Black Agenda Report - August 9, 2007

America's Shame: Two Years
After Hurricane Katrina

By The Sacramento Area Black Caucus

On August 29, 2007, the nation will commemorate the second anniversary of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. As we prepare to remember this incomprehensible devastation, the Sacramento Area Black Caucus (SABC) is outraged by the ongoing neglect of the thousands of community members, communities, local businesses, schools, libraries and colleges throughout the Gulf Coast regions.

The Sacramento Area Black Caucus wishes to extend our sincere condolences to the 4,081 families who lost loved ones due to Hurricane Katrina, and to our government's neglect and incompetence.  At least 1,836 people (men, women and children) lost their lives due to Hurricane Katrina and in the subsequent floods, making it the deadliest U.S. hurricane since the Okeechobee Hurricane in 1928.  More than 2 million US citizens were displaced due to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Hurricane Katrina is estimated to have been responsible for $81.2 billion (2005 U.S. dollars) in damage, making it the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

"The people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast regions were exposed to poverty and a historic legacy of institutional neglect, classism, sexism and racism."

Even before the storms, the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast regions were exposed to poverty and a historic legacy of institutional neglect, classism, sexism and racism. The Bush administration's policies, designed to pad the coffers of big business and the pockets of the wealthiest Americans, have deepened and reinforced this poverty. Tax cuts for the wealthy, bold faced cronyism and the changes in bankruptcy laws all point to a government that operates on a policy of quick grabs for the few with little regard for those outside the favored circle or the future of the country.  The relief and rebuilding efforts must first and foremost benefit the people of these communities, restore their lives, their businesses and put the region back to work.

The message was very clear during and even now two years after Hurricane Katrina's devastation. The world witnessed first hand American's shame: If you are poor and of African descent, America is not concerned about your well-being.  During the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and even today, the world watched the bureaucratic bungling, massive incompetence and unconscionable neglect.  

SABC is outraged by the slow recovery and the rebuilding efforts. Residents can't return home because of lack of funds, lack of a safe living environment (free of environmental hazards such as mold, formaldehyde exposure and unsafe drinking water) and lack of safe affordable housing. We are also concerned about the lack of health care, including mental health services; and the lack of support for schools, libraries and historically Black colleges.

Our outrage is based on the following well documented facts:

On July 13, 2007, the Time Picayune reported that no fluoride has been added to the New Orleans water supply since Hurricane Katrina two years ago.

July 15, 2007: The Eagle-Tribune reports thousands of pounds of government-owned ice stored in Gloucester in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina are melting - so far costing taxpayers $12.5 million.

February 26, 2007: Bill Quigley, a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans, reports: Half the homes in New Orleans still do not have electricity. Eighteen months after Katrina, a third of a million people in the New Orleans metro area have not returned. Over $100 billion was approved by Congress to rebuild the Gulf Coast.

Eighteen months later, less than 700 families have received federal assistance. Renters, who comprised a majority of New Orleans, are worse off.  They get nothing at all.

Many in New Orleans do not want the poor who lived in public housing to return. St. Bernard Parish, a 93 percent white suburb adjoining New Orleans, enacted a post-Katrina ordinance which restricted home owners from renting out single-family homes "unless the renter is a blood relative" without securing a permit from the government.

Jefferson Parish, another adjoining majority-white suburb, unanimously passed a resolution opposing all low-income tax credit multi-family housing in the areas closest to New Orleans, effectively stopping the construction of a 200 unit apartment building on vacant land for people over the age of 62, and any further assisted housing.

"All the public schools on the side of the Mississippi which did not flood were turned into charters within weeks of Katrina"

New Orleans is now the charter capital of the U.S. All the public schools on the side of the Mississippi which did not flood were turned into charters within weeks of Katrina. The schools with strongest parental support and high test scores were flipped into charters. The charters have little connection to each other and to state or local supervision. Those in the top half of the pre-Katrina population may be getting a better education. Kids without high scores, with disabilities, with little parental involvement who are not in charters are certainly not getting good educations and are shuttled into the bottom half, a makeshift system of state and local schools.

John McDonough, a public high school created to take the place of five pre-Katrina high schools, illustrates the challenges facing non-charter public education in New Orleans. Opened by the State school district in the fall, as of November, 2006, there were 775 students but teachers, textbooks and supplies remained in short order months after school opened. Many teens, as many as one-fifth, were living in New Orleans without their parents. Fights were frequent despite the presence of metal detectors, twenty-five security guards and an additional eight police officers. "Our school has 39 security guards and three cops on staff and only 27 teachers," one McDonough teacher reported.

Mental health is worse. A report by the World Health organization estimates that serious and mild to moderate mental illness doubled in the year after Hurricane Katrina among survivors. Despite a suicide rate triple what it was a year ago, the New York Times reported ten months after the storm New Orleans was still without half of its psychiatrists, social workers, psychologists and other mental health care workers.

With day care scarce, down 70 percent, and public transportation down 83 percent of pre-Katrina busses, there is little chance for single moms with kids.

Katrina exposed the region's deep-rooted inequalities of gender, race, and class. Katrina did not create the inequalities; it provided a window to see them more clearly. But the aftermath of Katrina has aggravated these inequalities. In fact if you plot race, class and gender you can likely tell who has returned to New Orleans. The Institute of Women's Policy Research pointed out:

"The hurricanes uncovered America's longstanding structural inequalities based on race, gender, and class and laid bare the consequences of ignoring these underlying inequalities." As Oxfam documented, government neglect has plagued the rebuilding of smaller towns like Biloxi Mississippi, and rural parishes of Louisiana, leaving the entire region in distress. In Biloxi, the first to be aided after the hurricane were the casinos, which forced low-income people out of their homes and neighborhoods. In rural Louisiana, contradictory signals by government agencies have slowed and in some cases reversed progress. Small independent family commercial fishing businesses have been imperiled by the lack of recovery funds. The federal assistance that has occurred has tended to favor the affluent and those with economic assets.

"Katrina did not create the inequalities; it provided a window to see them more clearly."

Dr. Kevin Stephens, Sr., Director of the New Orleans Health Department testified and shared the following findings:

The number of doctors has been reduced by 70% and the number of hospital beds in Orleans Parish has been reduced by 75%.

In some areas, such as the Lower Ninth Ward and New Orleans East in Orleans Parish and Chalmette and other places in St. Bernard Parish, residents have no access to health care whatsoever. Mental health is another serious problem: even last year, 20% of residents reported suffering from severe stress and depression.

Yet the number of mental health inpatient beds has been reduced by 83% and the number of psychiatrists has dropped by 90%. Residents reported observing a larger than usual number of death notices in the newspaper, even long after Katrina and into 2006. At the same time, even months after the storm, residents reported going to more funerals than they ever had.

Dr. Kevin Stephens received communications from persons working with the families of missing persons in Louisiana who claim that there are still 1000's of persons looking for missing loved ones from the storm.

"People displaced through no fault of their our have the right to return to their homes and have the right to expect their government to help them do so."

In April 2006, the Sierra Club tested 52 FEMA travel trailers on the Gulf Coast and found that 83 percent had formaldehyde levels above 0.1 parts per million, a level where emergency responders are warned about risks from one-time exposure.  More than a year ago, FEMA did test one occupied trailer because of the persistence of the pregnant mother of a 4-month-old child who lived there. The results showed formaldehyde levels 75 times higher than the maximum workplace exposure recommended by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

We are outraged that America is spending about $10 billion a month on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, two illegal and immoral wars. By the end of this year, the total funds appropriated will be nearly $600 billion - approaching the amount spent on the Vietnam or Korean wars when adjusted for today's inflation. But America is unwilling to make the same financial commitment to support the families and cities of the Gulf Coast Region to rebuild their lives. We are spending billions of dollars to kill people in Iraq and Afghanistan, but as a nation we are unwilling and have not made the same commitment to save US citizens in New Orleans and other gulf coast communities.

We are calling for the resignations of President George W. Bush, Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security Agency, R. David Paulison, Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency,  Gil H. Jamieson, Associate Deputy Administrator for Gulf Coast Recovery, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, Governor of Louisiana, and  Ray Nagin, Mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana for their collective failures to effectively design, manage, and provide administrative oversight for a comprehensive recovery and rebuilding plan that addresses the needs of the of Louisiana and Gulf Coast residents.

Additionally, we are encouraging all citizens to remember, "Passivity, massive incompetence and indifference to the people's needs did the most damage"  We are urging voters to engage in honest dialogues and demand congressional candidates and presidential candidates that are seeking your support to live up the America's responsibility.  Americans should and must commit the much needed resources to rebuild those communities destroyed in Gulf Coast regions. 

Finally, under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement that people displaced through no fault of their our have the right to return to their homes and have the right to expect their government to help them do so, the federal, state and local governments all have failed the citizens of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast.

Maybe, Kanye West was correct in his assessment --"George Bush doesn't care about black people!"

"When The Levees Broke: A Requiem For Katrina" Documentary directed by Spike Lee

A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina) - New Orleans native son Terence Blanchard created a passionate album on Katrina

Eye of the Storm: Inside City Hall During Katrina by Sally Forman (author)

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