It was an unimaginable storm, obliterating entire GulfCoast communities, destroying much
of a beautiful American city, and exposing for all the world the nation’s divisions
of race and class and income.
Yesterday, the anniversary of Katrina’s assault, the New
Orleans Times-Picayune recounted some of the horror. A family — including an
elderly woman with Parkinson’s disease — trapped on a disintegrating rooftop,
hanging on desperately as the house broke loose from its foundation, a toddler
slipping into the water and drowning. A football coach trapped with half a
dozen other people in a high school gym, listening to the wind howl and
watching the water rise behind them as they climbed up the row of bleachers. A
man lashing his mother and daughter to trees with coaxial cable, to help them
withstand the wind’s force.
Katrina killed nearly 1500 people in Louisiana.
Much of the population of New Orleans
fled, and more than half has not returned. And a year later, the suffering continues.
According to Brookings Institution reports released this week, some 278,000
workers are “still displaced by the storm”; 23 percent are unemployed. Rents in
New Orleans have gone up 39 percent
in the past year. Utilities and transportation systems are “operating at less
than half capacity.” “The water and sewer system is plagued by leaks, causing
power outages and weak water pressure throughout the system.”
Much of the billions of dollars the federal government
promised for relief hasn’t been provided yet. And a Brookings assessment found
that much of what has been provided by state and federal governments has gone
to “the least-impacted areas.”
“Low-income residents and renters have been substantially
neglected in the housing response” by federal and state governments, says
Brookings. “Nearly half of the damaged homes in the flooded areas of the New
Orleans region were apartments, yet the bulk of the
housing response has been aimed at homeowners.”
Some of the help has been in the form of temporary homes
provided by FEMA, and tens of thousands of people are living — still — in
those most vulnerable shelters in a storm: trailers.
The cause of all this suffering is a major hurricane,
abetted by mistakes and inaction by the Army Corps of Engineers, years of
development that eroded protective wetlands, errors and stupidity by government
officials, and, yes, very likely global warming.
The Times-Picayune had warned repeatedly that its city was
at great risk. The warnings were ignored.
And now? Yesterday in New Orleans,
President Bush promised that he and his administration will provide the help the
city needs. He has promised that before. New Orleans
and the other Katrina communities are still waiting.
The people of the GulfCoast can not recover by
themselves, nor should they be expected to. The area is more than a popular
tourist attraction. It is an important port, serving much of the nation. And
— like the victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami — the
residents of the GulfCoast
are our kin. They have been in desperate need, for a full year.
A Gannett News Service column yesterday moaned about the
media’s fascination with the anniversaries of disasters like Katrina. But
anniversaries are important, and they are as important for tragedies as they
are for the happy events of our lives. Without them, it is too easy to get
caught up in the day-to-day routine and demands of our lives.
We can not forget about Katrina.
This article appears in Aug 30 – Sep 5, 2006.
