Katrina Relief, April 2007

[noamnety]

I took my students to the Gulf Coast during spring break. A few days before we left, our housing fell through. Our transportation fell through. We got lost on the way to the new place we were supposed to be staying. I sat behind the distribution center cutting the tops off moldy sprouted rotting onions with one of the residents, looking for ones that were still edible once you got past the outer layers, because there were no grocery stores in that town. The nearest one to the north was charging $3 a pound. On the day that we left, she drove back to the parking lot to stand in the gravel and wave goodbye to us.

A guy who had been evacuated to the Superdome, and has been living in shelters ever since, came to town for a job on a ship, then found out the ship's schedule had changed - and he had no place to stay. There are no hotels. The residents directed him to us. We found out he was a chef - he took over the soup kitchen and cooked hundreds of meals for the two days he was with us, and set us up with folders of menus before he took off.

Here is what happened (it opens with a poem one of my students wrote, and chalked into the rubble):

http://www.veoh.com/videos/v418797pFQaNnq7

[partylessinOhio]

1. Thank you and your students for helping those that * has forgotten.

The horrible treatment of the Katrina victims is our national disgrace. Greed and contempt has replaced generosity and compassion in those who could help but won't.

:cry:

[Swamp Rat]

2. Thank you

:hug:

:kick:

[benevolent dictator]

3. Amazing video. Definitely worth the watch. K&R

[femmedem]

4. Folks, even if you don't have time to watch the whole video

check out the first few minutes. That heap of rubble is the center of the relief operations for a town the media has forgotten.

:kick:


Edit to add: lwfern, I know you're busy. But if you can, I hope you'll give a few more details for folks with dial-up.

[noamnety]

5. Thanks

Here are a few photos of where we stayed - the YMCA, which is funded by United Way:





The "center" of relief operations is a bit of an understatement - this is the entire relief center for the town. This is the free laundry, the water filtration system because the residents aren't supposed to drink their water, free meals, free food (since there is no grocery store in town, so if you can't drive, you are kind of out of luck), free clothing, the internet service (free wireless), and the town library.

If you look closely at the first photo on the left-hand side, you'll see the peak of a large army tent, which is where we slept.

So in that first post, where I said the residents directed our homeless chef to us for a place to stay for a couple of nights, that's where he was sent.

[Uncle Joe]

6. It's off to the greatest pages for you

Thanks for the thread Iwfern

[Holly_Hobby]

7. Why is this situation STILL not being addressed?

(by the Feds, that is) Are we broke, or what?

[noamnety]

8. I guess we are apathetic and overwhelmed?

Tim, our chef, was STILL waiting for his FEMA check. When he called to ask about it, he was told it was already sent. After trying to stop it from being cashed, he found that it was sent to a previous shelter, and the guy running that shelter apparently forged his signature and cashed it. He's still trying to get a replacement check.

The onion woman, Anna, was still waiting for a FEMA trailer. They had borrowed a trailer from a friend up north, and then because they had that, they were able to get a camper from a charity - they had to be IN a trailer in order to GET a trailer. Go figure. But they don't have electricity or water. It's just a box, basically, to live in.

The interviews with my kids about Diamond (the largest FEMA trailer park in the Plaquemines Parish) just killed me.

[pitohui]

10. some linkage re area and why it is so vulnerable

katrina made landfall at buras, louisiana, it was a category 4, and this is a pretty much exposed part of lower plaquemines parish, there are levees, but they didn't seem to do much and maybe this link discussing the geography, levees, and effects of katrina on lower plaquemines can explain why:

http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/Katrinas_surge_part02.asp


at some point you have to question the morality of encouraging people to come back here, although, the family i know who left buras will not be back and my understanding is that the majority of people have not returned

frankly if i were in any position of authority i would address this issue by giving people grants to move to higher ground -- not by trying to get them back into lower plaquemines, the situation is just plain unsafe and untenable for families if you ask me, not that anybody did

if you don't feel like clicking, then you can pretty much imagine lower plaquemines as something of a finger going out into the sea, fine for birding, fine for fishing and seafood, but maybe not so fine as a year round residence (bearing in mind that hurricane season is 6 months of the year!)

senator landrieu has tried to propose a better levee system for the area but congress is not willing to fund it (last i heard), reality is that $100 million for a levee system to protect a population of 16,000 (and now much reduced) is probably not going to happen -- esp. since the system would supposedly take 15 years to build yet we need it now if people actually intend to live there now and rebuild these towns -- by the way, i haven't double checked these numbers recently but i think they're pretty close to what was being discussed -- always glad to have more recent and more accurate info

[noamnety]

12. I think I edited out the footage

of one of the women in the video talking about why the residents were still there - but it's a huge fishing and shrimping community, and the shrimping there is good - and it's the only life and work some of the people have ever known.

Those of us who live and work in suburbia or in cities don't always have the same kind of connection to the land that these people have. It's not just a matter of saying "you should move to higher land" - what's buried in that statement is trying to convince a 50 year old that they need to not only relocate, but also find a whole new career, which just isn't realistic, given the age discrimination in our country.

[pitohui]

14. yeah i know but it's still not a terrific place for over fifties

if you're dead, it doesn't matter much that you have a good income

i have a fiftysomething friend from buras who lost her husband and is now relocated with her daughter in another state, obviously not what she planned for her life, but better than being back in harm's way

if i were running the world, there would be grants, a guaranteed dole, etc. -- a recognition that some careers don't last until age 65

unfortunately i'm not running the world and people keep getting pushed further and further to the edge

[uppityperson]

9. k&r, mark for later to watch. Where on coast were you?

Thank you for doing this, will watch video later.

[pitohui]

11. this is buras, louisiana area (where katrina made landfall in louisiana)

it was pretty much utterly destroyed

to quote from the article i linked above:

this disaster was the largest disaster in terms of coastline affected, in the entire history of our country; an area of coastline equivalent to the distance from New York City to Washington, D.C. was completely destroyed, an area that included on the order of 100 communities and cities.

[noamnety]

13. Transcript (Part I) (I have to do this in chunks)

(Holly)
Roaring Seas are silent now
And secret are themselves once more
To protect a place to be destroyed
By man’s belief and a lack of soul

(Audrey)
We planned to stay at the Bayou Liberty Relief Camp, a community of artists and relief workers, at the edge of the Bayou, where I’d stayed several times before. Just a few days before we were to leave, I received a note from Gordon at the camp. “I’m sorry to say that the owner of the property has decided not to allow minors to volunteer. Sorry for the late notice, but I’ve just found this out.”

I made some phone calls, and on Saturday morning, not knowing exactly what to expect, we climbed into a van and headed cross country for the YMCA in Buras, Louisiana. We were armed with sleeping bags, bug spray, and the wrong address.

The YMCA IN BURAS, LOUISIANA

(Holly)
I kind of expected to be sleeping in tents somewhere, out in, I don’t know, a yard somewhere. I didn’t think I’d be sitting here. Hmmm. So. (tapping feet and thinking) I don’t know.

(Ruben)
I never seen stuff like this happening, or whatever.

(Candice)
When I first came down here, and I seen the place that we was staying at, I was like, Oh my God, I know we’re not staying here. I was not a happy camper. I mean I wasn’t mad, but I was a little discouraged, like you know, this is where we’re gonna be staying. It’s a half YMCA, and you see, like, outside and the debris and all the woods and stuff, and then we sleep under a used-to-be gym, that’s like a little shredded to pieces there. So I was a little iffy about it. But then I started looking around, you know. And it’s kind of neat how they got this place hooked up. They have showers, washing machines that work, and internet, and a kitchen, so they pretty much made nothing into something. But, all in all, it’s actually cool. I got used to it. I wasn’t thinking about how it was looking on the outside. After a while, it was comfortable to me. So it’s not that bad. It’s just when you get here and you think oh, man, how am I gonna take a shower, and everything. Although I’m not a friend of the port-a-potties. I just don’t like them at all. Man. But, other than that, it’s pretty cool. I like the showers, it’s like a little outside shower. That’s a new thing to me. I really like, first thing in the morning, taking a shower, and kinda on the outside, that’s real cool, you know.

(Aaron)
I never felt happier than when I was freezing cold, and it was raining that first night, and I was sleeping in long johns, my pajama pants, and a sweater, and I had a sleeping bag with no zipper. It was the best experience ever, and I knew I was gonna have a great time, and I so did. I so did.

FIND WORK

(Audrey)
Find work, Luke tells us, at evening circle. He looks off into the distance; we wait. Luke somehow manages to run the camp, without ever assigning a single person to a specific job. He looks back at us. Find work, he repeats.

And so, when Anna tells us at lunch that she can’t get a lawn mower through the debris in her yard, we follow her out in our van to her house, and assess the damage. The next day, we arrive with weed wackers and work gloves. A cemetery juts up against her property. When she first returned home, the bodies had floated out of their graves and were scattered around. We try not to think about that as we grab onto shoes that are stuck in the soil, and begin to pull.

(Holly)
I’ve been doing a lot of cleaning with a lot of domestic chores with Tech, helping him out cleaning the showers. Found a frog in there. And then I was cleaning out a lady – someone’s yard, and moving rubble. I got to use a weed wacker. That was fun. I never used a weed wacker before.

(Ruben)
The things that we did around here, we – I was really interested in helping people complete their house, and just helping rebuild, and the stories that some of the people told were kinda, like, inspiring to me.

(Carl)
Hey, I’m Carl. Right now, I’m in Louisiana, working like a dog. It’s kind of weird for me being here for the first time, and gutting houses, which I haven’t really done in four or five years, and seeing all the destruction around me, and seeing how these people have to live. It’s really weird, cause when you go back home, to your homeland, you see all the nice stuff that’s going on, and people, they don’t really understand what’s actually going down here, and how hard it is for other people to live. It’s an eye opening experience for anyone who comes down here. I mean, you’re gonna what actually happened, and not what the news tells you. What the news tells you, it’s really different from what’s actually down here. The news, like “They’re fixing up stuff” but they’re only fixing stuff in a certain part of the city. They have so much other stuff like downtown or where we are, or like the bayous or whatever, it’s just completely – stuff needs to be rebuilt, there’s hardly any grocery stores, people are still being hungry, and they still need a place to eat. There’s FEMA trailers everywhere … Man.

(Candice)
I was working on this one guy’s house. His name was Manny. He was a real cool guy. Basically, his house wasn’t wrecked, but the inside was real bad, the outside was okay, paint and everything was still on. Basically he had most of the work done, he needed us to bring drywall up to the top cause he couldn’t do it because he had heart problems. But he was a real cool guy. He showed me around Louisiana, took me to the boot of Louisiana, showed me crocodiles, which I was not a fan us, I tell you that. A real upspirit guy. I met his family, and they’re really nice. High spirits. And that’s another thing I like about this place. Even though this big disaster happened, you’d think maybe people were sad, or they’d be moping, but people are not like that, you know. People are … they’re happy. They’re laughing, they’re smiling, they’re still moving on. They don’t let a bad situation get the best of them. And I think that’s pretty cool, cause a lot of places you wouldn’t find that. And everybody, they have a lot of hospitality. Everybody is so nice down here, you know? And I really like it down here.

(Aaron)
I didn’t know what to expect when I came here. I was expecting to sleep outside in tents and gut houses. But instead, I volunteered for housekeeping, and I washed everybody’s laundry and I washed all the tables, and Audrey made fun of me for it. But, I also fostered some of the greatest relationships I think I’ll ever have. And even cooking dinner last night, it was a disaster. The rice was glue, the bananas were … black, and the chicken was so bland it was – what did you say? epic in its blandness. It was epic. And I have never had more fun cooking dinner. We were listening to footloose, and dancing, around the potatoes. I always knew a day in my life would come when I’d be dancing around potatoes singing footloose in a kitchen that was made of a geodesic dome that you had to keep completely clean and sterile at all times. I’m gonna cry … because we have to leave, and I really don’t want to.

[pitohui]

15. give you a little kick here EOM

,

[noamnety]

16. transcript (part II)

Not sure if I'll finish the transcript, I have work plus evening meetings the rest of the week.

(Audrey)
Diamond is the largest FEMA park in the Parish, with 400 trailers, averaging 5 people per trailer. The park is surrounded by a chain link fence with a guard. The kids throw rocks, a lot. When I didn't spin the merry-go-round fast enough for them, one of the boys who had been laughing and smiling with me a moment before, threw rocks at me. At the end of the first day, I didn’t want to go back.

The next day, a couple of children from the park borrowed my cameras. Their friends posed for photos – bright clothing and smiling faces inside a gray broken pavilion. At the end of the second day, I wasn’t ready to leave.

(Carl)
Oh, Diamond? I deal with children myself, in like a YMCA kind of thing, and they’re nice children, they don’t get into a lot of fights or whatever, but down here, in Diamond, it’s like a place where children go and have fun. But these children, they have – they’re raised inside of a … cage, kind of. So their instincts kind of come over, and they survive by trying to be the toughest, or being the best at something, and they fight each other all the time, and they’re really … it’s not as if they’re disciplined, cause their parents aren’t really doing anything. They’re just letting them run wild. It’s … it’s really scary to see what they’re gonna do when they grow up, and how they’re gonna be. It’s … I mean, I was playing with some kids, and they cuss, they fuss, they punch and hit each other, they throw stuff at people. They don’t really care, they’re just kids. They’re doing what they do to survive. But, no one has anything to teach them, they’re just watching them. So … Man.

(Aaron)

The roughest thing was probably Diamond. It was like … man, I couldn’t believe people could live like that, you know? With all those FEMA trailers parked in row after uniform row, and all those mailboxes in one row, and all that gravel, and all that … trash. And these kids that … I don’t know. I know that somewhere deep inside each of the kids, they’ve got something itching to get out. I guess if you were born there, it wouldn’t matter, but I wasn’t. I was born in privilege, compared to that. (long pause) I’ve seen a lot.

[hfojvt]

17. an overdue kick

Remember the Louisiana

[femmedem]

18. At the end of the video, you say their grant is running out in June

and that they need $4000/month to continue the relief work. Can you provide some info on that, or perhaps start a new thread about this organization and what they need? (I'm so good at telling busy people what they should do, aren't I?) It seems to me DU could help with this. :hi: