KATRINA
Three Years Later
Today marks the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina
hitting the GulfCoast.
On August 29, 2005, Katrina cut "a 125-mile swath of destruction
stretching from
coastal Alabama
across Mississippi
to the French Quarter and the Superdome." Katrina
was the costliest hurricane
in American history and the
third
deadliest, killing 1,800 people.
New Orleans
was particularly hard-hit, which
submerged 80 percent
of the city. Sadly, as the anniversary
of
Katrina nears, New
Orleans is bracing
for
another storm, Gustav,
which is projected
to hit the GulfCoast
early next
week as a Category 3
hurricane. The development of Gustav prompted Louisiana Gov. Bobby
Jindal (R)
to proclaim a state of emergency and prepare "hundreds
of buses and emergency shelters
to help residents flee should
Gustav strike
as expected." Gustav's approach also caused
the cancellation of events
commemorating the Katrina anniversary.
The
threat of another hurricane serves to highlight the progress that New Orleans
has
made in
the last three years, and the work that still remains cleaning up and repairing the city.
BUSH VISIT A 'REMINDER OF
BROKEN PROMISES': Last week,
President Bush
appeared in New Orleans
to say that "hope is coming back"
to the city, due to $126
billion
in disaster aid sent to the region in the last three years. "The good future is here,"
Bush said. "I predicted
New Orleans
would come back as a stronger and better city. We helped deliver $126
billion
in taxpayer money." Three years ago, however, Bush
was preoccupied as Katrina hit.
While 75 percent of New
Orleans
residents do "feel hopeful about the future
of the greater New Orleans
area,"
Bush's visit was more a "reminder of broken promises"
than the sign of
hopeful
future. In 2005, Bush did not organize a federal response to Katrina for
two days
after the storm hit, despite repeated
requests for assistance from
former Louisiana governor Kathleen
Blanco (D)
and reports that levees in New Orleans had been breached.
He then spent the following
days
claiming -- falsely
-- that no one anticipated the breach of the
levees and
that he was
"satisfied
with the [federal] response" to
the storm. In 2006, the New York
Times
reported that to
federal
aid to the region hit by Katrina was plagued by "breathtaking waste and fraud."
The New York Times called the waste of federal
dollars
"one of the the most extraordinary displays of scams, schemes and
stupefying bureaucratic bungles in modern history, costing taxpayers up to $2 billion."
Last
week, the Bush administration announced that the funds sent to the
GulfCoast
region for hurricane recovery were "sufficient"
and that there are "enough funds in the pipeline,
to get the mission
done."
PERSISTENT PROBLEMS: Even if
"hope is back" in New Orleans,
massive problems
resulting from
the hurricane remain, including "significant debris management issues,"
and "a
cleanup fraught with environmental issues."
While "97% of the population has returned
to Hancock,
Harrison,
and Jackson counties, the three areas hardest hit by Hurricane
Katrina,"
New Orleans still has a far greater proportion of vacant homes
than any other
city in
the country," with "more than one in three residential addresses
vacant or
unoccupied." According to the research and advocacy institute PolicyLink,
"thousands of residents who want to return home are facing a critical
rental housing shortage,
inadequate rebuilding grants and a
recovery
plagued by red tape and ever-changing rules." Part of the problem is
the
federal Road Home program, which is "the main conduit
by which federal funds were to
compensate
homeowners for the damage wrought" by Katrina. "In New Orleans,
4 of every 5 Road Home
recipients rebuilding their homes did
not get enough money to cover
their repairs," with an average shortfall of $54,586.
As of March,
"only
13% of the $1.6 billion in the state's emergency community development
block
grant funds had benefited lower-income victims."
Further
compounding New Orleans' troubles with Gustav approaching, the
Associated Press
conducted a yearlong review of levee work
which revealed "a pattern of public misperception,
political
jockeying and
legal fighting, along with economic and engineering
miscalculations, that
threaten to
make New Orleans the scene of another devastating flood."
HAVE THE MEDIA FORGOTTEN NEW
ORLEANS?:
Earlier
this week, the Independent's Richard Holledge published an article
proclaiming
that in the last three years the media "forgot the city of jazz and jambalaya."
"Three
years after Hurricane Katrina, the world's media has lost sight of the
ongoing
misery in New Orleans,"
he wrote. "Coverage by the international and national news media in the
run-up to the anniversary is negligible...One of the world's most
cataclysmic
natural disasters, one made worse by official incompetence and
corruption, is almost forgotten."
Conservative talker Glenn Beck,
however, has made sure to deride the rebuilding of New Orleans as the
anniversary nears, saying, "We
shouldn't
spend a single dime of
taxpayers' money in a place where - I don't
care
where it is - where it is in a flood zone." Jon Amoss, editor of New Orleans'
Times-Picayune, echoed Holledge's sentiment, saying, "I
don't think we are on people's minds. We have to contend with those
voices,
particularly on pop radio, which say 'New Orleanians with their eternal
whining
– why don't they pull themselves up by their boot straps?'"
But
highlighting the continuing role Katrina plays in the life of New
Orleanians,
Amoss added "I wondered a year-and-a-half ago whether there would ever
come a time when the word hurricane or Katrina would not appear on, or
near,
page one [of the Times-Picayune]. There have been some days when there
hasn't
been a single story on page one, but that is still a rarity because it is the fabric of our life."
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