Last year, in the wake of Katrina's aftermath, Cherrie Groves provided a first hand, insightful report from the scene in the Bossier City/Shreveport, LA, area. What follows is an update on how things stand a year later:Sorry no photos of me today. I seem to have a lot of pictures of my children but since I am behind the camera or off stage there are none of me. Accountants and mothers driving children hither and yon are rarely photo worthy.
In the year since the storm, so much has changed and so little has changed. We still have thousands of evacuees living in Northwestern Louisiana. Outside of the French Quarter and Garden District which stayed dry, housing is still difficult to find. Even areas that were not totally flooded had completely ruined sewer and water systems. In a city below sea level these are the most difficult city services to repair. On the North side of the lake and some areas to the west, once the water problems were solved some people came back. Those areas mostly had wind and rain damage. But large areas of the city still remain uninhabitable, estimates of more than 60%. One problem is that there is no plan. Where will people be allowed to rebuild? What will be the specifications for rebuilding (stilts, how high, how far from the levies?) Will whole sections of the city be leveled and designated as no build areas, warehouse space or public greenspace? The problem comes down to politics. The lowest lying areas were the poorest. In a city with a majority minority population (an oxymoron), New Orleans (NO) is a very segregated city. If the lower 9th ward is bulldozed where will the working poor population live? Where will that huge rental community stay in the city? Who will rebuild adequate housing? Do the Mardi Gras ladies in the Garden District want their kitchen staff to be able to live in subsidized housing a few blocks away? And without housing now and the working poor dispersed across the country without housing in NO, how do the restaurants, hotels, groceries, etc. stay open and running? St. Bernard Parish, where the homeowners cannot return for the same reasons, is heavily populated by tradesman and skilled workers. It used to be home to a great many fishing families, but the beds have been mostly ruined. Any one with a construction skill can find work, but a place to live is probably a trailer. Most send their families somewhere else in a house with a school they can count on.
So what's the government doing? There are trailers. There is still debris everywhere. That is the fault of local on up the chain. Where locals have mobilized and been privately funded, whole streets and areas have been cleared. Government has too much red tape and moves at a snail's pace. The schools are open in many areas and there is some hope they can be better than before. Many of the kids from the large Catholic schools that evacuated up here to my children's school, Loyola, have stayed. They like the atmosphere better.
Really it comes down to leadership and a plan. I am convinced that private philanthropy and empowerment will rebuild NO in the end, but without leadership and so semblance of a clear plan for the future hopelessness prevails.
It's the catch-22. People do not come back to rebuild because they do not know what the plan for their area is; without people there is no tax base so there is less money to fix the services to restore livability to and protect parts of the city; people do not come back because of the uncertainty. Or this one: The workers were dispersed throughout the country. They are now living and working in other cities. They would like to return to their home. Because many landlords are not rebuilding or refurbishing due to the uncertainty of where housing is going to be able to remain or be built, there is little low-income housing. The French Quarter hotels, restaurants, bars,etc. need the workers to return to serve the tourists. The city needs the tourists for the tax revenue to supply city services and affordable housing. With better services and housing workers could return.
So we are not hopeless. New Orleans will rise again. Out of that vacuum, we all have hope that true leadership will appear. In the meanwhile, we continue to assist families in this area with programs like "Building on Higher Ground" which is renewing a community here in Shreveport and providing housing for evacuees at the same time. Habitat for Humanity and the Humane Society locally have gone out of their way to make differences. And we cannot forget the Red Cross (RC). The Red Cross and their volunteers, which was most of NW Louisiana for a while made a huge difference. The government was not here. The RC was the one organizing everyone with the shelters, food, clothing drives, getting children into school, families into permanent housing, connecting relatives, medical help, emotional help, everything and anything. They did it without seeming to panic, with great skill and limited resources considering the magnitude of the need.
Anyway, that's the Katrina update. Let's hope by next year the streets are clear and the only crying in the Big Easy is at those big ole wakes they love to throw.
Peace,
CherrieThanks, Cherrie for your enlightening and insightful report!
