America's
Shame: Two Years
After Hurricane Katrina
By The Sacramento
Area Black Caucus
09 August, 2007
Black
Agenda Report
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!"
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