This is the time we pause to recall, as we do with so many tragedies, where we were when the Army Corps of Engineers' levees broke in New Orleans and the city was flooded.
I was 3500 miles away in Portland, Oregon, in a blues club watching Reggie Houston, a New Orleans saxophonist and then a recent émigré to the Northwest, pour his breaking heart out on the bandstand at one end of the club. At the other end of the club the endless video of the disaster repeated on CNN.
Since then we have learned some things:
How angry we can become at the willful actions of the Bush administration to leave the city in ruin and despair.
How Republican Mississippi got a hugely disproportionate amount of recovery money compared to Louisiana.
How, as we felt the depth of New Orleans culture from so far away before the flood, we feel the sorrow and depression just as much after.
How a city can be proud of its citizens' efforts to rebuild their lives.
How a city can be ashamed of the killing fields its streets have become.
How hundreds of outsiders can come to a strange place just to help...some for months at a time.
But the folks in New Orleans don't want our analysis, or our pity. They'd like us to have some understanding and remember that things are still in ruin. And that they're still worried about the next storm. Face it, The Army Corps of Engineers built the failed levees and also the new devices to keep out the water. Why should the folks who look at that water every day feel any more confident about what the Corps of Engineers did this time?
And the wetlands are still not reclaimed.
When you consider the plight of New Orleans it's easy to feel overwhelmed. What can you do? Yes, you can visit New Orleans and leave some money but that doesn't get to the problem.
I could rail on against the Republicans' criminal inaction, but perhaps today we should just look at one single program that might help matters, not solve them, but help. Mercy Corps is based in my city. They've been on the ground since they were allowed to be. Here's one thing they're doing. It's constructive "deconstruction." It's green and it's positive. If you're looking for a place to put some money where it'll help, this is a good one.
I'll shut up and let Mercy Corps do the talking:
They write:
In New Orleans, building back begins with taking down - by hand.-- Since Katrina, Mercy Corps advocates for widespread use of "deconstruction" to create much-needed jobs.
-- An alternative to demolition, deconstruction brings dignity to the rebuilding process and lets homeowners re-use materials in new homes.
Two years after Katrina, some owners of condemned homes are opting out of the FEMA demolition program for an alternative called "deconstruction" to dismantle buildings by hand. Many homeowners choose deconstruction over demolition because the process grants a dignified way to remove their home, save many belongings, and re-use some of the salvaged materials in the construction of a new home. Deconstruction also provides much-needed jobs, keeps solid waste out of landfills, and preserves historic architecture.
"Even two years after the storm, many people whose homes were destroyed still haven't done anything with them yet - it's a very emotional process," explains Rick Denhart, Mercy Corps' Gulf Coast Recovery Program Director. "Homeowners are choosing deconstruction to help preserve familiar artifacts and the collective memory of their neighborhoods. That means a wainscot, door, or window frame from a home or church can appear in another building."
Since Katrina, the humanitarian organization Mercy Corps has been advocating for the widespread use of deconstruction as an economic development tool that can be implemented neighborhood by neighborhood. One of the challenges the agency has faced is educating homeowners about how to use reclaimed materials. This requires a change of the traditional mindset in the community away from one that believes new is always better.
"Deconstruction is not widely accepted yet in the consumer culture here in New Orleans or in many places in the United States," adds Denhart. "We're working in a culture that certainly has kept architectural artifacts for reuse, but we need to jumpstart a shift in cultural norms to get people to accept used building materials for everyday needs."
To help spread the word about deconstruction, Mercy Corps has offered trainings for local contractors who are now engaged in their own successful deconstruction businesses. Mercy Corps is working with nationally recognized deconstruction experts on a 15-house pilot project to document the value of materials recovered and the advantage of keeping thousands of tons out of overflowing landfills. The program also demonstrates the employment benefits of deconstruction; typically, for every one job demolition provides (the bulldozer driver), deconstruction employs four or more people in jobs that require minimal training.
Mercy Corps recently partnered on a deconstruction project with the City of New Orleans' Office of Disaster Recovery involving the local chapter of the Association of Minority Contractors, interested in adopting deconstruction as a jobs creation technique. Mercy Corps staff are also working with FEMA to add deconstruction as a reimbursable option for homeowners since the cost is usually comparable. Currently, FEMA reimburses only for demolition or for partial deconstruction of homes that are listed on the historic register.
If 500 homes were deconstructed in one year in New Orleans:
- At least 220 living wage jobs would be created.
- Approximately 75,000 cubic yards of debris would be saved from landfills - approximately 2,500 truck loads.
- Sales of reusable materials could reach $5,000,000 on the private market generating $450,000 in local sales tax revenue.
- Property owners could benefit from tax deductions for materials donated to non-profits.
For more information about deconstruction, and an interview with Rick Denhart, please visit
mercycorps.org
NOTE:
There is ample proof of my statement about the disparity between what Mississippi got and what Louisana got. Plus, Haley Barbour was the CHAIRMAN OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY for chrissakes!
Here's the link to the facts http://http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/08/officials_la_still_shorted_on.html
from the New Orleans Times Picayune.
And a big WhereY'At to you, neworleanslady68!!!
Thanks for your comments. It always amazes me when I hear or read comments about why it isn't worth it to save New Orleans. And yet we pump billions of dollars of recovery funds into Tornado Alley, Earthquake Central, Mudslide Mountain, and Brushfire Estates to help their citizens rebuild from disasters that are far less predictable and yet far more inevitable than what hit New Orleans.
My heart grieves today. As I sit in my office in Atlanta I am thinking of all my relatives, especially my elderly parents, living somewhere else and wanting nothing more than just to go back home. These aren't poor, lazy, welfare cheats. They are part of a massive diaspora representing the oldest black middle class in America.
Shame on Bush; shame on the GOP; shame on America. We will remember in 2008.
Someone give this lady a real platform so more people can hear her.
New Orleans/South Louisiana are one of the few things worth saving in today's money hungry, profit-oriented, soul-less (I'm not speaking in the religious sense) Corporate States of America.
What I really want to know is, when is someone going to go to jail?!?
Here we are 2 years later, with proof of, among other things...
_____________________________________________
1)gross negligent homicide: you know why
2)gross negligent property damage: again, no need to explain
3)intentional gross negligence: cutting corners and not following design/maintenence specifications in the construction of levees paid for by the taxpayers
4)deceit: in not building what was designed, yet pretending for years that everything was as it should be
_______________________________________________
I don't care if it was the Army Corps of Engineers' fault.
I don't care whether it is Congress' fault.
I really don't even care if Ol' Shirt-off, Fudge Brownie, or Little Bush had any role in the slow response after the fact.
What I want to know, as someone who one day hopes to return to New Orleans, a city I love, is when is someone going to go to jail?!?!?
Someone needs to accept responsibility(hasn't the ACE already said, "our bad"?), and someone needs to go to jail (hopefully the guilty parties and not some scapegoat)
Without the rule of law we're left with anarchy
Anyone from the south knows that the Republican status of Mississippi had less to do with the funds they recieved than the fact that their politicians, while republican, are a whole lot less corrupt than Louisiana's. Ever heard of the "Louisiana Way"? New Orleans and the state of Louisiana deserve some blame.
The dirty dealings--essentially a rape--that ended up giving Mississippi more aid proportionately than Louisiana are now so ingrained that the majority-Democratic Congress elected last year cannot undo them so Louisiana can get her fair share.
If it is your desire to avoid trading blood for Middle Eastern oil, as it is mine, you should be dedicated to ensuring that South Louisiana is not overtaken by the sea. One thing environmentalists and the oil industry agree on is that if the Louisiana coast continues to disappear (as it is now, a football field of our state gone every 30 minutes!), our domestic oil industry will lose access to Louisiana's natural resources. Do you get that? This will put the rest of you more dependent than EVER on Middle Eastern supplies. If you drive a car and you're against wars in the Middle East, you really should be advocating for the preservation of the Louisiana coast.
Two years out and there are still posts like the one I've just addressed - and at a liberal blog no less. I'm tired. Tired of responding to the ignorant, talking to the deaf, justifying my love for place and home and roots, pissed off at being treated like a beggar in my own country (even though we are, per capita, the third most productive workers in the nation and we have enough natural resources to be rich like the Saudis if the rest of your Yankee government would just give us our fair share of OUR oil royalties...
Tired. Pissed off. Disgusted. Ready to secede from the lot of ya'.
New Orleans:
- French, 1718-1763, 1800-1803
- Spanish, 1763-1800
- American, 1803-1861, 1865 to ????
- Confederate, 1861-1865
Next???
Yes, at a liberal blog, no less. When it comes to blacks, a lot of liberals on this blog in particular become very conservative. I think it's more noticeable on Huffpo because they do have many posts concerning blacks in the country. A lot of other liberal blogs basically don't address black issues.
Plus, do you not see that your simplistic assertion that the city is all-black, in one moment, and then your desire to just let it die in the next, is itself racism? According to you, the government would have responded had it been mostly white, but it isn't white, so the government didn't respond, so screw those people? HUH??? These are real people's lives!
I don't know what people you talk to, but not me, my friends, or my family. And, again, if you care about African-American New Orleanians, you should care deeply that they get to go home. Roots run REALLY deep here, deeper here than anyplace else in America. Before the storm, black folks here ALWAYS had extended networks of friends and family (well, we ALL DID!). Now, those support systems are gone. Black women who had spent their whole lives - lives too often ones of hardship, poverty, and violence - with an extended network around them are now, in unprecedented numbers, seeking treatment for depression, something that was very rare before. Clearly, their support networks used to at least partly help them deal with hardships, but those networks are gone now. If you care about black New Orleanians, you should care passionately about seeing New Orleans restored and those networks of extended kin brought home where they belong.
That is truly heartbreaking about how black women who'd previously had extensive support networks prior to the levee failures are now in a world of hurt suffering from depression because the networks have been washed away. And poor Louisiana which doesn't have the resources--the mental health system--to comfort the afflicted herself has been unable to get meaningful help doing this from the Bush Administration.
If you expand the term "genocide" to mean not only actively killing off the people of a particular place, but ensuring that her people live in such physical and emotional pain that they either become ill and die, or commit suicide, or turn against others by committing violent crimes including murder--the Bush Administration has been committing genocide in Louisiana.
Nobody can see a water line by flying over. What the hell are you supposed to be? George Bush???
One word: Holland. Most of their nation is below sea level. They made protecting their land from the encroachment of the sea a priority, spent real money on high-tech solutions, and they are sittin' high and dry. It can be done. What stands in the way of our getting it done is morally bankrupt, corrupt government and an electorate too ignorant to understand the benefits the Gulf region gives them.
I know many people would like to see Katrina-and-manmade-aftermath as a purely racial matter, but it isn't that simple. I think the event itself and the slow rescue response DID highlight our racist history and current gross racial disparities. But it's moronic to think no white people lived in New Orleans, really moronic. What you saw in the rescue coverage was that more white residents had the money to leave before the storm (not all, but MORE). Studies show old folks and the infirm died in equal proportions, across racial lines, again, because that too was about who had the means to evacuate. The damage hit all parts of the city hard - predominately middle class white area Metairie, more working class white areas Kenner and Chalmette, the newly trendy and gentrified Carrollton area, the VERY upper-crust homes in Lakeview and the rest of mostly white Lakeview. Of course, armchair quarterbacks like you know nothing of the various areas and the different things that happened in each (although I notice that never keeps any of you from commenting on someone else's city - Katrina comes along and every Tom and Dick is a New Orleans expert).
Anyone with CABLE should know about Holland.
This is one rare case when I suggest that people may not be watching ENOUGH TV!
(National Geographic Channel. Or was it Discovery? Both, perhaps?)
Sure, okay, let's level cities with high murder rates. Let's start with New York City, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia...I mean, what the hell kind of stupidity is that???
As a city girl, I know not to walk down side streets after dark ANYWHERE. Not Rome, Paris, London, New York, Los Angeles - or New Orleans.
Indeed, sarcasm aside, IT IS. It’s where our families have lived for three hundred years. It's where we have developed a culture unlike any culture found anywhere else on the planet, one created from a unique mix of peoples in a unique place under unique circumstances. It is where my ancestors assisted the American Revolution, serving under Galvez to pin down the British in Spanish Florida, where they won the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812. It’s where my family and friends live, work, and play; where we give to the world creations like jazz and creole cuisine; where our ancestors are buried and where we honor traditions like going to those gravesites once a year for cleanup and picnics. What does your city mean to you?
- Fact 6: Without action, land loss will continue, and it will increasingly jeopardize populated areas, the port system and energy production. This would be catastrophic for America. Scientists say the problem can be solved, even with rising sea levels, but that we have only a decade to begin addressing it in a serious way or the damage may be irreversible.
Despite all this and President Bush's pledge from New Orleans in September 2005 that "we will do what it takes" to help people rebuild, a draft White House cuts its own recommendation of $2 billion for coastal restoration to $1 billion while calling for an increase in the state's contribution from the usual 35 percent to 50 percent. This turns unionism on its head.
Generating benefits to the nation is what created the problem, and the nation needs to solve it. Put simply: Why should a cab driver in Pittsburgh or Tulsa pay to fix Louisiana's coast? Because he gets a stronger economy and lower energy costs from it, and because his benefits created the problem. The failure of Congress and the president to act aggressively to repair the coastline at the mouth of the Mississippi River could threaten the economic vitality of the nation. Louisiana, one of the poorest states, can no longer afford to underwrite benefits for the rest of the nation.
http://www.johnmbarry.com/bio.htm
- Fact 4: Levees that prevent river flooding in Louisiana and Mississippi interfere with the replenishment of the land locally as well.
- Fact 5: Roughly 30 percent of the country's domestic oil and gas production comes from offshore Louisiana, and to service that production the industry created more than 10,000 miles of canals and pipelines through the marsh.
Every inch of those 10,000-plus miles lets saltwater penetrate, and eat away at, the coast. So energy production has enormously accelerated what was a slow degradation, transforming a long-term problem into an immediate crisis. The deprivation of sediment is like moving a block of ice from the freezer to the sink, where it begins to melt; the effect of the canals and pipelines is like attacking that ice with an ice pick, breaking it up.
As a result, 2,100 square miles of coastal land and barrier islands have melted into the Gulf of Mexico. This land once served as a buffer between the ocean and populated areas in Louisiana and part of Mississippi, protecting them during hurricanes. Each land mile over which a hurricane travels absorbs roughly a foot of storm surge.
sarge, sal - are y'all out there? Here's a way you can assuage those feelings of guilt!
I could say more if I saw NO for myself. I think every American with SOMETHING TO SAY should. What do you think?
2-c
I was there over 20 years ago and told not to walk down the side streets. yes that is a town worth saving. fly over it and see for yourself it is below the water line. it is doomed to go under no matter how much money we spend on it.
besides united states is a racist country do you really think most Americans care what happens to those people who live in that city.
if that would have been an elitists city of whites they would have been rescued in 8 hrs not 5 days and the city and dike would have been rebuilt in one year.
drive through the red states and ask. I look like a good old boy from the south and people in those states feel comfortable opening up to me. trust me we are a racist capitalistic country that cares more about materialism than people especially black people.
we care so much for wealth enhancement we will trade blood for oil.