we all do. Unfortunately that looks like a long shot at this point. Heckuva job.

*More of my Katrina second anniversary photos are on Flickr.

I’ll have my Katrina anniversary photos up tomorrow with some thoughts about what’s going on here. For now, I’ll say it’s telling that the President made a point of making a lot of promises in a very public speech shortly after the storm. This year his schedule consisted of eating dinner with some local celebrities and politicians, visiting a charter school, and then taking off. Not much for residents here, or any Americans for that matter, to give thanks for.

So, like many Americans, Lott decided to sue. Many have already noted the irony of a famously pro-business and anti-lawsuit politician (this post by David Sirota has a few choice quotes) deciding to throw his lot in with the evil trial lawyers. It’s amusing, but hardly news anymore; people have been documenting Lott’s apparent hypocrisy on this issue for months.

What is new, however, are the revelations of how Lott has used the full power of his office in order to fight back against the insurance companies:

He said he inserted a provision into legislation, signed by President Bush last week, directing the Department of Homeland Security to investigate potential fraud by the insurance industry. Mr. Lott said he was also drafting legislation to challenge the industry’s exemptions from antitrust laws and had asked his staff to investigate the industry’s tax rates.

While I am certainly no fan of insurance companies, the idea that the Department of Homeland Security—you know, the guys who are supposed to be protecting us from terrorists and such—is now investigating insurance fraud is just lunacy, as if they are a private detective squad ready to solve any lawmaker’s personal pet peeve. He’s not the first, though: a lot of you will remember that Tom DeLay was accused of using the department to track down Democratic legislators during the whole Texas redistricting business.

As for looking into the insurance industry’s tax rates and antitrust policies, I’m too cynical to think that Lott’s motivation extends anywhere beyond the reality of his own situation. When lawsuits surrounding Katrina policies are finally settled, will Lott keep up fighting the good fight? Where will he be on the other facets of American life which are being strangled by insurance issues, such as health care? Where will he be if another disaster—a big earthquake, for instance—creates an insurance meltdown in a part of a country where he doesn’t personally live?

He’ll be on his rebuilt front porch, yapping about frivolous lawsuits and competitive business environments, because by then it will be someone else’s problem.

Renewal Money for New Orleans Bypasses Renters (NYT):

As billions in housing aid begins to flow here in the next few weeks, most of it will go to homeowners, who have been appointed by city officials as the true architects of this city’s recovery, despite the fact that roughly half the city’s residents rented housing before Hurricane Katrina.

The renters of New Orleans, it seems, are on their own.

Rents are skyrocketing across the city, up an average of 39 percent since Hurricane Katrina. The city has announced that it plans to refurbish only a small fraction of its traditional public housing units. Some neighborhoods are campaigning to tear down sturdy apartment buildings and build parks in their place. Though some aid has been set aside for landlords, many lower-income residents who say they are unable to return have been priced out.

“I want to come back, but who’s going to help me build my life?” asked Lionel Smith, 46, a longtime resident of the Lower Ninth Ward and a driving school instructor whose apartment building was destroyed by the floodwaters. “There’s this plan in place to take care of homeowners, but I’ve heard nothing about helping renters. Where are we supposed to live? Will they help rebuild apartment buildings?”

From a renter’s point of view, New Orleans has become off-limits to all but prosperous tenants, as rents have increased significantly in the pockets of the city that did not flood. Before the storm, the fair market rent for a two-bedroom unit in the city was $676; it is now $940, according to the Brookings Institution.

Previously: Ninth Ward, One Year Later

First, thanks to everyone who helped spread the word through email/blog links. Due to support from our readers, the post and photos were picked up all over the place including the Washington Post‘s Express section, the Philadelphia Daily News‘ blog, and more.

The response has been overwhelmingly positive, and even those who disagree with my analysis made some interesting points. But the all-time champion comment was found by one of our readers on a UK-based message board where someone had posted a link:

…the black-and-white wash and certain camera angles lead me to believe that those pictures have been chosen to distort.

Busted.

That house? A family of six lives there happily as I type.

That guy must have had access to my camera’s EXIF data. Relevant data bolded:

Camera: Nikon D200
Lens: The Distorter18mm™
Exposure: 0.004 sec (1/250)
Aperture: f/3.2
Angle of view: 3° w/damage enhancement
Focal Length: 18 mm
ISO Speed: 200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Political Bias: Moonbat Lib
Resolution Unit: Inches
Software: Ver.1.00
Date and Time: 2006:08:27 09:44:55
Exposure Program: Aperture priority
Date and Time (Original): 2006:08:27 09:44:55
Photographer’s Intent (Primary): Embarrass President Bush
Photographer’s Intent (Secondary): Influence ’06 elections

Here’s what the house looked like before my nefarious image manipulation:

I owe everyone a big apology for my deception.

On a serious note, photographer Siege, whose family was directly affected by Katrina, has designed a series of Public Service Announcements for survivors.