Tag Archives: katrina

bm193 Oasis in the Ninth Ward

Somewhere in the upper ninth ward, amidst the destruction and abandonment, there are 400 volunteers occupying a school. Everyday they fan out into the city and take on a task that most would not have the courage for. In this podcast, I speak to a few of those volunteers.

Common Ground Collective (read their site and consider going there yourself)

Topics include:
– Where different students are from
– How does the collective work
– What kind of work do they do, how many hours
– Where does funding, tools, etc come from.
– How does the community receive them
– What has happened to the ninth ward
– Where are the residents
– Awareness outside the gulf coast
– Concern on college campuses
– Other organizations involved

 

Some Americans’ Priorities

I started off the morning by heading to the ninth ward… err.. nine ward. Having heard soo much about it, I was anxious to be there and see how people were dealing with post Katrina life more than a year and a half later. Lil Robin lives just a stones throw down the road from the ward, so I had little trouble finding it. You know when you’re in the ninth ward… it’s hard not to know.. war zones stick out like that.

When I say war zone, I should say, post-war zone. And I don’t mean a storm versus humans, I mean a war between those determined to get their lives back and those that have been spit out to some far away state and can’t afford the financial, legal or mental burden of coming back.

As I drove down the street I wish I had some kind of tank. Not because I felt unsafe, how scared can you be of entire city blocks with no sign of life. But the huge craters and random debris that some streets seem full of, made me think I might not make it through with a measly compact car.

The closer I came to St. Mary’s school, what I had been told was the headquarters of one of the biggest volunteer relief group in the city… Common Ground, the closer I got the more signs of life and hope I saw. A newly planted row of trees looking healthy and attractive, in the middle of a block full of half destroyed houses and an occasional FEMA trailer. Or sometimes, like a mirage in the desert, an army of students would appear on the horizon; fully equipped with respirators, hard hats, and what look like chemical suits: the brave “gutters” who must first demolish the rotting and moldy parts of houses before they can rebuild. One big group is not working as I pass, instead there is loud music playing and there looking back at me is a group of 40 young people, hammers in hand, dancing to hip hop music. I smiled and waved.

Finally I arrived at St. Mary’s… which looks alot like the Catholic school I attended in Newark. Hell, it even looks like a school day, in front of the building various groups of kids are huddled calling out plans and reviewing maps of who will go where for what duty today? Occasionally someone pulls up in a truck already spilling over with people dressed in construction gear, and they point to someone sitting on the steps and shout “you… come with us to work on so-and-so street”.

Once in the building, there is an organized chaos that would make an Amsterdam squat blush. In every corner there is some sign or some reminder for volunteers, and people cleaning or fixing or preparing something. This school, after all, has not been a school since Katrina. Nevermind that there are no kids left in the neighborhood anyway, having been bussed to all kinds of states as part of the post-Katrina strategy, this school now serves a different long term and vital role… the central hub for people who have come to rebuild.

This was one hour of my morning, which gives you an idea of how it can be in New Orleans… every hour.. if you look.. you’ll see something amazing.. good or bad.

bm187 Poisoned and Forgotten, Katrina Survivers 2007

Some people might imagine that a year and a half after Katrina, life for many survivors might be improving as the rebuilding process progressed. But what if the rebuilding process was not progressing? More than that, imagine hundreds of thousands of people still living in FEMA trailers that are actually poisioning them? While the mainstream press turns its corporate back, an unbelievable crime is taking place along the gulf coast… again. In this program, with the help of people working for the recovery effort, we lay out the agonizing facts.

Guests:

Becky Gillette, Co-Executive Committee Chair – Mississippi Chapter Sierra Club
Ashley Tsongas, Oxfam America

We discuss:
– FEMA Trailers and the toxicity levels
– Health problems being reported and underreported
– FEMA’s response
– The Trailer Companies and the building of the trailers
– Options for trailer residents
– Next steps for Sierra Club and Katrina
– The delays of the rebuilding process
– Causes and those responsible
– The poor and housing in the NOLA area
– Lack of coverage of the issue
– plus much more, so please listen.

Nation Article on this topic

 

NOLA Pain Continues

I’m pondering a trip to the US in the coming 6 months. Hoping money and the moons all align so that I might be able to go over for a bit longer than the usual 2 weeks.

One place I hope to be able to get to somehow is New Orleans. I know it was probably media cliché.. but it has also become an under-reported and poorly reported subject. What happenned to that city is not a tragedy, but in fact, one of the biggest crimes of the century. Actually two crimes, as the government and business leaders have pretended not to know anything about climate change and the dangers it involves. And yet no one in charge was arrested, and hardly anyone resigned. More criminals and mass murderers at large in Washington DC.

How much reporting are the toxic trailers getting? Over 200 thousand people living in FEMA trailers that are known to have high levels of toxicity and cause all manner of resperatory diseases to so many.

Following the recent terrible tornados that hit the city, I went over to NOLA dot com, to see what people are talking about in the forums. I happenned to click on Gentilly forum, and there i read a sad, tragic, and almost poetic proclamation by a resident by the name of LowDownLou:

New Orleans has had more destruction due to weather since Katrina than it has had within the last 10 years before Katrina. How many Tornadoes have actually hit New Orleans in the last 20 years pre-K?

You all remember that song: If It Aint One Thing Its Another?

Astronomical Insurance rates—–

Crime is totally outta place——

People lookn for a place to stay——

March on City Hall searchn 4 a betta Way—–

Called my local congressman beggn 4 relief—–

But my local congressman was only a Thief—–

It’s a Shame 2 C the Cresent City in such waste—-

We need to get on our Knee’s and beg 4 a betta DAY……

PEACE Out…….

Watching and Remembering NOLA

I heard max and stacy talking about how they’d just watched the Spike Lee documentary about Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans. I suddenly remembered that it must have been aired on HBO already, and I could go find it on bittorent. Tonight, I’ve just finished watching parts 1 and 2 which go back over the leadup to the hurricane, and the week following, breaking it down in terms of how people lived it, how they remember it, and also how the authorities responded and their testimony about what they were thinking at the time.
It is a film that causes me to run the gamut of emotions:

Anger. Naturally, as a critical and passionate voice, I continue to find the response of the federal, state, and local government, to have been not only terrible, but a crime against humanity which should involve the president, his cabinet, and state officials, being tried right here in the Hague. But this anger isn’t all that new, what is new is the facts that come out in this documentary which I had never known… especially when it comes to the historical context where at several points in history, the city had blown up levees in poor districts to save the wealthy districts from flooding. And also how surrounding communities send their police to the county lines, armed to the teeth, to turn feeling citizens back into the city which had become uninhabitable, AT GUNPOINT!

Of course the next emotion is sadness, another logical one. I think the saddest moments for me where the dead bodies. The bloated, face-down, barely covered, left all alone, dead bodies, who didn’t have to die, and did NOT die because of the storm, but in fact, died because of the callous lack of response from the American government. Even sadder was hearing the personal accounts, sitting here staring at the face of this man as he describes his mother dying on her wheelchair at the convention center, all the time believing buses would be there any minute, as day after day passed.

Finally I felt a huge sense of admiration. There were those stories and personal accounts, of moments where people came together, reached out to care for neighbors. Did what they had to do to help others, because they knew there was no time to wait, and nothing reliable to wait for anyway. Spike Lee does an amazing job of capturing their stories, and his staff managed to get contributions from some truely honest and beautiful people.

I’m not yet finished watching. I will wait til tomorrow to see parts 3 and 4. The first half of this series has already left me with a profound sadness and a renewed drive, that people who are passed over and ignored, must have their stories heard and must be recognized as people who are valueable and worth of the same rights and priveledges as any fortune 500 son-of-an-investment banker.

Last thing I want to mention, and I know it will anger a great many who grow tired of my logic; remembering Hurricane Katrina and the criminal negligence of the American government, in a country that is supposedly so wealthy and so capable and such a great place to live…. I’m sorry but I’m reminded of why I don’t live there and I don’t want to live there. This isn’t about a man named Bush, or a political party per say, it is about an entire class of powerful people who run the nation, and have either helped create a society riddled with inequality, hatred, ignorance, desperation, disdain, and indifference.
Now I know these things exist in many places. I know the country where I live is a long ways from perfect and deserves its share of criticism as they all do. But when I sit here remembering Katrina, and each time take a closer look into the gruesome and shameful details, my one thought is — With a political class that can discard human life so easily, and a citizenry that is hardly motivated to force their leaders to admit their crimes, is that really a country where I’d like to live?

I’m Done With Ray Nagin

You remember Ray Nagin right? The mayor of New Orleans during the largest humanitarian crisis in the history of the United States? The guy who you hear in that radio clip where he starts crying and yelling at the rest of the country for not doing anything while people were dying while staring up at the sky begging for help. Her earned alot of respect for his directness and honesty during that disaster. Hell, I respected him for it.

Of course that was before I knew more about the man and what he had done with the city. Mostly nothing if you don’t count fostering curruption and fiscal irresponsibility. But still I held out hope that Nagin might be a changed man, having seen bodies of his own voters floating around face down throughout his streets. I still wanted to cheer for him… until now.

I’m done with Ray Nagin. Besides the numerous episodes that had shown he was two faced and a typical wishy washy politician, this latest appearance on Meet the Press did me in… or rather.. him in.

Anytime the man was asked if the federal government had failed him, a government that took over a week to respond, and when they finally did it consisted mostly of private contractors and overzealous military police, he refused to acknowledge it. As if someone is pulling his strings or controlling his speech, he refused to admit the the US government has a double standard when it comes to saving the lives of black people. To his credit, he did acknowledge it was a matter of class. Still, a man who once sounded unafraid to speak his mind and admit what a disaster his city had become, now he chose his words carefull, dodged criticizing anyone in particular, and pretended his city was doing rather well in terms of recovery.

Sorry Ray, you’re pathetic and I’m over you. I hope you fall into obscurety after serving your zillion terms as mayor of a city that will never recover, and will never have a leader who will push for a true investigation and trial for the crimes against humanity resulting from the neglect of the federal government, as well as that of the state and local governments.

About the only cool thing I could find in his whole interview, was when he called the site of the former WTC in NYC, a big hole in the ground and Tim Russert got all preachy and bitchy like it was a sin to say so. Of course he backed down on that one too, even though it is, when it comes down to it, a big hole in the ground.

Poor New Orleans. First Katrina. And then this fakester gets re-elected.