WASHINGTON - Within days of Hurricane Katrina's landfall in August 2005, frantic officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency ordered nearly $2.7 billion worth of trailers and mobile homes to house the storm's victims, many of them using a single page of specifications. Continue
Reznet, the online newspaper for Native America, has been covering the impact of the hurricanes of 2005 on Louisiana indigenous coastal tribes via a year long project, "Katrina, Rita and the Houma". Journalism students Mary Hudetz, a Crow reporter from the University of Montana, and Martina Rose Lee, a Navajo photojournalist from Arizona State University, collaborated with veteran journalists Victor Merina, a former Los Angeles Times investigative reporter, and multimedia journalist Steven A. Chin to produce the special report. See the special report, here.
An anonymous commenter at the Reznet website posts the following:
John Verret, Bayou du Large, LA. (c) Matthew White
Louisiana coastal photographer Matthew White was in Terrebonne Parish last fall documenting endangered landscapes inhabited by the Houma Indians and other native coastal tribes with traditional guide, Captain John Verret. To see Matthew's photographs of Terrebonne Parish go here. (click the X upper right of slides if you prefer to view captioned photos.)
Lake Pontchartrain, 11/07 --copyright Matthew White
Matthew White was selected to show some of his photography in the 6th Annual Grand Isle , La. Juried Exhibition. The exhibition theme, “Water Consciousness” will spotlight works relating the natural beauty and potential loss of the island and the surrounding wetlands. The goal of the Exhibition is to raise awareness of Louisiana’s coastal erosion through an artist’s eye and to encourage the creation and preservation of images of this culture and its disappearing habitat for future generations. Works selected will be on exhibit at the Grand Isle Community Center, Hwy. 1, Grand Isle, Louisiana April 12 - 20. A reception and awards presentation will be held on April 20 2008.
Click here to view images.
I am working on a Katrina/Rita related program or event for a Foreign Media Tour of Houston, Texas ---March 5-7. The theme is how Americans view health care, the economy, and immigration in an election year. Since Houston is a major gulf coast city that has also been impacted by the hurricanes of 2005, there may be room in the schedule for a Katrina/Rita related program. If you are a Katrina survivor who has relocated to Houston, or an individual or group working on behalf of Hurricane Katrina recovery issues, I would like to speak with you regarding ideas for this event. This is a great opportunity to support the cause - i.e. to brief the foreign media and help them better understand issues and challenges related to ongoing gulf coast hurricane issues as well as recovery and rebuilding efforts post-Katrina. If you have an interesting idea or contribution to make towards this endeavor, please contact me at beyondkatrina@gmail.com.
Margaret Saizan
Beyond Katrina: The Voice of Hurricane & Disaster Recovery
www.hurricane-katrina.org.
help foreign political reporters better understand the role of local and state
governments, parties, and lobbying organizations in U.S. elections. To deepen
the reporters’ understanding of the 2008 contest, the tour will also focus on
key issues that both parties and all candidates are debating: the economy,
immigration, and health care.
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Nearly 12,000 applicants for homeowner aid through a hurricane recovery program have not signed up for appointments to calculate their grants — or determine their eligibility — as a weekend deadline looms.Homeowners who do not schedule a first appointment with Road Home officials by Saturday lose any chance for rebuilding or buyout money, and those who do not show up for an appointment with a housing adviser by Dec. 15 also won't be eligible for aid. Continue here.
This moving piece by Dan Barry of the New York Times, tells the story of young Isaiah Polk's harrowing experience as a result of having stumbled upon crystal meth dump site behind a FEMA trailer park in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Story is here.
Peter Whoriskey of WaPo (who has really stayed with it re Katrina recovery reportage) has penned a telling article about the mixed recovery bag in Biloxi, Mississippi. On the one hand Casinos are thriving and real estate development is flourishing while "working class neighborhoods" (more than 10,000 displaced families in FEMA trailers) still haven't rebounded. Now there is a proposal "to divert $600 million in federal housing aid to fund an expansion plan at the Port of Gulfport". For a deeper look into the situation see this article at WashingtonPost.com.
Continuing sad saga re the issue of recovering lost pets post-Katrina here.
NEW
ORLEANS -- People who never expected to be lining up for free food are
thankful they can as the recovery from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
inches into its third year, while programs supplying the food are
scrambling to find it. National supply problems are
intensified in south Louisiana, where many people are still waiting on
government help while rebuilding houses wrecked by the storm. Continue here.
My name is Richard Ferring and I volunteer for an organization called the Mesothelioma & Asbestos Awareness Center. We are a non-profit organization specializing in spreading awareness about mesothelioma and other asbestos-related ailments. As somewhat of an expert in the area, I would like to share some information surrounding the dangers of asbestos exposure as a result of Hurricane Katrina.
Hurricane Katrina made landfall in late August of 2005 leaving destruction and loss of life in its wake. Federal disaster declarations covered more than 90,000 square miles. In addition to the municipal buildings, bridges, and other properties that were damaged, over 130,000 homes were completely destroyed. Petroleum products, raw sewage, and industrial waste were introduced into the environment at dangerous levels. One of the most overlooked dangers, however, was the release of asbestos particles into the air and water.
Asbestos, as many of you may know, is a naturally occurring mineral that is mined throughout the world. Until about 40 years ago, it was used abundantly as an insulator because of its heat-resistant properties. Asbestos was used in everything from car brakes to the strengthening fibers in construction materials. Although its uses have since been limited, asbestos products can still be found in many older buildings and structures. Asbestos is not dangerous when it is intact and undisturbed. As long as it is encased in a stable environment without wear or tear, asbestos can function as a healthy material. Unfortunately asbestos is a friable mineral. This means that it is easily broke into small fragments or reduced to powder when it is disturbed. As a result of the destruction of Katrina, literally tons of asbestos we released into the air and water. The survivors, rescue workers, clean-up teams, and anyone else in the area may have been exposed to the deadly carcinogen.
When asbestos is inhaled it travels through the airway into the chest. These fibers attack what is known as the mesothelium, or a two-layered membrane that covers the internal organs like the heart, lungs, and abdominal organs. The mesothelium is divided into three sections called the pleura, pericardium, and the peritoneum which cover the lungs, heart, and abdomen respectively. It is in these areas that the deadly cancer mesothelioma can occur.
There is a possibility that hundreds or even thousands of asbestos related illnesses may occur as a result of the toxic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. If you begin to feel symptoms of mesothelioma or a respiratory illness, it is important that you mention that you may have been exposed to asbestos. Although mesothelioma can take more than 20 years to develop, it is important that you recognize it as early as possible - you will have a much greater prognosis. If you have any further questions or comments, please feel free to email me at rferring@maacenter.org. I would be more than happy to answer any and all questions you may have.
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Current events often shape the way historians think about the past. The
civil
rights and women's rights movements, for example, redirected the
historian's
gaze toward previously marginalized groups and the historian's
craft toward
social and cultural studies. For historians of the Gulf South,
the weight of
the present has come ineluctably to bear on our telling of the
past as
libraries and archives have been damaged, institutions and
neighborhoods
destroyed, and lives lost or violently uprooted in the wake of
Hurricane
Katrina.
As recovery efforts haltingly enter a third year, the editors
of the Journal
of Southern Religion invite scholarly reflection on the ways
that Hurricane
Katrina and its aftermath impinge on the religious history in
the U.S.
South. We encourage contributions that consider religion in any
period or
region and from any methodological vantage point, as long as they
engage in
a rethinking of religious history in the wake of Katrina. What
might look
different to us now? Which historical trajectories have been
illuminated,
which rendered less helpful or telling, which thrown into
unexpected curves
and angles?
We particularly welcome fresh attention
to religion and place as these have
made themselves felt in Gulf residents'
experiences of loss, exile, and
return. How, for example, might the federal
response to Katrina shed light
on the vexed role of New Orleans and the Gulf
South within the national
imaginary? How might the very American myth of
self-recreation-
and starting over elsewhere, seemingly
without loss-impede recovery projects
on the scale of those undertaken in
Europe (the rebuilding of bombed-out
cities after WWII, or the massive
construction of the Dutch levee system
after the flood of Amsterdam in1953)?
How might the American narrative of
manifest destiny, and the concomitant
policy of Indian removal, give
credence to suspicions of a de facto policy of
"Negro removal" in New
Orleans to clear space for new projects of U.S.
expansion? How does a
hemispheric narrative of colonialism and slavery, to
which the Gulf South
more centrally belongs, trouble a national narrative of
freedom and
progress, to which it has never entirely been assimilated? What
can now be
said-or no longer be said-about the unifying power of "civil
religion" in
moments of national crisis? How has religion, however construed,
come to
aid or to obstruct the rebuilding of the Gulf South? In short, what
new
questions about religion and the South have come into view since
Katrina?
What new methods for addressing them need to be devised?
We
encourage contributions in a range of formats: original scholarly
essays,
retrospectives on previously published work (one's own or others'),
review
essays, thought pieces, poetry, photography and photo essays,
first-person
narratives, and reports on research in progress. We especially
invite
scholars of the Gulf South who confront a damaged or diminished
archive to
reflect on the ways these material exigencies have reshaped their
historical
project and the questions that guide it.
Potential
contributors may direct inquiries and submissions to Tracy
Fessenden (tracyf@asu.edu) and Michael Pasquier (mtp02c@fsu.edu). We wish
to receive final
submissions for peer review no later than December 15,
2007. Please visit the
Journal of Southern Religion website at
http://jsr.fsu.
From: The Louisiana Recovery Authority
Study shows overall impact of Katrina and Rita on parish populations
BATON ROUGE, La. (August 7, 2007)-Today, the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA) released findings from the first study of post Katrina and Rita migration patterns across South Louisiana. This study, known as the Migration Patterns Report, identifies parishes that experienced significant population losses in the aftermath of the 2005 storms and indicates to which parishes these individuals have relocated. The report also highlights regions that experienced significant population gains and indicates from where these individuals migrated.
"Katrina and Rita initially displaced hundreds of thousands of people across South Louisiana," said Dr. Calvin Mackie, a member of the LRA Board of Directors. "This displacement and the unprecedented losses and gains in overall population have had a significant impact on parish planning and resources. We hope this report will begin to fill a critical data and information void about our citizens-one that is needed to make informed policy choices and investments in our long-term recovery."
Key findings of this study include the following:
The complete report is available online at http://lra.louisiana.gov/assets/MigrationReport_FINAL.pdf
The estimates described in this report are based on the 2006 Census Bureau annual population estimates combined with updated data collected from door-to-door surveys in 18 parishes across Southern Louisiana. These surveys were conducted approximately 15 months following the hurricanes in the following parishes: Ascension, Calcasieu, Cameron, East Baton Rouge, Iberia, Jefferson, Lafourche, Livingston, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St Charles, St. Helena, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Terrebonne, Vermilion and Washington.
Surveys were conducted by the Louisiana Public Health Institute on behalf of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals and the Louisiana Recovery Authority, with technical assistance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Census Bureau. Complete and updated survey results - including demographic breakdowns, insurance coverage information and more from the 2006 Louisiana Health & Population Survey - are available online at www.popest.org
The LRA's Migration Patterns Report was released in conjunction with two other studies conducted by the Louisiana Family Recovery Corps and researchers at Louisiana State University (LSU).
The Recovery Corps survey, titled Where Did They Go and Are They Coming Back, provides an analysis of displaced Louisianans living in other states and discusses barriers they have identified to returning. This report is available online at www.recoverycorps.org.
The Louisiana FEMA Park Survey, which was conducted by LSU and the LSU AgCenter on behalf of the Recovery Corps, the Department of Labor, and the LRA, includes information about the past, present and future plans of trailer park residents in addition to information about their education, health, employment and income status. This report is available online at www.lra.louisiana.gov.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated South Louisiana, claiming 1,464 lives, destroying more than 200,000 homes and 18,000 businesses. The Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA) is the planning and coordinating body that was created in the aftermath of these storms by Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco to lead one of the most extensive rebuilding efforts in the world. The LRA is a 33-member body which is coordinating across jurisdictions, supporting community recovery and resurgence, ensuring integrity and effectiveness, and planning for the recovery and rebuilding of Louisiana. To learn more, visit www.lra.louisiana.gov.
WASHINGTON—Allstate and Nationwide are bucking a large insurance industry segment by throwing their support behind some form of expansion of the National Flood Insurance Program to include windstorm coverage. And Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., a member of the Senate Republican leadership, is also voicing measured support for the concept involved in the legislation—H.R. 920, the Multiple Peril Insurance Act. Continue at National Underwriter
From the New York Times, this is the third article in a series on the fragmentary recovery of New Orleans and its people, nearly two years after the flooding unleashed by Hurricane Katrina. Also see
oh my gawdddd... An Op Ed by Robert M. Thornson writing for the Hartford Courant is stirring up some passion in the blogosphere. Thornson calling displaced New Orleanians "climate refugees" writes: "My plan has only one point. That we not spend another dime on U.S. properties below sea level - and use that money instead to help sea-level refugees find safer homes elsewhere". ouch. And just who he referring to as sea level refugees? - that label applies to almost every citizen in the New Orleans area. New Orleans blogger Ashley Morris responds to Thornson in his Letter to the Hartford Courant as does Alan Guiterrez (Think New Orleans) in his post Climate Refugees as does geologist Maitri Venkat-Ramani. Read them and weep.
Source: Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government, Faculty Research Working Paper Series
We investigate determinants of private and public generosity to Katrina victims using an artifactual field experiment. In this experiment, respondents from the general population first viewed a short audiovisual presentation that manipulated respondents’ perceptions of the income, race, and deservingness of Katrina victims in one of two small cities. Respondents then decided how to split $100 between themselves and a charity helping Katrina victims in this small city. We also collected survey data on subjective support for government spending to help the Katrina victims in the cities.
We find, first, that our income manipulation had a significant effect on giving; respondents gave more when they perceived the victims to be poorer. Second, the race and deservingness manipulations had virtually no effect on average giving. Third, the averages mask substantial racial bias among sub-groups of our sample. For instance, whites who identify with their ethnic or racial group strongly biased their giving against blacks while whites who do not identify with their ethnic or racial group biased their giving in favor of blacks. Finally, subjective support for government spending to help Katrina victims was significantly influenced by both our race and deservingness manipulations, but not by the income manipulation. White respondents supported significantly less public spending for black victims and significantly more for victims who were described in more flattering terms, such as being helpful and law-abiding.
+ Full Paper (PDF; 1.76 MB)
New! Survivor Resource Room (Need Reader Engagement)
I've started a Survivor Resource Room here at Beyond Katrina. My intention is to compile a comprehensive list of resources to aid hurricane survivors in the recovery process. One area that's especially complex at this stage of the game is the insurance issue. So as we speak, I am in the process of putting together a very thorough list of links, resources, agencies, etc. to aid Katrina/Rita survivors who are in the process of settling claims, etc. If anyone would like to contribute to the survivors links page please leave your suggestions and the links in the comment section of this post. I could also use some help in actually compiling the list. So if anyone is interested in helping out on that, please let me know.
Margaret Saizan
Katrina may have left a wake of water-stained photos in her path, but volunteer photographers stepped in to repair and revive damaged pictures.
I wrote a post a few days ago about photographing disaster---The Effect of Disaster Photographed. Well here's another angle on the subject of disasters and photographs... Restoring Mildewed Memories...This article form the L.A. Times is focused on how "as after any natural disaster, the belongings most mourned by Hurricane Katrina survivors were family photos — irreplaceable moments of celebration, youth and loved ones frozen in time". And there is some good information there for survivors who are faced with the challenges of restoring sentimental photographs.
(Actually, I'm going through something similar right now, although not of the same magnitude as those who lost everything to Katrina. The a/c malfunctioned, flooded the attic with water, and it caused the ceiling to collapse over a room that we've been using for storage --I am having to sort through moldy and mildewy Photographs and other valuables. Yuk!)
The article also refers to an initiative called Operation Photo Rescue. Operation Photo Rescue (OPR) is a volunteer network of professional photojournalists and amateur digital photographers, graphic designers, image restoration artists and others. OPR's mission is to repair photographs damaged by unforeseen circumstances such as house fires and natural disasters at no cost to the people who own them. The group is calling for help from professional photojournalists and amateur digital photographers, graphic designers, image restoration artists and others who want to support their mission to repair photographs damaged by unforeseen circumstances such as house fires and natural disasters.
Twenty year old Ben Poor is walking on foot from Indianapolis to New Orleans to aid the victims of Hurricane Katrina and to remind the nation that there is still work that needs to be done. According to an article at WBKO, Bowling Green, Kentucky, "Ben's plan is to donate all proceeds from his two month walk to Emergency Communities, an organization responsible for supplying 300,000 pounds of food to Katrina victims in New Orleans". To read more about Ben's Trek go here. To make a donation to Ben’s cause, visit his website by clicking here.
Interesting perspectives from a blogger who just returned from Biloxi, Mississippi to help Habitat for Humanity rebuild houses there. See the post here.
You have to know what you're called to. And for me the directive always has been, still is, and will continue to be to evoke the deeper wisdom that underlies crisis. In this context the focus here is primarily on a disaster wrought by two back to back hurricanes, Katrina and Rita, in the late summer of 2005 - a crisis that has severely impacted the every day lives of millions of people, some of whom I know personally, and myself included.
And while the terrain surrounding this challenge (of how to best support the safety and well-being of the American people in the face of past and future natural disasters) has become a tremendously political one these days, I really can deal with that. I recognized a long time ago that I do not live in a world that is wrapped up in a nice, neat package with a pretty pink bow on top of it. Change, indeed life itself, is a messy business.
Thus, the ability to embrace polarity and paradox and to live well along side many competing agendas is the highest emotional competency one can master, and I strive to master that one on a daily basis. I do that primarily by continuing to stay aware of what my own true north is. True north for me in this context (and well beyond it ) is to stay out of the arena of politics and private agenda and to work passionately instead to help people face, navigate and transcend significant, complex challenges in order to bring about positive change.
Having said this, on the subject of the ensuing controversy at the National Hurricane Center and beyond, if you've been following the blog for the past few days you will no doubt notice that some of the posts that were previously published here have been deleted. I want to categorically state that I am not being censored by anyone nor am I afraid to take a stand for issues that I passionately believe in. The issue is simply one of personal discernment. For reasons that even I do not fully understand yet, it just seems like the right thing to do. Given that there is much I still do not know about this subject--and may never know- it seems to me that the best course of action going forward is to look for and voice the deeper wisdom in this crisis as the NOAA investigation continues.
What I can say that I am passionate about, however, is living in Louisiana, and being a citizen of the gulf coast. Louisiana is a wonderful place to live with it's natural beauty and unique culture despite it's vulnerability to hurricanes and crazy politics. This is my home and hurricanes are a fact of life here. To deny that reality is akin to trying to nail Jello to a tree, although I have found that many newbies to this region don't entirely "get" it yet.
The fact is, Hurricanes have always come bringing forth their devastation, and they will continue to come again, and again, and again. And that's the ONLY reason I continue to bang away on this keyboard almost two years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and it's also why I have even ventured into the fray of this controversy. Any issue affecting the order and harmony of the people who are working on behalf of my safety (and millions of others) at the National Hurricane Center (and beyond) impacts me and my fellow gulf coast citizens, especially at the height of hurricane season. To me this debacle is yet/ but another metaphor for the systemic issues that have already been mirrored to us through the Katrina disaster--- Issues that we are all responsible for creating and perpetuating.
And just so you know, I have personally lived through and experienced first hand the devastation of 7 major hurricanes, some of them hitting during a time when hurricane technology and science were very crude. And what I have found has killed more people in hurricanes - then and now - and for more than any other reason is folks own stubborn, naive refusals to respect the power and the fury of nature. And that has shown up in many ways, but one very simple example is the refusal to evacuate.
Even without advanced technologies and cutting edge forecasting models, it's always been a common sense rule of thumb that if you live along the coastline anywhere from Brownsville Texas to the Florida Panhandle, when a cane enters the Gulf of Mexico you start packing up the car and at the very least prepare yourself to leave. Canes will ultimately land where they decide to even with the best forecasting we have today. And long before we had 72 hour forecasting windows, emergency personnel in cities within the cone would go door to door warning people to leave. Forecasters warned, the media disseminated the information, and emergency planners went grass roots knocking on doors. For the most part the system worked for those who cooperated with it.
What we didn't have "back in the day", however, were controversial scientific arguments around what causes hurricanes, fringe groups with blind agendas, people blaming their government for not taking care of them, nor quite the flagrancy of greed from certain groups trying to cash in big on the potential for disaster. Likewise, we didn't have to endure the resulting bureaucratic spin and the muzzling of public servants that accompanies all of that. Hurricanes were just not a political thing back then.
So I think I long for those days again
