Hurricane Katrina (2005) hit New Orleans two years ago this week, on August 29th 2005. The city is still recovering – and slowly at that.
The night before Katrina was a Category 5, the worst possible, and headed straight for New Orleans. But overnight the storm weakened and turned a little to the east. It seemed the city’s prayers were answered. But then the levees began to break and the waters began rushing into the city.
Nearly half the city is below sea level. The only thing that keeps it safe are the levees, walls round the city that hold the water back. But the levees could only stand up to a Category 3 hurricane. When Katrina hit it was a 4.
Everyone knew the levees had to be made stronger against the day a bad hurricane came. There was even money set aside to do this. But New Orleans is badly governed: the money for the levees disappeared.
Those who had cars left the city before the hurricane hit. Many of those who did not have cars were left behind while city buses sat doing nothing. Some stayed because they did not believe the warnings.
Over 1500 died, about half as many as died on 9/11. Over 700 are still missing.
Those who lived found themselves stuck on islands of high ground or their roofs. Many of those left behind were poor blacks. The government was slow in getting them to safety. Law and order broke down.
Mayor Nagin did not lead and President Bush was slow with help. It was shameful and the whole world saw. It made America look like some country that was too poor and too badly run to help itself.
Five days later at a benefit to raise money to help New Orleans, Kanye West famously said on live television that, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” He was only saying what many were already thinking. When the benefit was shown in the west, his words were cut out.
The mess in New Orleans was readily compared to the mess in Iraq. Both were seen as proof that Bush does not know what he is doing.
Even now, two years later, help and money from the government has been slow in coming. Little money is going to ordinary people to rebuild their houses, so only the rich and well-to-do have been able to repair their houses. And the levees themselves will not be fully repaired till at least 2011.
Despite his terrible leadership, Nagin won the election last year for mayor!
Four in ten never came back. Poorer neighbourhoods stand empty – only broken down houses are left there.
The French Quarter, where they hold the Mardi Gras parade every year, escaped the worst: it is built on high ground. So it is back in business and looks like it did before Katrina.
– Abagond, 2007.
Update (August 29th 2015): It is now ten years since Katrina hit. The government has poured billions into the city to help it recover, but it has mainly benefited those who needed it least. The city is now more racially unequal than ever, one of the worst in the country. The well-to-do White parts of the city are back and better than ever, the middle-class Black ones are 80% back, the working-class Black ones 50% back. That does not count the 100,000 people, most of them Black, who have not come back, partly by design by the city elders who used Katrina to engineer a bit of ethnic cleansing: New Orleans is now much Whiter than it was.
See also:
@ Abagond,
you mean nobody had anything to say about Katrina????
Menelik Charles
London England
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^Abagond didn’t have as many regular commenters at the time this post was written. If it had been written recently, I’m guessing there would have been many responses.
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THIS WAS A CLASSIC EXAMPLE OF WHAT WHITE AMERICANS OF POWER AND INFLUENCE FEEL ABOUT BLACK LIVES THEY VIEW THEM AS WORTHLESS THEIR LIES SAY ONE THING THEIR ACTIONS THE TRUTH
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I *want* to blame Mayor (and part-time submarine commandant) Ray Nagin on De Wat Mon, but… I’m having trouble. Please help me “re-frame” Mr. Nagin’s outright incompetence, lack of foresight, and abject selfishness as White Racism, ’cause… I can’t make it “work”.
Also need help on “seeing” how his RE-election was NOT Black Racism at work. Little help here… need a hand getting with the program. Thanks.
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Update (August 29th 2015): It is now ten years since Katrina hit. The government has poured billions into the city to help it recover, but it has mainly benefited those who needed it least. The city is now more racially unequal than ever, one of the worst in the country. The well-to-do White parts of the city are back and better than ever, the middle-class Black ones are 80% back, the working-class Black ones 50% back. That does not count the 100,000 people, most of them Black, who have not come back, partly by design by the city elders who used Katrina to engineer a bit of ethnic cleansing: New Orleans is now much Whiter than it was.
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Ethnic cleansing as Abagond said in his post i agree with that they wanted the black citizens of that city to be done away with. I still can’t fathom the death and destruction that many black people experienced. I am no Kanye West fan but in that moment when he said “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” He spoke the truth. Black American citizens being labeled as “refugees” and treated like trash. It was about bureaucrats and their incompetence. George Bush was giving zero damns about black folks in NOLA. The only people who benefited from the repairs from the damage from the storm was the white people of that city. It was quite clear to me that the government of the United States could not be depended on. It was hypocritical of George Bush to return 10 years later and be jubilant about the city coming back to life when it was under his administration that he failed all those black people in 2005. He should be ashamed of himself.
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Well Ray Nagin went to prison.
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Will be viewing Spike Lee’s “When The Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts.
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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34088853
“Former US President George Bush has returned to New Orleans 10 years on since Hurricane Katrina, a crisis his administration was criticised for at the time over its slow response.”
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I remember August 29 th 2005. I had wanted to travel to the USA. New Orleans was number one on my list. Harlem (second). I wanted to visit the birth place of Louis Armstrong and to pay homage to the blues and jazzmen of the South in September of that year.
The world was outraged at George Bush. We SAW racist white America in (in) action. Disgusting. I could not have hated him any more. How such a stupid man could be president is beyond my imagination. That he continued with his holiday for a few more days when the hurricane struck, makes him a truly despicable man.
It really is very saddening how Black peoples’ lives are not worth saving.
The immense scale of suffering and devastation!
I remember the international community donating something like $ 850 million dollars for relief, of which only $40 million was used for the victims of Katrina. Cuba was willing to send approximately 1500 doctors and tons of medical supplies, which was rejected!
Abagond, it is very saddening to hear how the Black citizens of New Orleans are treated.
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In October, we had drove into Fort Lauderdale (everybody had been evacuated) and Miami, just hours after the wake Hurricane Wilma.
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(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBpNnnqRQD4)
A very haunting duet by Louis Armstrong and Billie Holliday.
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*Holiday.
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Reblogged this on Project ENGAGE.
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